The Cost Of Broadband In Every Rural Home 381
dave562 writes "In an analysis of the effectiveness of the the 2009 stimulus program (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or ARRA), one of the programs that was investigated was the project to bring broadband access to rural America. Some real interesting numbers popped out. Quoting the article: 'Eisenach and Caves looked at three areas that received stimulus funds, in the form of loans and direct grants, to expand broadband access in Southwestern Montana, Northwestern Kansas, and Northeastern Minnesota. The median household income in these areas is between $40,100 and $50,900. The median home prices are between $94,400 and $189,000.' So how much did it cost per unserved household to get them broadband access? A whopping $349,234, or many multiples of household income, and significantly more than the cost of a home itself.'"
Re:I think we're overthinking this (Score:4, Informative)
Hang on city boy, that's not true at all. My brother has been paying high fees for a satellite feed out on the farm so that he can get weather and market reports and trade commodity futures in a timely fashion. An internet connect is as important to progressive farmers as it is to any other business these days. The sad thing is that his satellite feed out in an area with less that one family per square mile is a better connection than my DSL connection here in the middle of Silicon Valley in an area of $1M+ homes.
Re:What was the trillion dollar stimulus spent on? (Score:2, Informative)
While the source of this data is obviously biased, I wonder where the stimulus money was actually spent. Think what a trillion dollars actually is. A new aircraft carrier costs ~10 billion dollars, planes double that cost, meaning that the country could have purchased 50 with the stimulus (we currently have 11). In todays dollars the Apollo program cost 150 billion meaning that we could duplicate it six times with a trillion dollars. A highway bridge near where I live is being replaced for a cost of 300 million, thus a trillion dollars could have replaced that bridge 3000 times. It could have paid the 14 million unemployed, $35000 a year for two years. Where did it go, and what did it do?
There wasn't a trillion dollars "Dedicated to stimulus of the economy through government spending", so starting with this is severely begging the question.
Most of the money those who criticize government spending call "stimulus" was spent on issuing loans or buying equity in banks and other institutions, or on tax cuts, or on extensions of things like unemployment benefits (covering some of those 14 million your heart bleeds for.)
Of the $200 billion spent or so spent on "spending", yes most of it was probably wasted. But hey, at least those damn Saudis didn't get it... Or did they?
Re:Think harder... (Score:1, Informative)
Not everybody wants to live a beehive existence in a high-rise apartment building alongside a light rail corridor. Sure, there are powerful advocates of forcing that on most of the populace, but they're the sort of people who we need to make sure never have much political power.
Re:Think harder... (Score:4, Informative)
http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-15/news/29661688_1_farm-subsidy-cuts-farm-programs-direct-payments [boston.com]