

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski  (Source: LA Times)









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RE: another option
By StevoLincolnite on 2/8/2011 8:58:37 PM , Rating: 2
Of course their are trade-offs, always is in life.

However, if Australia can provide 93% of it's population with 100mbps with capacity for even faster Fiber for a price tag of only 43 Billion dollars... With the rest filled in with high-speed Wireless and Satellite that achieves at a minimum 12mbps...

Couldn't the US do the same for the same price if not cheaper?
I mean you guys spent Trillions bailing out other companies during the financial crisis yet can't even provide decent broadband to less densely populated regions, clearly competition in the Telecommunications sector hasn't exactly been great.

And yet providing broadband to Regional areas has massive benefits to productivity and the economy.

* Like... Remote controlled tractors, saw one in action last year, amazing stuff, one farmer could control several Tractors in tandem to get the job done in less time.

* Cheap IPTV and VOIP.

* Providing broadband to regional areas also means that there needs to be more back-haul and redundancy improving reliability in city areas if a cable goes down.

* E-Health.

* Suddenly a small businesses customer base is no longer hampered by geography.

RE: another option


RE: another option


RE: another option
By wookie1 on 2/9/2011 12:22:59 PM , Rating: 2
"Couldn't the US do the same for the same price if not cheaper?"

I think this is the wrong question. Why should we divert our scarce resources to this cause? Why should we forcibly take money out of other people's pockets to pay for this? We're out of money. We owe $14T to our creditors and run a structural deficit of $1.5T per year, not including off-the-books costs like medicare, social security, and defined-benefit pensions for government employees.

The question to ask for any of these broadband-for-all programs and their ilk are can't we do without them, rather than can we afford the extra monthly payment?

RE: another option
By mindless1 on 2/14/2011 6:36:53 AM , Rating: 2
The answer is that the government is going to take the money anyway, so it boils down to a choice of whether to waste it doing stupid things like burying CO2, or doing smart things like increasing value-added infrastructure.

