5 ms·

Biden's infrastructure plan includes similar verbiage.[1] > support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profit

by tgb 5y ago

Biden's infrastructure plan includes similar verbiage.[1] > support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives Anyone know if it would work? Note that this is the bill getting criticized as not being about "real infrastructure" due to daring to have non-transportation infrastructure, like this. [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The reasonable scale for a municipal fiber deployment is, as the name says, at the municipal level. There is already a reasonably competitive Tier 1 provider market, because it isn't a natural monopoly, and there is no need for the government to enter a market segment which is already working. Which means the biggest thing you need from the feds (and for that matter the state governments) is to get out of the way and stop actively interfering with cities that want to do this. Which doesn't seem like much to ask, but the incumbents have spent the last hundred years capturing every level of government in the US, and then we got the likes of Ajit Pai running the FCC, which was an impediment. The other thing to watch out for is the classic regulatory capture move where the government is about to spend money on municipal infrastructure to compete with the incumbents and the incumbents lobby instead to give the money to them. In this context here you're looking for money that goes to "5G" instead of fiber. Because "5G" means incumbents who own wireless spectrum and/or want to "buy" it from the taxpayer using tax money and then sit on it to exclude any other competitors from having it. Or have the taxpayer pay for their privately-owned infrastructure, providing a permanent cost advantage so that no one else can ever competitively enter the market in the future. First rule of the game is never give tax money to the incumbents. History has shown that it's a black hole that produces no results, and anybody who doesn't understand this is either captured or not paying attention.
notyourwork 5y ago
If most of society can work from home and conduct business via the internet, I'd argue the internet is clearly infrastructure. There weren't traffic jams and cars all over the highways last year, we were cruising the internet superhighway. Would love it for dinosaurs in politics to get with it and understand the implications of technological investment (or lack thereof).

by tgb 5y ago

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

The reasonable scale for a municipal fiber deployment is, as the name says, at the municipal level. There is already a reasonably competitive Tier 1 provider market, because it isn't a natural monopoly, and there is no need for the government to enter a market segment which is already working. Which means the biggest thing you need from the feds (and for that matter the state governments) is to get out of the way and stop actively interfering with cities that want to do this. Which doesn't seem like much to ask, but the incumbents have spent the last hundred years capturing every level of government in the US, and then we got the likes of Ajit Pai running the FCC, which was an impediment. The other thing to watch out for is the classic regulatory capture move where the government is about to spend money on municipal infrastructure to compete with the incumbents and the incumbents lobby instead to give the money to them. In this context here you're looking for money that goes to "5G" instead of fiber. Because "5G" means incumbents who own wireless spectrum and/or want to "buy" it from the taxpayer using tax money and then sit on it to exclude any other competitors from having it. Or have the taxpayer pay for their privately-owned infrastructure, providing a permanent cost advantage so that no one else can ever competitively enter the market in the future. First rule of the game is never give tax money to the incumbents. History has shown that it's a black hole that produces no results, and anybody who doesn't understand this is either captured or not paying attention.

notyourwork 5y ago

If most of society can work from home and conduct business via the internet, I'd argue the internet is clearly infrastructure. There weren't traffic jams and cars all over the highways last year, we were cruising the internet superhighway. Would love it for dinosaurs in politics to get with it and understand the implications of technological investment (or lack thereof).