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United States Communications

US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion for Broadband (theverge.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
After months of deliberation, congressional leaders reached a $900 billion coronavirus relief deal on Sunday, including billions in funding for broadband internet access. From a report: Congress' latest relief measure provides $7 billion in funding for broadband connectivity and infrastructure. That figure includes $3.2 billion for a $50-per-month emergency broadband benefit for people who are laid off or furloughed during the pandemic, according to a press release from Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) office on Sunday. "Broadband connections are essential for Americans seeking to get new jobs, and to access school, health care and other government services," Wyden said in a statement Sunday night. "Ensuring working families can stay online will pay massive dividends for kids' education, helping people find jobs and jump starting the economic recovery next year."
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US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion for Broadband More

US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion for Broadband

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  • Because when people can't put food on the table (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When people can't put food on the table or pay their rent or utilities, you have to make sure to give a $7B handout to broadband providers to build new infrastructure that they will instead use for corporate bonuses and dividend payouts to preferred shareholders.

    What a relief.

    • Re:Because when people can't put food on the table (Score:5, Informative)

      by bws111 ( 1216812 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:59AM (#60853746)

      TFA does not say a single word about 'building new infrastructure'. It says $50/month benefit for people to pay for broadband access (considered essential by many people), money to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment as mandated by the government, and money for Tribal broadband grants.

      • So, it's going to give money to broadband providers to prop up the corporate bottom-line? Sounds reasonable....

        Mind you, it wouldn't really bother me terribly if broadband were treated like power and water. But this is still a handout to broadband companies. Unless, of course, the companies are providing the broadband paid for by Uncle Sugar at cost...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      But the bill also includes provisions for that. Managers can now go and get drunk over lunch, and write it off. Alcohol has not been deductible for years. AB InBev is rallying and we have just made the Belgiums that much richer.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Did you read the summary? It's$50/month so that unemployed workers can continue to have broadband access.

      You can, and apparently you do, view this as a "handout to the ISPs" but doing so ignores then months and months of broadband subsidies that millions of unemployed families will receive over the next 6-12 months. Next you'll rail against the Federal Rent Subsidy program as a handout to fatcat landlords, ignoring the housing it will provide millions of families.

      • Ken, my dude, you're ignoring the ~$4B in handouts for them to pay for equipment replacements they are required to replace by law. It's a handout. Tax payer money is being used to subsidize ISP costs of doing business. How i that not a handout?

        The $50 for a couple of months? That's called a reach-around, Ken. That's what that is.

  • US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:31AM (#60853670)
    slush fund for Verizon and AT&T.

    FTFY.

    Unless there are strict penalties for failure to provide the required service and those penalties are actually enforced by contract then the money'll just get pocketed like it always does.

    Don't get me wrong, I fully support wiring up the country. But we need to put people in charge of the process who will actually force the companies to do it.
    • From the article it's not clear how much if any goes to providers to build new lines, or whether the providers will even know which subscribers are paying their bill by virtue of this benefit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Unless there are strict penalties for failure to provide the required service

      The "Service" in this case is removal and replacement of Huawei and ZTE equipment - $1.9 Billion. - $1 Billion for Tribal broadband programs, and $3 Billion in handouts.

      None of this funding is really helping the broadband situation in the US...
      Sorry, replacing the Huawei and ZTE equipment with the higher-priced alternatives made by others who also charge software licensing fees on some Capacity-related features (Thus

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by twebb72 ( 903169 )
        The really egregious part is that no telco in their right mind was installing Huawei and ZTE going back to 2012. The writing was on the wall for over a decade, long before there was a consumer ban on their products

        But now they need 2BN to remove the products they never installed. SMH

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        None of this funding is really helping the broadband situation in the US...

        Of course not - it's not an infrastructure bill, it is a subsidy bill - your complaint is like arguing that extended unemployment benefits don't create jobs for unemployed workers - it isn't intended to, just like federal rent assistance (also in this bill) doesn't build any new low-income housing.

    • Re:US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:53AM (#60853722) Homepage Journal

      Don't get me wrong, I fully support wiring up the country. But we need to put people in charge of the process who will actually force the companies to do it.

      There's only one way to truly make that happen at this point, and that's for the government to build and own the infrastructure. Corporate ownership of infrastructure has repeatedly failed to guarantee access to everyone for decades, and there's no reason to believe that it will improve no matter what the government does. Even when the terms are pretty clear, they still find ways to weasel out of it.

