FCC Plans Shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program As GOP Withholds Funding (arstechnica.com) 134
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission is about to start winding down a program that gives $30 monthly broadband discounts to people with low incomes, and says it will have to complete the shutdown by May if Congress doesn't provide more funding. The 2-year-old Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was created by Congress, and Democrats have been pushing for more funding to keep it going. But Republican members of Congress blasted the ACP last month, accusing the FCC of being "wasteful."
In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed. They threatened to withhold funding and criticized what they called the "Biden administration's reckless spending spree." The letter was sent by the highest-ranking Republicans on committees with oversight responsibility over the ACP, namely Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio). With no resolution in sight, the FCC announced that it would have to start sending out notices about the program's expected demise. "With less than four months before the projected program end date and without any immediate additional funding, this week the Commission expects to begin taking steps to start winding down the program to give households, providers, and other stakeholders sufficient time to prepare," the FCC said in an announcement yesterday.
The Biden administration has requested $6 billion to fund the program through December 2024. As of now, the FCC said it "expects funding to last through April 2024, running out completely in May." FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has repeatedly asked Congress for more ACP funding, and sent a letter (PDF) to lawmakers yesterday in which she repeated her plea. The chairwoman's letter said that 23 million households are enrolled in the discount program. [...] Rosenworcel warned that the impending ACP shutoff "would undermine the historic $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program," a different program created by Congress to subsidize ISPs' expansion of broadband networks throughout the US. The discount and deployment programs complement each other because "the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas," Rosenworcel wrote.
In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed. They threatened to withhold funding and criticized what they called the "Biden administration's reckless spending spree." The letter was sent by the highest-ranking Republicans on committees with oversight responsibility over the ACP, namely Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio). With no resolution in sight, the FCC announced that it would have to start sending out notices about the program's expected demise. "With less than four months before the projected program end date and without any immediate additional funding, this week the Commission expects to begin taking steps to start winding down the program to give households, providers, and other stakeholders sufficient time to prepare," the FCC said in an announcement yesterday.
The Biden administration has requested $6 billion to fund the program through December 2024. As of now, the FCC said it "expects funding to last through April 2024, running out completely in May." FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has repeatedly asked Congress for more ACP funding, and sent a letter (PDF) to lawmakers yesterday in which she repeated her plea. The chairwoman's letter said that 23 million households are enrolled in the discount program. [...] Rosenworcel warned that the impending ACP shutoff "would undermine the historic $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program," a different program created by Congress to subsidize ISPs' expansion of broadband networks throughout the US. The discount and deployment programs complement each other because "the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas," Rosenworcel wrote.
GOP loving the little guy (Score:5, Insightful)
There goes the GOP again, loving the little people.
Not like my kid requires that for school or anything. Be helpful for some of these parents that can't afford broadband. I know several that all they have is a phone.
Re:GOP loving the little guy (Score:5, Informative)
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No, there are plenty of people that lie and cheat and get the support. My ex-father-in-law is one, happy to lie to the power company to get subsidized power so he can sit in the Lazy Boy all day with the AC cranked. And yes, he votes GOP.
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Ronald Reagan invented the myth of the "welfare queen", but for every Linda Taylor there are 50 people with legitimate need. I would not consider a 2% rate of fraud to be widespread. Especially if you consider that IRS estimates that about 15% of taxes go unpaid through fraud or evasion. But those small business owners that play games with their taxes are never the subject of the GOP platform. Curious indeed.
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He can vote away his fake subsidy, see if I care.
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No, President Reagan did not invent the myth of the welfare queen [wikipedia.org], as can be learned by the slightest amount of research. The term was coined in 1974 and picked up by Reagan two years later. And, as far as Linda Taylor goes, she too surfaced in 1974, meaning that you can't blame Reagan for her notoriety either.
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Ronald Reagan invented the myth of the "welfare queen", but for every Linda Taylor there are 50 people with legitimate need.
No, President Reagan did not invent the myth of the welfare queen [wikipedia.org], as can be learned by the slightest amount of research. The term was coined in 1974 and picked up by Reagan two years later. And, as far as Linda Taylor goes, she too surfaced in 1974, meaning that you can't blame Reagan for her notoriety either.
