4 ms·

FCC vote paves way for budget cap on all universal-service broadband programs

38 points by pwg 7y ago

gigatexal 7y ago
I hope we get an new administration that sacs this tool of the ISPs. He’s devestating to future of the industry and seems to vote like a puppet of the players.
hereiskkb 7y ago
Why is this guy so blatantly evil? And why does the GOP feed his ego?
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
Building infrastructure to remote regions is expensive. There is an honest debate to be had about America’s penchant for subsidising rural and suburban living at the expense of cheaper, greener urban lifestyles.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > America’s penchant for subsidising rural and suburban living You make it sound like a luxury choice. People in rural communities are generally poorer. It says 'poor people' right in the title. You're subsidising basic communications for them because they're poor, and communications are needed to participate in democracy and society. Saying they should live in downtown apartments is the modern equivalent of 'let them eat cake.' They can't afford to do that - they're poor.
  - x0x0 7y ago
    We have plenty of poor folks in our urban areas. Given the vast resistance (see, eg, Trump) from the rural areas for chipping in for necessary urban infra such as public transit, I see no reason to vote for continuing to subsidize necessary rural infra: electricity, water, communications. Let them pay market rate.
    - bsagdiyev 7y ago
      Then you have to be willing to pay the increased costs of the products produced by their farms, etc.
      - x0x0 7y ago
        Our current food supply is dominated by industrial farms and imports. Neither of these are likely to be affected. But also, of course -- that's what market prices are for. There are already farms near suburbs that participate in pooled infra sharing costs. Over time, farms will move to areas with less infra costs (ie closer to population centers).
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - elil17 7y ago
      The market rate for utility type services is not a fair rate because utilities breed natural monopolies. That’s why the universal service program exists in the first place.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - x0x0 7y ago
        No, universal service funds are a subsidy. Rural utilities generally cannot be supplied at a cost people are willing to pay.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > People in rural communities are generally poorer So give them subsidies. Rural communities have poor people and very wealthy people. The game the latter has played is getting dollars sold as helping the former to apply to all rural residents, including the latter. The costs of universal access should be born principally by the wealthy who choose to live that way and businesses who employ people long distances from population centres.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > So give them subsidies. What do you think they'll do with it? Each pay to have their own communications network installed? It's less efficient to do it your way.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- syntheticcdo 7y ago
  Well we can't grow corn in Manhattan.
  - elsonrodriguez 7y ago
    It amazes me how out of touch people are with the value of our agriculture. I'd say that we marginalize rural communities, but that's an understatement. We keep them out of mind instead, while they're putting food on not just our tables, but tables around the world. Thank you for putting it so succicintly.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > we can't grow corn in Manhattan Subsidising farms is one thing. We do that directly and indirectly. As a result, we massively over-produce food. Most farmland is owned by wealthy individuals and large companies. There are better ways to help the marginal farmer than paying for multi-million dollar lines to millionaires’ remote villas.
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      Corn doesn't need internet, but the kids whose parents grow corn can, do, and will seriously benefit from the knowledge available via the Internet (also known as the information superhighway). Not building out infrastructure now means that as the population grows we will be chronically behind on it. Given most farmland is owned by wealthy individuals and large companies, there are better ways to help the marginal farmer than paying for multi-million dollar lines to millionaires’ remote villas. So the workers who work for those millionaires and who live out in the middle of nowhere don't matter? That is not a very nice world outlook. Where would you be without your StackOverflow, Reddit help, or wikiHow? I started learning my way around UNIX command lines on the family Mac when I was about eight- had it not been for the internet, I probably would have given up a long time ago. Truth be told, the internet in cities would be better if it weren't for the monopolies that companies have been granted over large geographical areas. There's a lot of issues to fix here- marginalizing one group to help another is not cool.
