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Ars Technica has a lot of reports about this, if you wish to learn more about it: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/big-telcos-slam-broadband-open-ac

• gruez 5y ago
  > Ars Technica has a lot of reports about this, if you wish to learn more about it: with all due respect, your links don't seem to be relevant. I skimmed the first few and none of them look related to the question of "did the government give phone providers/ISPs money with no strings attached?" >https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/big-telcos-slam- https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/big-telcos-slam-... appears to mainly talk about unbundling rather than whether strings are attached to government grants/subsidies. at the end there's discussion about them wanting to receive grants similar to south korea, but doesn't say anything about the actual terms of the money that was given. >https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca... talks about how bad broadband coverage is, but nothing about the conditions attached to government funding >https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/monticello-appea https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/monticello-appea... talks about municipal ISP, not about government funding >https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/isps-reminded-to https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/isps-reminded-to... Comes close but seems to be isolated to a single entity, whereas everybody seems to think all the major players are doing it. Is AT&T taking the money and not spending it on broadband, in contravention of the terms of the grant? If so, was there an investigation substantiating this? Or was it simply a case of people expecting them to spend it on gigabit fiber but instead they spent it on copper lines for rural residents?
  • paxys 5y ago
    I don't know why you are so hung up on the "strings attached" part. It doesn't matter how many conditions the government imposes if no one is held accountable for actually achieving them.
    • gruez 5y ago
      >It doesn't matter how many conditions the government imposes if no one is held accountable for actually achieving them. Is that what's happening though? Are there a bunch of strings attached but the FCC isn't bothering enforcing them? If so, can you substantiate this? At least from the batch of links from the parent post, the only requirement seems to be "needs to be spent on building infrastructure", not that we get gigabit fiber or whatever.
  • dmead 5y ago
    the links are relevant. the isps took billions and didn't expand municipal wifi when promised nor did they lower costs for calls.
    • gruez 5y ago
      >the links are relevant. They're only relevant insofar as "ISPs bad", not to the original question of what conditions are attached to the funding. >the isps took billions and didn't expand municipal wifi when promised nor did they lower costs for calls. 1. sources for these "promises"? 2. what type of promises where these? contractual obligations, or optimistic statements on press releases?