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Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

majoritywhip.gov

1–10 of 96 posts

Re: Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

#4

> providing a $50 monthly discount on plans for low-income consumers This only serves to support the inflated pricing of the monopolists.

I believe the FCC has to approve internet prices already, so they wouldn't be able to just arbitrarily inflate the price.

edit: Obviously I was mistaken, oops

Re: Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

#5
Austere scholars of pork wrote a bill to pacify their corporate sponsors. The entire SpaceX's Starlink will cost a fraction of that. Now watch this $100B disappear without a trace, as usual.

Re: Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

#7

> providing a $50 monthly discount on plans for low-income consumers This only serves to support the inflated pricing of the monopolists.

Like it or not, certain parts of the US are too rural/poor to justify even monopolists expanding internet service there. This will incentivize them to build in those areas.

Re: Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

#9

> providing a $50 monthly discount on plans for low-income consumers This only serves to support the inflated pricing of the monopolists.

I’m very naive when it comes to these sorts of things. What would we do to help out? Would it be “we’ll fund up to 50$, but the charge is capped to 75$”?

It seems like once you’re going to distort the market, pricing becomes difficult? What about: if there’s 4 serious competitors, then we’ll give you a 50$ subsidy, otherwise, we’ll tell the providers the minimum plan, and that minimum is free to a chunk of the population? Or, do you get municipalities to roll out municipal internet?

Re: Dems pitch $100B broadband plan

#10

We already paid for nationwide broadband installation several times by now. How many more funds do we need to siphon to major corporations that still don’t build anything?

I definitely think we shouldn't give another dime in tax credits to broadband providers - a signed contract with aggressive enforcement provisions would be in order, and if the current major ISPs don't want to build the infrastructure we should find someone else who will.
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