- clairity 7y ago
  i agree generally (that urban areas are more efficient), but i also think that rural and even suburban areas represent immense reserve resources that protect against unforeseen (and admittedly unlikely) catastrophies, and there's value in bringing accessibility infrastructure--electricity, communications technologies, roads--to those areas (for everyone, including urbanites).
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  You can make a good argument that policy in the US is set by urban elites that favor city people and values, and result in an impoverished rural population. Then some minor subsidies are sent to those rural areas, that would have been quite wealthy had they been allowed to rule themselves.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > that would have been quite wealthy had they been allowed to rule themselves Rural states are incredibly powerful, particularly on a per capita basis. There’s a reason our budget is littered with farm subsidies. (There is an odd effect in many Republican elites courting rural votes from an urban address. But that describes a recent and party-specific factor. The American political system is built to balance urban and rural votes.)
  - wybiral 7y ago
    > You can make a good argument that policy in the US is set by urban elites that favor city people and values, and result in an impoverished rural population. You could also make an argument that policy in the US is set by politicians catering to rural voters by vilifying liberal values to distract from the fact that it's the corporations they really care about improving the life of at the expense of both the urban and rural mid/lower class.
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      Right. To parody myself, "you can make a lot of arguments about anything" :) To put some meat on my rhetorical bones, the argument I've heard along these lines is that that rural communities often live in poverty among enormous amounts of natural resources that they are not allowed to exploit. This is because of laws made by urban elites who don't understand rural life and/or have fundamental belief systems that say nature is never to be touched and should only be watched on TV or possibly be declared a National Park and be visited and Instagrammed on holidays. This rings at least partially true to me, and I find it worth talking about. I'm not at all saying it's the only true perspective or even the dominant factor.
BurningFrog 7y ago
Before you get too excited about this $11.4B cap: > The new cap wouldn't have an immediate impact on actual spending, because it's higher than current spending. The FCC projects that the USF's total disbursements will be $10.2 billion in 2019 and remain below $10.5 billion annually through 2023. The battle lines here are interesting: Rural voters are the core republican voter group, and yet Democrats are fighting for them and Republicans against them.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Regarding battle lines- yikes. I'm curious to see if this will have any impact on how rural areas vote- it feels like there are enough issues that internet, as important as it is, or can be, it feels like Republicans have decided that it won't matter enough to change anything. I'm honestly not sure where I am on the political spectrum of people I can actually vote for- it feels like nobody actually cares about who they represent.
- ensignavenger 7y ago
  I have spent most of my life living in rural communities, and many years of it fighting for rural broadband. The USF is probably the least useful and most wasteful of all government programs for rural broadband. The incumbent telecos play so many games with the system that it is a miracle that any of it actually helps anyone. The USDA has some imperfect programs, which while flawed, are much more effective than the USF.
aasasd 7y ago
I thankfully have zero stakes in the US' internal politics, but due to me being able to read English and using the internet, even I know that rural regions there don't tend to harbor too many voters for Democrats.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Maybe they can change that? Politics is a complicated, multifaceted thing- if the Dems can even get into a few rural districts, that, along with the generally-Left-swinging urban areas, might be enough to swing the balance of the state.