Basically you just pointed out that he really meant to say "Reagan popularised the myth", not sure that bit of pedantry really changes anything.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Clinton wanted the Democratic party to raise money from corporate America, believing he could court the typical republican voting rich and the democrat base would have no choice but to stay To gain corporate donors, Clinton passed the 1996 welfare reform act, the 1994 Omnibus crime bill that grew our prisons from 700K to the current 2.3Mill
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"Clinton killed off Glass-Stegall" The R's in Congress were the driving force behind gutting Glass-Stegall on the basis that their rich friends needed new avenues to squeeze the American people out of their wealth. They succeeded, and are still at it.
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And Clinton signed it. He always had the option to threaten a veto.
As soon as he put his name on that bill, turning it into law, he owned it.
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Written by people with R's next to their name. Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Texas), Rep. Jim Leach (R, Iowa), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R, Virginia)
Clinton was never a "buck stops here" kind of politician. And he frequently courted the other side. It's naïve to hold Bill Clinton exclusively accountable for what history shows was a team effort to tear down our nation's financial regulation and protection.
Centrist Democrats, the so-called Third-Way, frequently collaborated with the conservative members of b
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"In November 1999, President Bill Clinton publicly declared "the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate". Some commentators have stated that the GLBA's repeal of the affiliation restrictions of the Glass–Steagall Act was an important cause of the f
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Oh, 1996. You mean after the GOP shut down the government in late fall of '95, and wouldn't pass anything that they didn't like, and they were in control of Congress. And funding.
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Myth??
LOL...you must live a sheltered life.
I invite you to drive by one of the many projects down here in New Orleans, especially in late spring/early summer when you can see them all sitting out on the front porches.
What do you have against small businesses taking every legal deduction available to them.
Do you voluntarily pay more taxes each year than you are obliged by law to pay?
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I invite you to drive by one of the many projects down here in New Orleans, especially in late spring/early summer when you can see them all sitting out on the front porches.
You definitely know everything about them and their personal lives. Why you should be the final arbiter of every application. You are the one who gets to decide if someone is suffering afterall.
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Oh no! Not their front porches, with their tiaras and ermine-trimmed robes, showing off their finery to the whole world! It should be illegal. Sitting on porches is only for kings and popes. It is a wild indulgence that will never be suited to commoners.
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Yup...sitting on their front porches, middle of the day, rather than being out working...they just hang there and collect their welfare checks.
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I invite you to drive by one of the many projects down here in New Orleans, especially in late spring/early summer when you can see them all sitting out on the front porches.
Chances are they sit on the front porch because they can't afford air conditioning, and they can't afford air conditioning because their employer will only give them 29 hours per week so that they don't have to provide health insurance.
What do you have against small businesses taking every legal deduction available to them.
It's when they create overseas shell companies to make it look like they didn't earn any money that I start having problems with it. If I did that with my personal income, it would be tax fraud. We seriously need to close that loophole. Or when they overstate the value of
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What employer? What work?
We're talking about "Welfare Queens" here...they don't work, that would interfere with their government welfare checks they get.
They also have multiple kids, via multiple fathers, unmarried so as to get more free tax dollars.
By the way, do you kno
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What employer? What work?
We're talking about "Welfare Queens" here...they don't work, that would interfere with their government welfare checks they get.
For a maximum of 18 months at a time, and a maximum of 5 years in their entire lives. You really can't do that for very long, and most people living in poverty have been living in poverty for a lot longer than that. The "welfare queens" you speak of don't actually exist, or at least not in the way you seem to believe.
That is govt housing...and if it doesn't have AC...then blame Uncle Sam.
They pay for power, don't they? Air conditioning uses a lot of power, right? :rolls eyes:
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This will apply largely to people living in rural areas, the very same people who keep voting the GOP into Congress.
If gerrymandering wasn't a thing, I would accept your conclusion. With gerrymandering? Fuck you and your judgement of the situation.
Actually, even without gerrymandering, the situation is not so cut and dry. Voting along party lines is the slow and guaranteed lane to Fascism. Paying attention to the individuals doesn't help as they all lie and misrepresent as the goal is to get elected, not to actually fulfill any promises.
Fuck you for blaming the voter. No reasonable options are even being presented.