      Just create a Federal Fiber Internet Agency with a mandate of providing fiber to every household in the country. Buy dark fiber or municipal fiber networks where you can (and even buy fiber from existing ISPs if it is cheaper than running it yourself). Run fiber where you can't. Build the network, and lease it to any ISP that wants to provide service over it. Set the lease costs high enough to pay for upkeep. And you're done.

      The key, though, is the "any ISP that wants to provide service" bit. I should be able to call up the city and say, "I want to start an ISP on the government-run fiber," and they should tell me the cost per customer, plus the cost per rack space in the central office. Then I should be able to present that contract to an upstream provider, get them to drop in a backhaul link at the central office, install my equipment in their rack and hook it up, and now I'm an ISP. In other words, the cost of starting an ISP in a new area should be O($5,000), not O($5,000,000). The result would be that you'd have way more ISPs competing, thus ensuring that customers get the fastest service possible at the lowest cost. And because the infrastructure would be maintained independently (at cost) by a truly neutral party (as opposed to an ILEC), things would work reliably and consistently.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 )

        You seem to have left out the "liquor and whores for local Congressman and kickback scheme to a Senator's dog groomer". I cannot possibly see how your plan will work

        • There is a model very similar to the one proposed by dgatwood which is municipally owned fiber. Consistently, when not interfered with by telecom companies or ideologically driven politics, municipally owned fiber services provide better performance at a lower cost than you would get from a cable company.

          • This is because they don't have to mark up every invoice to show profit for the next quarterly report. But costs can start to run away, so I imagine that what we would see would be a publicly owned utility that the municipality hires a contracting company to maintain, much in line with what we see with other municipal utilities like water or sewage.

            In the end, it would be the broad access to the "community" network that would do the most good, providing a space in which companies can actually compete with

            • You can find *urban* areas with poor service, sometimes not even with ADSL. The US is very much about every man for himself. The states want to take power from the feds, the counties and cities want to take power from the states, and the cities themselves divide up into enclaves with the rich neighborhoods getting the best internet, schools, roads, water, and the poor neighborhoods in the same city struggling to get clean water, paved roads, and schoolbooks. The present times are definitely pointing this

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            Yes, monopolies are more efficient than multiple redundant suppliers of the same commodity product.

            Municipal Services are always better - just ask the residents of Flint Michigan, whose city leaders decided to get back in the Public Water business after Detroit raised their rates for Flint customers... Granted, the chances of municipal fiber poisoning small children is slight, but the blanket statement that municipal-owned resources is always superior to private providers is incorrect.

            https://www.cbsnews.co [cbsnews.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by whitroth ( 9367 )

          What, as opposed to the liquor, whores, and more stock options for the chief execs? Is that what you prefer?

        • Why involve a dog walker when they can just directly buy stocks in the companies they are about to give billions to?

      • I support that at a state or local level, but at a federal level, it seems to be asking too much.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          The biggest problem with doing it at the municipal level is that you have too many powerful lobbying interests at the state level getting laws passed that effectively ban municipal fiber projects. At the very least, that crap has to be superseded at the federal level.

          The other problem is that without any centralized administration, the cost of access to Internet service will vary wildly depending on where you are. A rural area with five miles between homes will not be able to pay for the cost of running

          • The biggest problem with doing it at the municipal level is that you have too many powerful lobbying interests at the state level getting laws passed that effectively ban municipal fiber projects. At the very least, that crap has to be superseded at the federal level.

            I just want to point out that the current story is about telecom companies getting billions of dollars from the federal government because they are so good at lobbying.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by kenh ( 9056 )

              I just want to point out this is $50/month per unemployed family to pay their broadband bills. I suspect the monies will flow from the federal government to the state unemployment agencies to be added to individual unemployment benefits, like the $300/wk stimulus "kicker" just approved in Congress.

              • I just want to point out this is $50/month per unemployed family to pay their broadband bills

                That's half of it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            That said, I'd like to amend my proposal slightly. It should be the Federal Fiber Internet Authority, organized as a federally owned nonprofit similar to TVA. Otherwise, there's too much temptation for bureaucrats to meddle, which almost always ends with them wrecking everything.

            Or the US Post Office - that federally-owned non-profit that currently enjoys no meddling from politicians setting pension funding levels, etc.

      • The biggest problem in the US I see is the worship at the feet of the free market and a distrust of any and all government. If they free market left to its own devices cannot solve a problem, then the problems get ignored beyond some hand wringing and hoping that another round of tax cuts will finallly fix it. Some things are too big to let some petty companies who only care about the short term profits. Like algorithms to find a global optimum, the free market tends to get stuck on local optimums and ca

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        Many local "ISPs" all re-selling service from the same carrier(s) is not competition in any meaningful way.