38 points by pwg 7y ago

I hope we get an new administration that sacs this tool of the ISPs. He’s devestating to future of the industry and seems to vote like a puppet of the players.

hereiskkb 7y ago

Why is this guy so blatantly evil? And why does the GOP feed his ego?

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

Building infrastructure to remote regions is expensive. There is an honest debate to be had about America’s penchant for subsidising rural and suburban living at the expense of cheaper, greener urban lifestyles.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> America’s penchant for subsidising rural and suburban living You make it sound like a luxury choice. People in rural communities are generally poorer. It says 'poor people' right in the title. You're subsidising basic communications for them because they're poor, and communications are needed to participate in democracy and society. Saying they should live in downtown apartments is the modern equivalent of 'let them eat cake.' They can't afford to do that - they're poor.
- x0x0 7y ago
  We have plenty of poor folks in our urban areas. Given the vast resistance (see, eg, Trump) from the rural areas for chipping in for necessary urban infra such as public transit, I see no reason to vote for continuing to subsidize necessary rural infra: electricity, water, communications. Let them pay market rate.
  - bsagdiyev 7y ago
    Then you have to be willing to pay the increased costs of the products produced by their farms, etc.
    - x0x0 7y ago
      Our current food supply is dominated by industrial farms and imports. Neither of these are likely to be affected. But also, of course -- that's what market prices are for. There are already farms near suburbs that participate in pooled infra sharing costs. Over time, farms will move to areas with less infra costs (ie closer to population centers).
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - elil17 7y ago
    The market rate for utility type services is not a fair rate because utilities breed natural monopolies. That’s why the universal service program exists in the first place.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - x0x0 7y ago
      No, universal service funds are a subsidy. Rural utilities generally cannot be supplied at a cost people are willing to pay.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > People in rural communities are generally poorer So give them subsidies. Rural communities have poor people and very wealthy people. The game the latter has played is getting dollars sold as helping the former to apply to all rural residents, including the latter. The costs of universal access should be born principally by the wealthy who choose to live that way and businesses who employ people long distances from population centres.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > So give them subsidies. What do you think they'll do with it? Each pay to have their own communications network installed? It's less efficient to do it your way.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
syntheticcdo 7y ago
Well we can't grow corn in Manhattan.
- elsonrodriguez 7y ago
  It amazes me how out of touch people are with the value of our agriculture. I'd say that we marginalize rural communities, but that's an understatement. We keep them out of mind instead, while they're putting food on not just our tables, but tables around the world. Thank you for putting it so succicintly.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > we can't grow corn in Manhattan Subsidising farms is one thing. We do that directly and indirectly. As a result, we massively over-produce food. Most farmland is owned by wealthy individuals and large companies. There are better ways to help the marginal farmer than paying for multi-million dollar lines to millionaires’ remote villas.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    Corn doesn't need internet, but the kids whose parents grow corn can, do, and will seriously benefit from the knowledge available via the Internet (also known as the information superhighway). Not building out infrastructure now means that as the population grows we will be chronically behind on it. Given most farmland is owned by wealthy individuals and large companies, there are better ways to help the marginal farmer than paying for multi-million dollar lines to millionaires’ remote villas. So the workers who work for those millionaires and who live out in the middle of nowhere don't matter? That is not a very nice world outlook. Where would you be without your StackOverflow, Reddit help, or wikiHow? I started learning my way around UNIX command lines on the family Mac when I was about eight- had it not been for the internet, I probably would have given up a long time ago. Truth be told, the internet in cities would be better if it weren't for the monopolies that companies have been granted over large geographical areas. There's a lot of issues to fix here- marginalizing one group to help another is not cool.
clairity 7y ago
i agree generally (that urban areas are more efficient), but i also think that rural and even suburban areas represent immense reserve resources that protect against unforeseen (and admittedly unlikely) catastrophies, and there's value in bringing accessibility infrastructure--electricity, communications technologies, roads--to those areas (for everyone, including urbanites).
BurningFrog 7y ago
You can make a good argument that policy in the US is set by urban elites that favor city people and values, and result in an impoverished rural population. Then some minor subsidies are sent to those rural areas, that would have been quite wealthy had they been allowed to rule themselves.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > that would have been quite wealthy had they been allowed to rule themselves Rural states are incredibly powerful, particularly on a per capita basis. There’s a reason our budget is littered with farm subsidies. (There is an odd effect in many Republican elites courting rural votes from an urban address. But that describes a recent and party-specific factor. The American political system is built to balance urban and rural votes.)
- wybiral 7y ago
  > You can make a good argument that policy in the US is set by urban elites that favor city people and values, and result in an impoverished rural population. You could also make an argument that policy in the US is set by politicians catering to rural voters by vilifying liberal values to distract from the fact that it's the corporations they really care about improving the life of at the expense of both the urban and rural mid/lower class.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Right. To parody myself, "you can make a lot of arguments about anything" :) To put some meat on my rhetorical bones, the argument I've heard along these lines is that that rural communities often live in poverty among enormous amounts of natural resources that they are not allowed to exploit. This is because of laws made by urban elites who don't understand rural life and/or have fundamental belief systems that say nature is never to be touched and should only be watched on TV or possibly be declared a National Park and be visited and Instagrammed on holidays. This rings at least partially true to me, and I find it worth talking about. I'm not at all saying it's the only true perspective or even the dominant factor.

BurningFrog 7y ago

Before you get too excited about this $11.4B cap: > The new cap wouldn't have an immediate impact on actual spending, because it's higher than current spending. The FCC projects that the USF's total disbursements will be $10.2 billion in 2019 and remain below $10.5 billion annually through 2023. The battle lines here are interesting: Rural voters are the core republican voter group, and yet Democrats are fighting for them and Republicans against them.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
Regarding battle lines- yikes. I'm curious to see if this will have any impact on how rural areas vote- it feels like there are enough issues that internet, as important as it is, or can be, it feels like Republicans have decided that it won't matter enough to change anything. I'm honestly not sure where I am on the political spectrum of people I can actually vote for- it feels like nobody actually cares about who they represent.
ensignavenger 7y ago
I have spent most of my life living in rural communities, and many years of it fighting for rural broadband. The USF is probably the least useful and most wasteful of all government programs for rural broadband. The incumbent telecos play so many games with the system that it is a miracle that any of it actually helps anyone. The USDA has some imperfect programs, which while flawed, are much more effective than the USF.

aasasd 7y ago

I thankfully have zero stakes in the US' internal politics, but due to me being able to read English and using the internet, even I know that rural regions there don't tend to harbor too many voters for Democrats.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
Maybe they can change that? Politics is a complicated, multifaceted thing- if the Dems can even get into a few rural districts, that, along with the generally-Left-swinging urban areas, might be enough to swing the balance of the state.