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And why do they continue to lie, and continue to get re-elected?
Because the voters stopped tossing people out for lying to them and playing bullshit games (example: gerrymandering) to grasp at power. Voters seem to think that voting for the party rather than the representative and their specific policy positions is the most important factor. Until people start realizing that their government representation should care about district, state, and country more than party affiliation - in that order - this is
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Because the voters stopped tossing people out for lying to them and playing bullshit games
So you think that the vote is actually giving us what we vote for?
I am going to say that what we vote for rarely matters as the vote has been radically suppressed with extreme psychological manipulations along with MANY other factors diminishing the value of a vote.
Look at what is happening with the topic of abortion right now. There is no sane person wanting what is going on and yet it absolutely *IS* going on. Women are being denied natal care over this shit.
Do you really think the MAJORITY of people wish
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I agree with your stance on the abhorrent hypocrisy of the "party of small government" wanting to jam themselves into the examination room between doctors and women.
However, I don't see this as the vote not giving us what we vote for. I see it as exactly getting what we voted for as a district, state, and country.
If you vote for people that bang the drum about restricting abortion everywhere they can, don't be surprised when that's exactly what they try to do. And it shouldn't come as a galloping shock to
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This will apply largely to people living in rural areas, the very same people who keep voting the GOP into Congress. Yet another crystal clear example of people voting against their own interests. I'm sure the local AM radio personalities will spin it in a way to make it seem like evil Democrats did this.
Nah. The right-wing media just won't mention it at all. What's going to happen is that everybody's Internet bill will skyrocket, and because right-wing media will conceal that it is directly the fault of the Republicans, they'll just see it as something else that is getting more expensive, which they will blame on Biden along with all the other things, despite the President (and Congress, for that matter) having almost zero control over any of it (beyond choosing the Fed chair) because, once again, the ri
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This program has the stink of regulatory capture.
I pay $25/month for 50 Mbits Internet without any discount. That's $5 less than the "discount" the ISPs are milking out of the FCC. I live in a small town suburb so it's not like I have a lot of ISPs competing for my money.
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All Federal spending of this nature can become patronage for some private party. In the case of American ISPs it's almost inevitable that it would happen that way, since there is very little healthy competition.
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I pay $120/mo for Starlink, which started at $100/mo and has been raised twice. My only other choice is a 10Mb connection from Frontier for $75.
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+1. I've never seen anybody charging $25 a month for Internet service anywhere. If you're really paying that little, it likely means your provider is fighting to hold on to their territory because of some newcomer to the market (e.g. Google Fiber, some state-owned/community-owned fiber provider, etc.) eating their lunch.
Re: GOP loving the little guy (Score:2)
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You think the Republican Party wants to help with education?
That's directly against their interests - the less educated you are, the less likely you are to sniff out their hypocrisy and bullshit. The less educated voters are, the more likely they are to vote Republican.
Also, since when do modern Republican voters actually pay any attention to policy? They're way too busy being worrying about wokey woke people and uppity brown people "replacing" them because they aren't educated enough to realize that it's
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The same people who have been documenting saying that nobody with a refrigerator or a coffee pot can be considered poor.
$30/month is in the noise floor compared to the Viagra subsidies the repugnantcans cling to.
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I guess you're a Democrat who wants to take money from the middle class in order to feel virtuous instead of acually doing something virtuous?!?
Keep your greedy hands out of my pockets! IMHO
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Starlink (and the Amazon version) is changing the game in ways that old school thinking cannot fathom. And Cell service is often good enough for most others.
Wireless broadband is great if you otherwise can't get a hard line connection, but wireless technology has its own caveats and the services generally cost about the same or more than a wired/fiber connection.
Wired or wireless, telco companies are gonna be telco companies. Heck, the wireless broadband providers have begun playing the same "bundling" games as the cable companies. For example, T-Mobile advertises a $30/mo home internet plan, but the catch is you're only eligible for that discounted rate if y
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Is the issue a viable connection most of the time, or not? Do we need to be able to stream 4K or is 1080 or lower sufficient? Is low latency gaming a priority or is a luxury. Is you right to live out in rural Montana a choice or is it a necessity that the rest of us have to pay for? Does Starlink offer sufficient options for those that are willing to pay for its advantages?