        Why would the carrier underwrite your infrastructure just so you can re-sell their service?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I'm not sure what the terms are. But TFS says that this will be paid out as $50 per month checks to the consumers. So if the telecoms don't have a product available, they won't get the money. Starlink will.

    • ...Don't get me wrong, I fully support wiring up the country. But we need to put people in charge of the process who will actually force the companies to do it.

      The end result is as predictable as finding this "broadband for America" bullshit being brought up again.

      And since we didn't do a damn thing to prevent Greed from pocketing the money last time, we shouldn't expect anything less this time around. No, of course competent people won't be hired to manage this broadband project. That's because this isn't about rolling out broadband. This is about Greed taking another few billion on the taxpayer dime.

      Ah, that new refreshing yet stale old stale stench of The

      • Re:US Relief Package Provides $7 Billion (Score:4, Informative)

        by bws111 ( 1216812 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @11:17AM (#60853802)

        The MOST predictable thing is that people will offer their stupid comments without even taking a second or two to find out what they are commenting about. This isn't a 'broadband project'. It is $50/month to people to pay their broadband bill, and money to replace Huawei and ZTE equipment as required by the government.

        • The MOST predictable thing is that people will offer their stupid comments without even taking a second or two to find out what they are commenting about. This isn't a 'broadband project'. It is $50/month to people to pay their broadband bill, and money to replace Huawei and ZTE equipment as required by the government.

          How is the $50 obtained for those who meet the qualifications? A tax credit? Or an easy to use government-run website to apply for the benefit? Will it be managed through the ISPs? I call my ISP, tell them I need the credit, I get the credit, and the ISP gets the $50? Will it be a program which has a unit cost of $1000 to distribute each $50, in typical government fashion?

          Details are few. Stating simply that this is $50 for people to bay their bill is either disingenuous or naive.

          Let's also not forget

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            How is the $50 obtained for those who meet the qualifications? A tax credit? Or an easy to use government-run website to apply for the benefit?

            Probably exactly like the $300/wk supplemental benefit for unemployed Americans - a subsidy funneled trough state unemployment agencies... Why can't you imagine a simple, direct mechanism for funding?

        • The MOST predictable thing is that people will offer their stupid comments without even taking a second or two to find out what they are commenting about. This isn't a 'broadband project'. It is $50/month to people to pay their broadband bill...

          The MOST predictable thing, is finding gullible taxpayers believing that bullshit. Go figure they're going to screw the taxpayer for billions again. Citizens practically welcome another screwing with that kind of ignorance.

          ...and money to replace Huawei and ZTE equipment as required by the government.

          And what the hell do you think that specific hardware or the replacement hardware is going to do for consumers? Bake their fucking muffins? This is a broadband project, or at least it's being sold as one to taxpayers.

          And nothing "broadband" will come from it, and the US will continue

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            Not an infrastructure bill, a subsidy funneled through unemployment benefits.

            And every piece of ZTE/ Huwei equipment replaced by this bill will be replaced with equipment from other sources, not quite sure how ISPs will "profit" off this in any meaningful way... A $100K piece of equipment bought from ZTE will be replaced by a $115K piece of equipment from Cisco or Nortel, with the $115K paid for/reimbursed by the government. Short of stupid big kickbacks and off-the book favors, the ISPs don't directly prof

            • Not an infrastructure bill, a subsidy funneled through unemployment benefits.

              And every piece of ZTE/ Huwei equipment replaced by this bill will be replaced with equipment from other sources, not quite sure how ISPs will "profit" off this in any meaningful way... A $100K piece of equipment bought from ZTE will be replaced by a $115K piece of equipment from Cisco or Nortel, with the $115K paid for/reimbursed by the government. Short of stupid big kickbacks and off-the book favors, the ISPs don't directly profit from this.

              You act as if there's no history here to prove otherwise. This isn't the first time the telco industry has raped taxpayers for millions (billions?) with empty promises of broadband rollouts and upgrades, only to find corrupt lined pockets and excuses in the end. This is exactly why broadband still sucks in America, and why were are here again.

              Its like this - imagine you run a hotel, and the federal government says, for political (non-safety) reasons we think Hilti elevators are unsafe, and we've put aside money to pay for your Hilti elevator replacement. So the Hotels has a Hilti elevator one day, the next day the technicians rip out the Hilti elevator and then the following week the Otis elevator company installs a new elevator, paid for by the Feds. The hospital, suffering business impact for a week, but at the end they are still a hotel with an elevator, nothing more or less.

