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I don't think this is of the same order of magnitude importance as the potential for wifi. For any policy change, you can find some case where it negatively af

I don't think this is of the same order of magnitude importance as the potential for wifi. For any policy change, you can find some case where it negatively affects someone. Churches, schools and nonprofit theaters might tug on the heartstrings but if as a society we really thought these things are incredibly underfunded (I don't) then we could just give them money directly through government grants. Government policy must be able to change, and there is no guarantee of compensation when it does. To do so would be prohibitively expensive, since the government never receives any money when people indirectly benefit from its policies. Even if it is for the greater good, please understand who you're fucking over here before you cheer it on. I think it is for the greater good, and I accept the negative consequences while I cheer it on. Are you saying this is a bad policy, or do you just want people to feel bad anyway?

superuser2 11y ago
>you can find some case where it negatively affects someone But what form does that take? Certainly we cannot compensate people when we take away their government funding or contracts, that would be absurd. And where there is a degree of blame involved (like polluters) we require that they clean up their own mess. But when government seizes someone's real estate through eminent domain, it's required to pay them fair market price for it. When government decides that your car is unsafe, it doesn't require you to scrap it and buy a new one at your own expense - the manufacturer does a recall. When government decides to change the building code, old buildings are generally allowed to stay as they are until they perform extensive renovations (indicating that they have the financial means to become compliant again). Can you provide an example of a case where a nonprofit entity is just humming along, and then out of nowhere the government forces them to throw away their capital equipment? > Are you saying this is a bad policy Maybe. Since we're losing something, we'd better actually be winning something. Comcast has been extremely successful at passing state laws to block municipal fiber buildout. What makes you think Comcast's lobbyists will ever allow citywide WiFi to see the light of day? Perhaps this can be addressed by allowing wireless mics to continue functioning until service on this band is actually going to be rolled out. Is WiFi even the right approach? If you want a world without bandwidth rationing, then fiber is the way to go. Choosing RF as our path forward means we throw in the towel on that one and accept that people will always have to regulate their appetite for bandwidth. Are there technical reasons we can't use 4G/LTE to provide the same service, or simply the strategies of the carriers to extract the most rent possible from the least infrastructure? An enormous portion of the spectrum is reserved for military and government. Is that necessary? Is that even a good thing for military and government? We're constantly hearing about different agencies, branches of the military, and even divisions within a branch not being able to talk to each other because they use different radios. Could we consider consolidating some of that spectrum using the medium-sharing algorithms we know about now, and end up with better service for government and more space for the private sector? Probably. Isn't this what WiMax was supposed to be? What happened to that?

superuser2 11y ago

>you can find some case where it negatively affects someone But what form does that take? Certainly we cannot compensate people when we take away their government funding or contracts, that would be absurd. And where there is a degree of blame involved (like polluters) we require that they clean up their own mess. But when government seizes someone's real estate through eminent domain, it's required to pay them fair market price for it. When government decides that your car is unsafe, it doesn't require you to scrap it and buy a new one at your own expense - the manufacturer does a recall. When government decides to change the building code, old buildings are generally allowed to stay as they are until they perform extensive renovations (indicating that they have the financial means to become compliant again). Can you provide an example of a case where a nonprofit entity is just humming along, and then out of nowhere the government forces them to throw away their capital equipment? > Are you saying this is a bad policy Maybe. Since we're losing something, we'd better actually be winning something. Comcast has been extremely successful at passing state laws to block municipal fiber buildout. What makes you think Comcast's lobbyists will ever allow citywide WiFi to see the light of day? Perhaps this can be addressed by allowing wireless mics to continue functioning until service on this band is actually going to be rolled out. Is WiFi even the right approach? If you want a world without bandwidth rationing, then fiber is the way to go. Choosing RF as our path forward means we throw in the towel on that one and accept that people will always have to regulate their appetite for bandwidth. Are there technical reasons we can't use 4G/LTE to provide the same service, or simply the strategies of the carriers to extract the most rent possible from the least infrastructure? An enormous portion of the spectrum is reserved for military and government. Is that necessary? Is that even a good thing for military and government? We're constantly hearing about different agencies, branches of the military, and even divisions within a branch not being able to talk to each other because they use different radios. Could we consider consolidating some of that spectrum using the medium-sharing algorithms we know about now, and end up with better service for government and more space for the private sector? Probably. Isn't this what WiMax was supposed to be? What happened to that?