The problem is that options and cost benefit aren't choices government shouldn't mandate. I remember when dialup where 14.4 was worth th
Re: GOP loving the little guy (Score:2)
"... via the eRate program"
Wasteful (Score:5, Insightful)
Suddenly the budget matters when a democrat is in power.
Re:Wasteful (Score:5, Insightful)
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While I agree that this kind of equity program has the right intentions, rolling back/eliminating the Reagan/Bush/Bush Jr./Trump tax programs would set the country back on a path to sustainability and a more prosperous working class. The GOP's tax programs shifted the burden to the workers/poorest people, and lifted all the burden from the rich. The working class now pays for everything, including bank bailouts, 11 super carrier fleets, ie the things that keep the ultra-rich flush with bank money to do what
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The only thing that will solve this is a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget, pushed through by a constitutional convention. If Republicans want to cut taxes, they should have to cut defense spending to match.
GOP = Grossly, Overly Political. (Score:1, Troll)
Seriously? Their excuse is that people already had broadband? My in-laws are on a fixed income and it helps them out tremendously.
Re:GOP = Grossly, Overly Political. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Correct. We should be funding better public education too.
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Let's see (Score:5, Informative)
Republicans won't take federal money to give some kids free lunches at school [businessinsider.com].
Republicans voted against [theguardian.com] capping the cost of insulin to $35.
Republicans voted against a border security bill [newsweek.com] because it might help President Biden during the election, all the while whining about the border not being secure.
Some Republicans voted against a bill to reauthorize funding to combat human trafficking [usatoday.com].
Almost all Republican Senators voted against a bill to protect veterans [newsweek.com] who may have been exposed to toxic materials during their service.
The leading Republican candidate is hoping for the economy to crash [cnn.com] so he can use it against President Biden.
Are we sure these people are working to better America?
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Republican politicians have always campaigned on the idea that the government will hurt you.
They promise that, if you elect them, they will prove it to you.
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Plutocrat tax cuts take priority. Gordon Jesus Gekko said so.
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I mean, if they're so worried with taxing the public too much, they could cut the biggest spender a bit.
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That would by far be the entitlements programs in the US.
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That would by far be the entitlements programs in the US.
Social Security*
Followed by Defense spending. Everything else is pocket pennies.
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Actually no I didn't.
Please go re-read, I said "entitlements" was biggest spending.
Medicare, Medicaid, SS, Welfare, Food Stamps...etc...all the safety net stuff.
The entitlements spending dwarfs defense spending.
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Are we sure these people are working to better America?
Both parties are working towards their own goals. The Democrats taste a bit better, but adding sugar to the poison doesn't really motivate a person to accept the poison.
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Republicans won't take federal money to give some kids free lunches at school.
Just so we are clear your argument against republicans is an article about a single republican voting against a measure that passed anyway. This is what infuriates me about partisan hackery people looking for evidence to support their presuppositions. Don't even bother gathering relevant statistical data about the voting tendencies of a group to shit on the group as a whole. Cherry picking what one member of a group did is sufficient to reinforce blind tribal disdain against the entire group.
Republicans voted against capping the cost of insulin to $35.
The bill was
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Charities are a joke. The total amount of donated money is a tiny insignificant amount of money compared to government spending! You may not like to be forced to pay for long term things for the benefit of society and pay the price of civilization (tax.) I don't like being forced to pay for the biggest most oversized and wasteful military on earth but the majority are cowardly suckers who agree to it. I resent that waste; I complain and vote to try to change it...
I don't mind paying for civilization. Wast
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The ISP set up this as a trap. (Score:2)
What is the ACP goal/success metric? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) This began as a Covid Emergency Broadband provision since federal, state, and local governments forced hundreds of millions of people to stay home and/or lose their jobs. Internet access and cell phone data suddenly became a necessity for employment, ordering food, medicine, etc.. Is the Covid Emergency still occurring?
2) The Covid EBB was then converted into the ACP and related programs which provide Internet, cell phones (and data). What exactly are the problems this program is supposed to fix?
3) What are the metrics for when we know the program has been successful in fixing the problem? What are the metrics for how we'd know the program has NOT been successful?
