3 ms·

Wonder how many thousands of taxpayer dollars was spent for this. Does not seem efficient.

bastawhiz 1mo ago
How is it inefficient? This is the whole point of government: how much economic activity is happening over 56k? Virtually none. You could make the same argument for paving the street and repairing the sidewalk in front of your house. Chances are the property taxes from the average single family home don't cover just the basic street repairs, let alone all the other services your local government provides. Yet we do it, because it turns out that having a happy, well-served population by way of redistributing wealth through services is a generally good thing.
- Always42 1mo ago
  If we assume $20k to run the fiber, you could do starlink for a long time. There are internet options other than fiber. Unless there is no other options in France than fiber. What if France got a contract with starlink? Brought the cost down of that.
  - rescbr 1mo ago
    Why do you assume $20k as the cost to run the fiber? The cost is the contractor's hours to get up a ladder on each electricity pole from the closest PON splitter to the customer's home, plus the fiber itself which is peanuts at volume. Everything else (permits, pole rent, etc) is accounting money that can be negotiated. If there's a strategic national program to fiber up the whole country, this could be exempted on a pen's stroke, or depreciated in many decades.
  - well_ackshually 1mo ago
    Yeah, I'd absolutely _love_ that my tax money goes to funding a US company. What could go wrong with depending on a hostile country for someone as basic as Internet ? If I found out my government blew 20k to slobber on Musk's balls instead of using that money to create work for our own people, I'd personally go blow up that antenna.
  - bastawhiz 1mo ago
    Why should Starlink get that business? Why shouldn't France run its own fiber that it controls that isn't dependent on a US-based corporation? And you said it yourself: Starlink already exists. They don't need a subsidy. You bring the cost of Starlink down by forcing them to compete on the merits of their own service, not by throwing money at them.
  - edhelas 1mo ago
    Starlink goes out of business and ... you don't have Internet anymore. The local fiber guy goes out of business... you still have the fiber line there. Its investment, not subscription.
BrandoElFollito 1mo ago
Zero. We pay out taxes in Euros.
euio757 1mo ago
> how many thousands of taxpayer dollars $0. It's taxpayers euros. But it's not inefficient if this fixes a chicken-egg problem: overcrowded big city and underpopulated rural area sucks. Nobody can/wants to go in rural area if they can't make a living there. A fiber speed Internet unlocks lifestyle for many. It's the same as investing in say a high speed railway between major cities A and B and adding a middle-of-nowhere stop C midway. That C then can flourish to become a medium/major city... So while the initial investment looked like a waste, it's beneficial to provide a better life for people living in both A,B, and C.
- Always42 1mo ago
  You can bring internet to these other places other than by running a 1km fiber cable, which may be more efficient. Think about it, run. A cable super long to one house or use a dish? Unless there is truly no other options in france
  - microtonal 1mo ago
    Unless France is going to launch the satellites themselves (which is also very expensive), you become dependent on another party, which is much worse. I don't know how it works in France, but in many European countries phone/DSL lines and fiber is highly regulated. Even if it is run by a company, they usually have to provide fair access to other providers so that there is competition. For instance, we have a XGS-PON connection to home (used to be AON) and I can probably choose at least from ten ISPs. This is nice, because they try to compete on prices and bandwidth (e.g. the company that owns the network we are on offers 4Gbit symmetric max, but a competitor offers 8Gbit over the same fiber). Much harder to accomplish that with satellite internet and foreign companies.
    - juliendorra 1mo ago
      Indeed, in France the first to connect a home or a building of appartements has to let the other isp access
  - llbeansandrice 1mo ago
microtonal 1mo ago
Good governance is sometimes taking the money/income from dense areas (cities) and investing it in rural areas. Also, similar to how copper lasted many decades, a fiber network is a one time large investment cost and then you reap the benefits for decades. Not everything has to be a capitalist 'minimize cost, maximize profits' game.

How is it inefficient? This is the whole point of government: how much economic activity is happening over 56k? Virtually none. You could make the same argument for paving the street and repairing the sidewalk in front of your house. Chances are the property taxes from the average single family home don't cover just the basic street repairs, let alone all the other services your local government provides. Yet we do it, because it turns out that having a happy, well-served population by way of redistributing wealth through services is a generally good thing.

Always42 1mo ago
If we assume $20k to run the fiber, you could do starlink for a long time. There are internet options other than fiber. Unless there is no other options in France than fiber. What if France got a contract with starlink? Brought the cost down of that.
- rescbr 1mo ago
  Why do you assume $20k as the cost to run the fiber? The cost is the contractor's hours to get up a ladder on each electricity pole from the closest PON splitter to the customer's home, plus the fiber itself which is peanuts at volume. Everything else (permits, pole rent, etc) is accounting money that can be negotiated. If there's a strategic national program to fiber up the whole country, this could be exempted on a pen's stroke, or depreciated in many decades.
- well_ackshually 1mo ago
  Yeah, I'd absolutely _love_ that my tax money goes to funding a US company. What could go wrong with depending on a hostile country for someone as basic as Internet ? If I found out my government blew 20k to slobber on Musk's balls instead of using that money to create work for our own people, I'd personally go blow up that antenna.
- bastawhiz 1mo ago
  Why should Starlink get that business? Why shouldn't France run its own fiber that it controls that isn't dependent on a US-based corporation? And you said it yourself: Starlink already exists. They don't need a subsidy. You bring the cost of Starlink down by forcing them to compete on the merits of their own service, not by throwing money at them.
- edhelas 1mo ago
  Starlink goes out of business and ... you don't have Internet anymore. The local fiber guy goes out of business... you still have the fiber line there. Its investment, not subscription.

BrandoElFollito 1mo ago

Zero. We pay out taxes in Euros.

euio757 1mo ago

> how many thousands of taxpayer dollars $0. It's taxpayers euros. But it's not inefficient if this fixes a chicken-egg problem: overcrowded big city and underpopulated rural area sucks. Nobody can/wants to go in rural area if they can't make a living there. A fiber speed Internet unlocks lifestyle for many. It's the same as investing in say a high speed railway between major cities A and B and adding a middle-of-nowhere stop C midway. That C then can flourish to become a medium/major city... So while the initial investment looked like a waste, it's beneficial to provide a better life for people living in both A,B, and C.

Always42 1mo ago
You can bring internet to these other places other than by running a 1km fiber cable, which may be more efficient. Think about it, run. A cable super long to one house or use a dish? Unless there is truly no other options in france
- microtonal 1mo ago
  Unless France is going to launch the satellites themselves (which is also very expensive), you become dependent on another party, which is much worse. I don't know how it works in France, but in many European countries phone/DSL lines and fiber is highly regulated. Even if it is run by a company, they usually have to provide fair access to other providers so that there is competition. For instance, we have a XGS-PON connection to home (used to be AON) and I can probably choose at least from ten ISPs. This is nice, because they try to compete on prices and bandwidth (e.g. the company that owns the network we are on offers 4Gbit symmetric max, but a competitor offers 8Gbit over the same fiber). Much harder to accomplish that with satellite internet and foreign companies.
  - juliendorra 1mo ago
    Indeed, in France the first to connect a home or a building of appartements has to let the other isp access
- llbeansandrice 1mo ago

microtonal 1mo ago

Good governance is sometimes taking the money/income from dense areas (cities) and investing it in rural areas. Also, similar to how copper lasted many decades, a fiber network is a one time large investment cost and then you reap the benefits for decades. Not everything has to be a capitalist 'minimize cost, maximize profits' game.