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When you hear telco execs talk about “the copper plant,” they are referring to all of the underground copper. This wire is laid out in sheathed bundles of exce

When you hear telco execs talk about “the copper plant,” they are referring to all of the underground copper. This wire is laid out in sheathed bundles of excess pairs that can be used to replace a pair that has a short. When they eventually run out of pairs, the only solution is to dig trenches and replace bundles. It is filthy, expensive work for a feature that no longer generates the revenue that funded the deployment of the national telco network. The wires will die. It is going to require a different model than those that are on the table to maintain this type of transport. If we hadn’t wasted the trillions of dollars on the last 16 years of war, Maybe we could have afforded a national deployment of fiber.

microcolonel 9y ago
> If we hadn’t wasted the trillions of dollars on the last 16 years of war War is actually one of the cheaper parts of the budget.
- pessimizer 9y ago
  And the least productive.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    It’s extremely productive if you include the resources we are able to patriate into the private sector after the wars.
- cperciva 9y ago
  That depends on (a) if you're looking at only the supplemental war funding, or if you include a share of the DoD baseline budget as well; and (b) if you're looking at gross expenditures (in which case social security is the highest expense) or net expenditures (in which case social security is currently "self-funding" through its earmarked payroll tax).
- jfoutz 9y ago
  The expensive parts, have specific taxes to pay for specific programs. War on the other hand, it's just kinda, let's spend a bunch of money and worry about it later. That makes a lot of sense when you're averting genocide or actively under attack. it makes less sense when you're already funding a powerful influential state department that can impose sanctions with strong international support. You can afford a whole lot of diplomacy for a few billion dollars, but that won't really buy you a lot of war. Also, not so many people die. Which i think is a bonus.
dashundchen 9y ago
> Maybe we could have afforded a national deployment of fiber. Verizon and other telcos already learned they can get billions in subsidies for building fiber networks, and never follow through with it with no consequences. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... At this point I think municipal run ISP utilities are the future we should be shooting for.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Verizon never got subsidies from New York. Verizon pays the city for the right to wire it up (5% of gross revenues).
  - learc83 9y ago
    How much is ability to use the power of government to force property owners to let you build on their land worth? It's possible that it's worth more than a 5% cut--in which case it's still a subsidy.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      Now we’re getting into the weeds. Generally, telecom infrastructure is run along poles or conduits, usually owned by the power company, sometimes the telephone company (or jointly). In New York City, a Verizon subsidiary called ECS operates a conduit network under an 1891 franchise. It pays the city a fee based on the assessed value of real estate, about $20 million per year. Verizon pays ECS standardized rates to use the conduit, but the city alleges that ECS sets rates too low, and the shortfall is about $260 million over six years. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/FP08_103A.pdf https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/FP0.... Of that, 80% is allocable to Verizon, or about $42 million per year owed to the city. The franchise fee is 5% of gross. Assuming about one million FIOS households in NYC in the steady state (consistent with Verizon’s uptake rate of about 40% and 2-3 million households passed), plus the average revenue per subscriber of $110 per month, that’s $65 million per year paid to the city. On top of that, you’ve got to consider the value of build-out requirements. The city forces Verizon to build in neighborhoods that aren’t otherwise sufficiently profitable to justify building in. That’s a concsssion extracted by the city that also must be accounted for, because each house passed that doesn’t subscribe costs Verizon hundreds of dollars. (Going back further in history, this was the quid pro quo between AT&T and governments. My FIOS is run on a pole jointly owned by Verizon and BGE. Is this a subsidy to Verizon? On one hand, the easement is valuable. On the other hand, the pole was inherited from AT&T, who got the easement in return for running a phone line it otherwise would not have, into what used to be farmland.) New York is also a bit of an odd situation because of ECS. In most places, the power company owns the conduit of the poles, and unlike ECS has no incentive to undercharge for attachments.
chiph 9y ago
> Maybe we could have afforded a national deployment of fiber. Here's the fun part - you've already been paying for it. The 1996 Telecommunications Act set up a fund that every telecom user in the USA pays into which was supposed to build high-speed services in rural and disadvantaged areas. > (3) ACCESS IN RURAL AND HIGH COST AREAS- Consumers in all regions of the Nation, including low-income consumers and those in rural, insular, and high cost areas, should have access to telecommunications and information services, including interexchange services and advanced telecommunications and information services, that are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas and that are available at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas (PDF warning) https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf What actually happened was the telcos used that money to buy their competitors and consolidate the market to where only a few large firms remain (no more "Baby Bells")
- rayiner 9y ago
  The USF was not intended for building broadband. It was designed to replace implicit cross subsidies for rural phone service with explicit ones. Starting in 2012, the FCC started diverting a relatively small amount of USF money for broadband, but the total amount is less than 1% of the amount of private investment since 1996.