4) What are the terminate/sunset conditions of this program? For how long do we need to pay for Internet/phone service for ~100 million people -i is this a lifetime entitlement to Internet/phone service? Or is there some limit such as monetary amount of length of time someone can use the program?
5) Which corporations are receiving the federal dollars to provide or administer the service? What integrity oversight/spotlight mechanisms are we putting in place to see how much money those corporations are getting from the program, what they do with that money, the quality of the services the provide, whether they should be prohibited - as federal contractors - from spending the next 50 years lobbying Congress to continue/expand the program regardless of whether there are any meaningful success metrics in place?
6) Since the government doesn't have the money to cover its expenses and every year adds a trillion or so dollars to our shared debt, which impacts all of us, what are the reasons this particular program is worth the billions of dollars it will cost to administer annually as it grows in the future? Again, what are the metrics we will use to annually audit that cost/benefit analysis to ensure the voters and legislature maintain a fully-informed oversight of the program?
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What exactly are the problems this program is supposed to fix?
Poor people. Republicans don't like that, and I suspect ...
What are the terminate/sunset conditions of this program? For how long do we need to pay for Internet/phone service for ~100 million people -i is this a lifetime entitlement to Internet/phone service?
clearly you think being poor is part of life and we need to keep people that way. How dare they be so entitled.
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Plenty of research has shown that giving poor people money doesnâ(TM)t help, it hurts them.
Nope it really hasn't. Quite the opposite, virtually all research has shown that the poor (we're talking here about people who can't freely afford basic internet) are in a locked loop of being too poor to better themselves due to not having the basic finances required for reskilling or finding other work, and the only way they are able to get out of it is with a minimal amount of assistance.
But keep living in your right wing fantasy world.
As others here pointed out, itâ(TM)s $30 on a $120 broadband connection when the market already has $20 and $25 options in most markets this is targeting.
Now your republican fantasy thinks you can get internet for sub $30 e
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The poor are definitely not meant to get out of that loop. Keeping them in that loop keeps the money flowing towards the rich.
Ever notice that the less money you have in the bank, the more often you pay ATM fees? If I have $20k in my checking account, I withdraw the maximum amount of cash to carry for a week or so. If I had say, $1000 or less, I'd be taking out $20 at a time and paying for it each time. It's silly. The poorer you are, the more expensive it is to get at your money.
Women with 1.5 kids can't w
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Ah the old adage: give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish...
Skills don't get you a job necessarily, and a job doesn't mean fair pay.
"Changing the situation" means building an equitable economy where all/most people get paid enough to accumulate wealth. It also means the cost of living is reasonable, instead of having everything optimized to produce as much revenue for the rich as possible.
For the GOP, "Changing the situation" means everyone follows strict Anglo-Christian "family values"
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Seriously. Like "Give your own bootstraps a pull! What, you have no boots? Well go get some then!"
Re:What is the ACP goal/success metric? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are not supposed to actually dig into and ask questions like this and try to go deep into the actual concept or workings of a program like this. Instead, summarize with a very simple one liner for a headline that shows you care for X and party Y does not. The details of how it works, if it works, who is paying for it, who is profiting for it, etc should be irrelevant.
Re:What is the ACP goal/success metric? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the government doesn't have the money to cover its expenses and every year adds a trillion or so dollars to our shared debt, which impacts all of us,
..... why do Republicans keep wanting to cut taxes for the wealthy? And, no, those tax cuts don't pay for themselves.
Why do Republicans want to cripple the IRS?
Why, in most discussions of the Federal deficit is only one side of the problem (spending) ever mentioned?
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Why do Republicans want to cripple the IRS?
Fear.
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For the exact same reasons Democrats implement social programs. To enrich their buddies. You don't think the billions spent on social programs actually goes entirely to the people it is intended to help? The money is eaten up by contracts using their friend's companies.
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So they're just stupid you're saying and don't understand that the amount you have comes from taxes? Yeah I guess that tracks
688 billion dollars (Score:2)
As for the national debt we owe most of it to ourselves and could effortlessly pay it back with just the $500 billion in savings we would get from switching to a universal health Care system. But then if we did that all those private equity firms that have bee
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6) Since the government doesn't have the money to cover its expenses and every year adds a trillion or so dollars to our shared debt, which impacts all of us, what are the reasons this particular program is worth the billions of dollars it will cost to administer annually as it grows in the future? Again, what are the metrics we will use to annually audit that cost/benefit analysis to ensure the voters and legislature maintain a fully-informed oversight of the program?
