WSJ Says Gov't Money Injection Won't Help Broadband 647
olddotter writes "According to the WSJ, The US government is about to spend $10 Billion to make little difference in US broadband services: 'More fundamentally, nothing in the legislation would address the key reason that the US lags so far behind other countries. This is that there is an effective broadband duopoly in the US, with most communities able to choose only between one cable company and one telecom carrier. It's this lack of competition, blessed by national, state and local politicians, that keeps prices up and services down.' Get ready for USDA certified Grade A broadband."
WSJ says (Score:4, Informative)
Of course they do. The Wall Street Journal is a temple of supply-side economics. According to them, the government can't do anything right, except cut capital gains taxes. I would have been very surprised if they'd had anything good to say about this bill.
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:5, Informative)
The House bill also calls for "open access." This phrase can include hugely controversial topics such as net neutrality, which in its most radical version would bar providers from charging different amounts for different kinds of broadband content. Now that video, conferencing and other heavy-bandwidth applications are growing in popularity, price needs to be one tool for allocating scarce resources. Analysts at Medley Global Advisors warn that if these provisions remain in the bill, "it will keep most broadband providers out of the applicant pool" for the funds intended specifically for them.
HA! (Score:3, Informative)
Man, that would be so awesome, to have a separate phone and cable company. I would have two places I could get internet service from, instead of one!
Re:So we've got a duopoly (Score:5, Informative)
We already paid $200 billion [newnetworks.com] for a nation wide fiber optics network that never delivered. When is anyone going to ask what happened to all that money?
We paid for nation wide fiber optics, and it never got delivered. The telcos should give us our money back, all of it. If they can't afford it, go bankrupt, get nationalized, and let someone competent take over. Oh, and send the execs who squandered it all to jail.
Not one red cent should go to the telcos until they pay back what we're owed.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
really? where have you been hiding..
Lenders began to offer more and more loans to higher-risk borrowers, including illegal immigrants. Subprime mortgages amounted to $35 billion (5% of total originations) in 1994, 9% in 1996, $160 billion (13%) in 1999,and $600 billion (20%) in 2006.
A study by the Federal Reserve found that the average difference between subprime and prime mortgage interest rates (the "subprime markup") declined from 280 basis points in 2001, to 130 basis points in 2007. In other words, the risk premium required by lenders to offer a subprime loan declined. This occurred even though the credit ratings of subprime borrowers, and the characteristics of subprime loans, both declined during the 2001-2006 period, which should have had the opposite effect.
In 1995, the GSEs began receiving government incentive payments for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. Thus began the involvement of the GSE with the subprime market.[105] Subprime mortgage originations rose by 25% per year between 1994 and 2003
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from wiki
Re:ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)
the reason the usa lags behind other countries is that the other countries are small, compact and densely populated.
Ok, so let's check the first country on your list: Sweden. The fourth largest country in Europe by area, and a population density 2/3rds of the whole United States, and that's including all your rural areas.
Somewhat the reference list you used contradicts your argument.
Re:Right Wing Nuts (Score:5, Informative)
If I'm charging $50 per ounce for onions and I'm the only source of onions in a city and getting an "onion reseller license" ("building infrastructure") is really expensive (but I got mine since I used to runt the government-owned onion store wouldn't you say that my onions are overpriced?
And good luck trying to boycott someone who's got a regional monopoly, that's like when guys complain about always having to make the first move and some woman says "well why don't you guys get together and stop hitting on women? then we'd have to hit on you guys.", any sane person understands that it doesn't work.
/Mikael
(Why do I even bother replying to AC trolls?)
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:2, Informative)
why not give competition a chance?
Why not indeed? The best way to ensure competition is through regulation. The system we have now is a Red Scare era kludge that adheres to the strict belief that the government should not own anything. If the government can't own the lines, guess who can. The likes of AT&T and Comcast are not going to allow competitors into the market - even if you ask nicely.
Net Neutrality is a separate issue entirely, which isn't going to be solved by competition alone. Each ISP would simply give preference to their preferred partners.
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:5, Informative)
>>>Actually, the major problem with the US is distance. Japan is the size of California, France is 4/5th the size of Texas
And population. When you compare the U.S. states versus the EU states, we're not being bad at all. We have states that every bit as fast as Europe's fastest:
FASTEST STATES (avg Mbps) ,Colorado, Connecticut, Arizona, Germany(7)
---------------
Sweden(11)
Delaware(10)
Washington(9)
Netherlands, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts(8)
Virginia, New York
So if you want speeds faster than France, move to the one of the places listed above. It's that simple. Of course at this point, various readers will ignore this data, the same way a christian ignores 1 million-year-old rocks with fossilized animals. It's easier to cling to religion than think.
Re:stuff that matters (Score:3, Informative)
Goldman Sachs
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/08/geithner_v_the_american_oligarchs/ [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Re:ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)
I live in NYC in an expensive neighborhood, and though I suppose I have broadband, the highest upload rate I can get is 512k. That's kind of stupid. And there's no sign that it's going to get any better anytime soon.
Now, you might argue that it's because of too little regulation or too much regulation, but obviously someone is doing something wrong.
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:5, Informative)
Dunno about those countries, but here in Finland we have regulation which forces the company which owns my telephone line to let other companies offer Internet connectivity over it. That has led to healthy competition and drop in prices.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
Note that nothing in your quote says anything about government mandated poor lending standards. The problem with Fannie and Freddy Mac was that they were seen as implicitly guaranteed by the government, which meant that people were taking risks that they shouldn't have on loans that these two entities were buying from other lenders. Turns out that that implicit guarantee had to be made explicit, much to the consternation of everybody who thought that people would behave rationally.
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:5, Informative)
You are absolutely and totally wrong in both your examples.
Japan was lagging behind the US, France, germany and a lot of countries concerning internet access.
Then one particular member of their government (his name eludes me for now) declared that internet access should be a priority, and the big companies followed the impulse up to today's situation.
France has successfully reached a healthy competitive market for internet access, all thanks to proper regulation that FORCED the previously state-owned monopolistic operator, whose lines were paid by french citizen's taxes, to provide access to the last mile to competitors.
Said historical monopolistic operator, france telecom (now orange) had to be pulled into this screaming and kicking, and was using all its weight and dirty tricks to hinder and slow any other company.
If not for the ART (Telecoms Regulation Authority) kicking France Telecom's nuts so they would obey the LAW that opened the market and allowed competition, there would not be such an excellent internet access for citizens today.
Morevover, everyone is impatient to see the arrival of a new operator in the cell phone business. French government wants a 4th cell phone carrier to operate, as the current triopoly has been comdemned in justice already for their pricefixing (colluding to keep prices artificially high).
The US needs proper regulation. Not abscence of regulation nor bailout/incentive/whatever billions of $.
Re:Cognitive dissonance... (Score:1, Informative)
I live in Virginia. My download speed varies from 600 kB/s to 1100 kB/s. I pay $45/month for internet only.
I used to live in France. My download speed was consistently above 2000 kB/s. I payed 30 euros per month for internet, TV, and telephone.
US services do not compare.