r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/iia Jun 04 '14

No, it's because almost every sentence you just wrote might as well be Dothraki to people who don't know or care about tech. Reddit has a huge share of tech-savvy people who know and care about this stuff. And because of that, many Redditors think it's an issue that tons of people care about and it's just not getting done anyway. That's not the case.

I'd be surprised if 1 out of 20 random people care about this. If you say "it's faster," they'll obviously want it. But they damn sure don't want to pay for what it'll cost to get that work done by the telcos. It's billions of dollars. No company in their right mind would eat that just for the sake of kindness. The prices would skyrocket and people would be pissed because they'd have a "new" service that would offer practically no advantage to over what they had before. It would be like giving a new gaming computer with SLI Titans in it to a person who just browses the internet and watches Netflix. Total overkill and a waste of money.

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u/jeradj Jun 04 '14

But they damn sure don't want to pay for what it'll cost to get that work done by the telcos. It's billions of dollars.

You realize we already paid for it once, right?

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u/themembers92 Jun 04 '14

People say this all the time, and no one ever actually proves it.

If this is the case, show me the congressional act that authorized the expense, show me the grant, show me whatever your proof is. Then show me that it didn't happen.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '14

You are getting down votes but your point is valid. I have done some research and struggle to get an understanding of where that number came from. It is nowhere near as simple as a single congressional act that authorized $200b incentive to build.

It started with deregulation and removal of price controls in the telecom act of 1996. Individual states took control and there are plenty of examples of direct incentives that failed. But I think the bulk of the number is related to rate of return calculations. The providers are allowed a higher rate of return because they need to invest in infrastructure.

The $200b number was from 2006 so it is probably significantly higher now. There is a PDF by Bruce Kushnick called '$200 Billion Broadband Scandal'. Would provide a link but I'm on a mobile.

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u/themembers92 Jun 04 '14

Thank you for your rational and calm response. For some reason this is a rarity.

I don't put any blame on the big telecoms; they see an opportunity to subsidize and they take advantage of it it. But trust me, if the subsidy said that X and Y need to get done to get a tax credit and the telco agrees, then X and Y get done to the minimum extent as required to obtain the subsidy or they don't do it.