I'm sorry, this is the Two Minutes hate ... you must be confused. We're here to rant at Emmanu ... I mean at the GOP.
If you were looking for rational discussion, our man O'Brien [wikipedia.org] would be happy to talk about that with you. Right this way ...
For those interested in the truth on it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The person who is looking into this waste, and was not even quoted just has stuff taken out of context has been looking into the various programs that do funding, there are 15 separate agencies who have more than 130 separate programs for funding broadband, so the people under this would be covered by better managed programs.
This is the FCC upset because they would be missing out on money they are not using properly.
https://www.gao.gov/products/g... [gao.gov]
the real question is why did the person who put up the summary deliberately misrepresent what was actually happening.
Re:For those interested in the truth on it. (Score:4, Informative)
You have been drinking the propaganda I see.
Massive waste? There is no mention of anything like that. They haven't even come to final conclusions. They mention issues about not enough people using it due to enrollment problems, marketing, etc. So it's using LESS money than it should.
"Waste" in terms of not enough people getting it, yes. "Waste" as in wasting resources, no, the opposite in fact.
There are groups manipulating you and you can't see it.
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the real question is why did the person who put up the summary deliberately misrepresent what was actually happening.
Gee, I wonder ...
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I think the slashdot forums basically being anti-GOP bukkake probably answers your question.
Mr Potter was a Congressional Republican (Score:2)
say what???? (Score:4, Insightful)
"In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed"
It is like saying you cannot get food stamps because you were eating prior to getting them.
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You don't understand. If you had internet and ate food you're not poor and thus any benefit you get from the government is an an unfair entitlement simply robbing the marginalised rich class.
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/s of course.
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"In a letter, GOP lawmakers complained that most of the households receiving the subsidy already had broadband service before the program existed"
It is like saying you cannot get food stamps because you were eating prior to getting them.
Sort of. To be charitable, I interpret the assertion as "you already were eating an acceptable diet, you don't need a subsidy." I'd want to see more detail but that doesn't sound like an invalid complaint. We really do want to limit subsidies to the people who really can't afford a minimally adequate solution themselves, emphasis on "minimal".
To bring it back to food, if you can afford 2,000 calories a day with more or less complete nutrition, I assert you don't need food stamps. You might be buying pork sh
Wasteful? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wasteful? maybe these guys haven't heard of the military, who still can't pass an audit.
Meanwhile.... (Score:2)
Lazy, thieving, projectionist millionaire turds. (Score:5, Insightful)
So that means... (Score:3)
The discount and deployment programs complement each other because "the ACP supports a stable customer base to help incentivize deployment in rural areas," Rosenworcel wrote.
So we pay the ISPs to build out their network, then we pay the customers to cover the cost of service from the ISPs?
Why is the government funding the consumption AND the provision of internet service? Seems to it should pick one side, either providers or consumers, and let the other enjoy the benefits of the other.
It's like we're subsidizing buying tickets for the local NFL franchise, and also paying for the players salary (the locals cover the cost of the stadium!)...
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Seems to it should pick one side
No it shouldn't. Different sides of funding cause different effects on a market, especially when that funding is conditional. Expanding and upgrading broadband does nothing to bring down costs for those who can't afford it, covering costs for those who can afford it does nothing to expand and upgrade a network.
It's like we're subsidizing buying tickets for the local NFL franchise, and also paying for the players salary (the locals cover the cost of the stadium!)...
Funny you should say that. The former increases attendance and interest in a sport, the latter (in a world of buying talent) improves the chances for a local team providing potential fame and tourism
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It's like we're subsidizing buying tickets for the local NFL franchise, and also paying for the players salary (the locals cover the cost of the stadium!)...
I would say it is more like a chance at grift on both sides of the equation. (since when is grift no longer a word? wtf Mozilla?) Who exactly do you think is befitting from all that money? Businesses, not people.
Piling on the GOP here, I see? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice of you all to ignore the real elephant in the room, though.
