Quote:
Originally Posted by thatmariolover
The private industry is not even coming close to what this plan hopes to achieve.
The quality of our broadband market is poor. We average 18th in terms of broadband speeds as a country and huge portions of rural America have no options (or if you’re like my dad, resort to something like Clearwave, $34.99 a month for 256k internet or up to 768k for $99).
Regardless, the cost to taxpayers should be minimal. The FCC plans to auction off 500 mhz of radio spectrum, which alone could generate more income than the cost of the plan. The last such auction was for a smaller spectrum and raised 19.6 billion dollars (mostly from Verizon and AT&T).
The plan sounds a good one to me. But I can elaborate if you still don't get it. |
That actually explains the thinking quite nicely. I suppose my only remaining concern would be 1) The fact that the US is likely larger than all those countries combined, so the logistics are quite different and 2) Whether or not there will be content and use strings attached.
Also, looking at the rate of growth of broadband, it still looks like private industry would still beat the government to the punch at reaching 100% (a mythical number) saturation. If the rate of growth was leveling, then perhaps I'd see the need, but its not leveling.
In any case, thanks for the info. I find the initiative far less puzzling than before.