              Interesting imaginary tale. Here's a bit more reality. The following week, the Otis elevator company claims they will install a new elevator, but regulation/city/

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      This is not an infrastructure bill, it's a subsidy to help unemployed families pay their broadband bill while the breadwinners are unemployed.

  • OT, does anyone know if the liability shield (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:34AM (#60853674)
    made it in? That was McConnell's red line for a long time. He wanted a corporate liability shield so that customers and employees couldn't sue businesses if they got COVID 19 due to lax safety enforcement.

    I haven't read anything that said yay or nay so I'm nervous. It was, not surprisingly, tremendously unpopular with regular people and *very* popular with large corporations. I'm pretty sure the only reason we're all still able to work from home is that it's been blocked by the Dems & Pelosi and companies are worried about liability in super spreader environments like offices...

    • Re:OT, does anyone know if the liability shield (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mousit ( 646085 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @11:25AM (#60853818)

      made it in? That was McConnell's red line for a long time. He wanted a corporate liability shield so that customers and employees couldn't sue businesses if they got COVID 19 due to lax safety enforcement

      Thankfully no, the liability shield did not make it in. Here are one [nytimes.com], two [nbcnews.com], three [washingtonpost.com] sources with some basic information on what is (and isn't) included.

      From what I've read, the two big compromises were that McConnel didn't get his shield, and Democrats gave up direct monies to state and local governments.

      There are still some BS handouts to Corporate America (of course) but overall, seems like some of the worst things were avoided.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by theCoder ( 23772 )

        Also a bunch of BS handouts to married couples while many middle class singles get nothing:

        Now, individuals earning up to $87,000 and couples earning up to $174,000 will receive some form of payment. Individuals who earned up to $75,000 in 2019 will get the full amount of $600 and couples that earned up to $150,000 will receive $1,200.

        Source [cnbc.com]

        The same thing happened with the previous check. I wouldn't care that much, except that people I work with who make more than I do got full $2400 (tax free!) payments l

      • Why thankfully? Are you familiar with the actual provisions of the proposal, or just how opponents misrepresented it? It boils down to this - if you're an employer and you take all the steps required to open safely and one of your employees gets sick anyway, they can't sue you for it. If you don't take all the precautions, they can take you to the cleaners.

        Here's the thing - if an employer that took all the precautions gets sued by an employee who got sick anyway, that suit is going to fail. Before yo

    • It was removed from the bill and put in its own separate bill alongside direct payments to state and municipalities. Mitch Mcconnell and Pelosi got pushed into a compromise because Manchin/Romney,Collins, et al. were able to come up with their own compromise bill and it was making leadership look pretty stupid that they couldn't get it done.
    • Yeah, anything can be unpopular if you misrepresent it. What you describe is exactly not what the act would have done. It only limits liability for employers following all the rules and guidelines. If the employer was lax in enforcing the requisite standards, they could still be sued. It's intended to prevent a flood of frivolous suits from jamming up the courts, not the protection of negligence.

      Don't take my word on it, read it yourself - https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]

  • How will broadband company abuse this? (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:37AM (#60853678)

    Being that we often have little choice on who we can use for broadband, even major cities, may offer up to 3 competitive choices. For the rest of us, it is often just the Cable Company who is monopolizing the area.
    We traditionally tolerated a Cable TV monopoly in an area, as for generations Cable TV was only a luxury item which people could get by without it. However sense they are the only provider of useful internet access for many locations now they now control a utility in which modern 21st century people need to properly function in society.
    Giving money to these companies better have some good strings attached to them. Such as lowering our bills, or providing faster service or making sure they fully cover a particular range. I would actually like to see that this money is tied to them not suing governments for setting up a municipal public internet, or fighting upstart companies.

    • Didn't a huge broadband fund (or at least high speed internet) just vanish into thin air years ago?

  • ... and it will go down the same rat-hole as all the other money given to the ISPs.

    • ... and it will go down the same rat-hole as all the other money given to the ISPs.

      You’re being supremely unfair to rats making that comparison.

  • Next weeks news now (Score:3)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Monday December 21, 2020 @01:39PM (#60854340)
    After one CEO cashed the check a reporter asked “so how are you going to spend it?”. He promptly replied “spend what?”

  • $600 per-person.

    Calculator (600*360-million)
    $216,000,000,000

    So the majority is being spent on pork.

  • Broadband is not "COVID relief", so it shouldn't be in that bill. Introduce a separate bill for that specific purpose and go from there, don't jam it where it doesn't belong because you're bad at your job Wyden.

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