The problem with the Affordable Connectivity Program is that it just served as an excuse for broadband provider to increase prices or sell more expensive packages to people. When the program first began, I was paying Spectrum over $100/month for my gigabit cable connection (40mbits/sec upload speed though). I completely ignored the ACP because I was sure my income meant I wouldn't qualify for it.
Then I sold that small house that I'd been fixing up for a couple years previous, and bought a little bit bigger place in town. That meant I had to cancel my broadband service and re-establish it at the new address. That's when the Spectrum rep told me, "Oh man, you've been paying too much! I'll get you a better rate!" and proceeded to sign me up fort the ACP to give me a $30/month rate discount. Never was there any discussion about if I qualified or not. He just keyed a bunch of stuff in his computer while on the phone with me and it was a done deal.
One of my good friends who sells insurance, the next county over told me she received the ACP discount too and just thought "everybody was getting that". She earns a 6 figure income.
Now, I keep getting (daily!) reminders from Spectrum via email and phone calls that my ACP is "up for renewal soon" and I need to fill all this paperwork out at a government web site to ensure I keep getting my reduced prices. I took a look at the site and there's NO way I'm supposed to qualify for it, *except* for the fact my adult daughter lives with me in the upstairs portion of the place I bought (it's a duplex). I bought this with the idea I'd probably do an AirBnB type thing with the upstairs for extra money, but she broke up with the guy she'd been living with and needed somewhere to go. So I let her have it for now. She's not working right now and qualifies for Medicaid, which would technically qualify. Except I've filled out the forms 3 times now and keep getting rejected. They say she has the "wrong type of insurance" based on the card I sent them a copy of, or they insist she's at a different address than I am (because it's Unit A vs just the street address with no unit number for the upstairs, per the post office) and they don't care she shares the one Internet service here....
So yep - GOP is dead accurate. This program was totally mismanaged and is surely wasteful. What we NEED is to get fairer pricing to begin with from the ISPs.
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That's because whenever the Democrats come up with poorly thought out solution to address a genuine issue (in this case, the failing of the free market to produce affordable home broadband options), the GOP has to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Every. Single. Time. I'd fall off my chair if the GOP actually said they're nixing funding but are going to actually implement some other sort of scheme to rein in the telcos' greedy behavior. But nope, that's not gonna happen. It's like the same thing
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My ISP offered everybody the discount deal! no questions asked.
Even though it's defrauding the government program to do so--- nobody expects anybody to go to jail over it because that is how things "work." At most they get a fine which will not be huge enough and will be passed to customers and not to management who IS responsible.
You can't police everybody using these programs but you can catch those who exploit it and punish them! (like you don't prevent most crime but react afterwards.) But we never pu
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We're piling on the GOP for a reason. Don't pretend they are doing this because it was mismanaged. If that were the case they would call for an overhaul / review of how it was managed. They aren't. They are just using the missmanagement as an excuse for something that they generally want: no "handouts" to anyone (unless you're filthy rich of course).
The GOP can be right about management while still be wrong and rightfully criticised about their actions.
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A handout is just an euphemism for income redistribution. A very sneaky one in this case.
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Some redistribution is necessary. Won't fool me with sneaky BS you anarchists and fascists use to call everything Marxist.
Wage theft is commonplace today and it's done privately... at some point a counter measure will be taken that is bigger than simply taking some of the stolen wealth at the top and spreading it around; which is why the wealthy are against democracy now and promoting some form of despotism to protect them from the masses they've been stealing from...
Everything is economic class war and alw
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Subsidies are provider cash grabs (Score:2)
I believe these schemes only create distortions in their respective markets that effectively benefit the provider not the household.
Rather than the ISP offering reasonable pricing or at least a lower pricing tier for their market programs like ACP enable ISP pricing to remain higher so that the ISP can rake in more cash. This is a poor use of taxpayer dollars designed to help the poor. It is far more constructive to invest the money in other ways to provide general assistance that don't devolve into selec
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They did Starlink cannot deliver fast enough speeds to qualify. I know, I have Starlink.
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You got infrastructure. free. Internet is more important today than it was 20 years ago. It's hard to get a job without internet access somewhere. certainly a PHONE to be called on. it's not like we have pay phones anywhere anymore either.