microcolonel 9y ago

> If we hadn’t wasted the trillions of dollars on the last 16 years of war War is actually one of the cheaper parts of the budget.

pessimizer 9y ago
And the least productive.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  It’s extremely productive if you include the resources we are able to patriate into the private sector after the wars.
cperciva 9y ago
That depends on (a) if you're looking at only the supplemental war funding, or if you include a share of the DoD baseline budget as well; and (b) if you're looking at gross expenditures (in which case social security is the highest expense) or net expenditures (in which case social security is currently "self-funding" through its earmarked payroll tax).
jfoutz 9y ago
The expensive parts, have specific taxes to pay for specific programs. War on the other hand, it's just kinda, let's spend a bunch of money and worry about it later. That makes a lot of sense when you're averting genocide or actively under attack. it makes less sense when you're already funding a powerful influential state department that can impose sanctions with strong international support. You can afford a whole lot of diplomacy for a few billion dollars, but that won't really buy you a lot of war. Also, not so many people die. Which i think is a bonus.

dashundchen 9y ago

> Maybe we could have afforded a national deployment of fiber. Verizon and other telcos already learned they can get billions in subsidies for building fiber networks, and never follow through with it with no consequences. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... At this point I think municipal run ISP utilities are the future we should be shooting for.

rayiner 9y ago
Verizon never got subsidies from New York. Verizon pays the city for the right to wire it up (5% of gross revenues).
- learc83 9y ago
  How much is ability to use the power of government to force property owners to let you build on their land worth? It's possible that it's worth more than a 5% cut--in which case it's still a subsidy.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Now we’re getting into the weeds. Generally, telecom infrastructure is run along poles or conduits, usually owned by the power company, sometimes the telephone company (or jointly). In New York City, a Verizon subsidiary called ECS operates a conduit network under an 1891 franchise. It pays the city a fee based on the assessed value of real estate, about $20 million per year. Verizon pays ECS standardized rates to use the conduit, but the city alleges that ECS sets rates too low, and the shortfall is about $260 million over six years. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/FP08_103A.pdf https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/FP0.... Of that, 80% is allocable to Verizon, or about $42 million per year owed to the city. The franchise fee is 5% of gross. Assuming about one million FIOS households in NYC in the steady state (consistent with Verizon’s uptake rate of about 40% and 2-3 million households passed), plus the average revenue per subscriber of $110 per month, that’s $65 million per year paid to the city. On top of that, you’ve got to consider the value of build-out requirements. The city forces Verizon to build in neighborhoods that aren’t otherwise sufficiently profitable to justify building in. That’s a concsssion extracted by the city that also must be accounted for, because each house passed that doesn’t subscribe costs Verizon hundreds of dollars. (Going back further in history, this was the quid pro quo between AT&T and governments. My FIOS is run on a pole jointly owned by Verizon and BGE. Is this a subsidy to Verizon? On one hand, the easement is valuable. On the other hand, the pole was inherited from AT&T, who got the easement in return for running a phone line it otherwise would not have, into what used to be farmland.) New York is also a bit of an odd situation because of ECS. In most places, the power company owns the conduit of the poles, and unlike ECS has no incentive to undercharge for attachments.

chiph 9y ago

> Maybe we could have afforded a national deployment of fiber. Here's the fun part - you've already been paying for it. The 1996 Telecommunications Act set up a fund that every telecom user in the USA pays into which was supposed to build high-speed services in rural and disadvantaged areas. > (3) ACCESS IN RURAL AND HIGH COST AREAS- Consumers in all regions of the Nation, including low-income consumers and those in rural, insular, and high cost areas, should have access to telecommunications and information services, including interexchange services and advanced telecommunications and information services, that are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas and that are available at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas (PDF warning) https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf What actually happened was the telcos used that money to buy their competitors and consolidate the market to where only a few large firms remain (no more "Baby Bells")

rayiner 9y ago
The USF was not intended for building broadband. It was designed to replace implicit cross subsidies for rural phone service with explicit ones. Starting in 2012, the FCC started diverting a relatively small amount of USF money for broadband, but the total amount is less than 1% of the amount of private investment since 1996.