We Just Keep Throwing Billions At Telecom Monopolies In Exchange For Half-Completed, Shitty Broadband Networks

What the Journal just weirdly omits is that consistently terrible U.S. federal and state broadband policy is the byproduct of 30 years of lobbying by regional monopolies. Every shred of U.S. telecom policy dysfunction exists to the direct benefit of entrenched giants that don’t want to try very hard.

We can’t measure broadband gaps accurately.

We can’t track where subsidies go very well.

We can’t protect consumers from very obvious telecom pricing scams.

Policymakers in both parties rarely if ever acknowledge that monopolies exist or that consolidation exists.

Fri, Jun 17th 2022 05:25am - Karl Bode

 

We Just Keep Throwing Billions At Telecom Monopolies In Exchange For Half-Completed, Shitty Broadband Networks

 

Techdirt

 

"The Wall Street Journal has offered up a helpful report (outside the paywall, for now) on the giant mess that is U.S. broadband subsidy efforts. Like many previous studies, it points out how we’ve spent just countless billions of dollars on expanding broadband access with decidedly mixed results. Also like many previous mainstream stories of this type, it focuses pretty much exclusively on government dysfunction.

We’re about to spend $42 billion more in broadband subsidies despite the fact we still haven’t fixed longstanding broadband mapping problems. There are some useful mapping improvements in the pipeline, but they’re not expected to even start to arrive until long after the money starts flowing, meaning much of the money will again go toward regional monopolies for networks they half deploy.

Telecom monopoly lobbyists are already hard at work trying to ensure that this money all goes to them (for their perpetually half-delivered networks) and not to any potential competitors. That’s proven to be particularly easy in some states where telecom monopolies effectively control the legislatures.

So yeah, the U.S. government is a mess, Congress can’t function, and a lot of states aren’t much better. But that’s not necessarily because government itself is inherently flawed, it’s because this is the desired outcome from a generation of lobbying by monopolies that like things precisely how they are. Big news outlets and politicians alike avoid mentioning this because it’s in their financial best interests to avoid it."

RELATED

Introduction:

The 'Digital Divide' Didn't Just Show Up One Day. It's The Direct Result Of Telecom Monopolization

Broadband

from the can't-fix-what-you-don't-acknowledge dept

Fri, Oct 1st 2021 6:14am — Karl Bode

 

Insert: "We've noted for a while that the entirety of DC has a blind spot when it comes to discussing the U.S. broadband problem. As in, U.S. broadband is plagued by regional monopolies that literally pay Congress to pretend the problem isn't happening.

That's not an opinion.

Panel Two: Broadband Infrastructure Needs
Where are the gaps in broadband infrastructure in our country?
What can be done to improve access for the underserved and the unserved?

John Brown, CISSP, President / CTO,  CityLink Telecommunications NM, LLC

Jonathan Chambers, Partner, Conexon LLC.

Christopher Mitchell, Policy Director, Next Century Cities

Matt Rantanen, Director of Technology, Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association

Jory Wolf, Vice President, Digital Innovation, Magellan Advisors

Presentation on PAWR: Bill McGuire, US Ignite, PAWR Project Office

Lunch and Keynote

Breakout Session One: Models 101
What are the ways in which a counties, cities, or towns might successfully bring broadband to their communities?

Mitch Drake, Executive Engagement Leader, Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc.

Mark Feest, General Manager, Churchill Communications

Mark Goldstein, President, International Research Center

Andrew T. Gonzales, PIO/Telecom Manager, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative

Virgil Turner, Director of Innovation and Citizen Engagement, Montrose, CO

more

This is a map of America’s broadband problem

A county-by-county look at the broadband gap

By Russell Brandom and William Joel May 10, 2021, 9:00am EDT

 

"If broadband access was a problem before 2020, the pandemic turned it into a crisis. As everyday businesses moved online, city council meetings or court proceedings became near-inaccessible to anyone whose connection couldn’t support a Zoom call. Some school districts started providing Wi-Fi hotspots to students without a reliable home connection. In other districts, kids set up in McDonald’s parking lots just to get a reliable enough signal to do their homework. After years of slowly widening, the broadband gap became impossible to ignore.

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