Broadband to be only for the affluent?

[eridani]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401679.html

Picture for a minute a major financial institution petitioning Congress for special rules to allow it to provide loans only in certain communities throughout the country. "The cities are off limits!" says this fictional creditor, "and the moderate, middle-income communities . . . forget about it! They're not high-end enough."

Were such a corporate actor to step into the political arena, civil rights and political leaders would be quick with their denunciations, attacking the proposal as the kind of odious bigotry seen in a bygone era. Yet this is exactly what the Bell telecommunications monopolies -- Verizon and SBC -- are proposing to Congress and to legislators in California, New Jersey and other places around the country. They are insisting that lawmakers bless their proposal to roll out new digital television and advanced broadband services only to the more affluent.

If the pols accede to this special-interest pitch, it will represent a sea change in the bipartisan telecommunications policy of the past 20 years that has required companies that provide video services -- such as cable TV -- to serve the entire community through local franchise agreements.

To hear the Bells tell it, this non-discrimination requirement is standing in the way of their investing in advanced fiber networks that will, in turn, enable them to deliver cable television and other services over the Internet. Indeed, in making this argument, the Bells have shifted the goal posts: Last year they argued that federal regulators needed to kill telephone competition rules to allow them to make such investments.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

1. I didn't sleep well

and up waaaaaaay too early, so attribute my snarkiness to "wrong side of the bed," but . . .

With all due respect to the author of the piece, maybe, just MAYBE if the underclass (black and white alike) would get the hell away from the television, things might get a little better.

A little more noise in the streets and a little less "Desperate Housewives?"

If people would get out there and jerk Congress' chain a little harder instead of staying in to see who got voted off "Survivor" or who The Donald "fired," a lot of these problems with congressional sleaze and selling-out wouldn't even exist.

People want their opium more than they want their freedom. Nothing new in that.

But honest-to-sweet-Jesus! Is the tee-vee REALLY a civil right? Have we stooped *that* low?

C'mon, people!

[China_cat]

2. I don't see 'tv' as the underlying objection.

It's the idea that ANY service would deliberately and specifically restricted to ANY segment of the population without allowing competition to bring prices to where anyone could afford them.

Redlining is a bad thing, no matter what form it takes.

Geez, whatever happened to the anti-trust laws?

[GrpCaptMandrake]

5. There was a time when

if you owned a car, you owned a Model T Ford. And you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

Automobile manufacturers expanded their lines to include cars that only the most affluent could purchase. Was that "redlining?" At some of the Krogers I patronize, the selection differs wildly from store to store. Hell, you can get sushi in the good neighborhoods. In the poorer neighborhoods, eh, not so much. Is that "redlining?"

We're not talking about taking away the masses' tee-vee. The government would never let that happen. "They" want the poor in front of the tube, sitting in the dark, isolated from one another even when together watching, bathed in that otherwordly light that says "Shhhhhhhh. Be quiet. Nothing to do outside. Nothing to see. This is 'Must See.' Shhhhhhh! And now, a word from our sponsors. "BE . . . ALL THAT YOU CAN BE . . ." We're talking about one delivery method out of many.

Again, I don't intend to flame. Hell, if a perceived threat to the tee-vee is what it takes to get the poor off their asses and on their feet, then maybe this is the best thing since, er, um, tee-vee.

:banghead:

[China_cat]

9. No, redlining would be

not allowing anyone under x income to even think about buying a car. The redlining is in not allowing the opportunity to take advantage of the new technology based SOLELY on income. And that's what this proposal does...it disallows the OPPORTUNITY to participate based solely on income.

The minute broadband modems became available here I rearranged my budget and made a few sacrifices in order to afford it. I would have been pissed to be told that, even though I managed the deposit on the modem ($700 at that time) and could pay the monthly fee, that I couldn't have it because we didn't make enough.

You might think this is just about tv, but I see it as a wedge. If they can legislate an income test for a technology, then they can do it for anything else. What do YOU want to be told you can't even try for because you don't have enough money? School for your children? Health care of any kind? A place to live? Think this is hyperbole? Take a look at what's happening around you. It only needs the first precedent to start denying other things with governmental approval. And tv access is very easy precedent to set because, just as you are saying, who gives a fuck if you can't get internet tv?

[Lex]

18. What?

You said, "Hell, if a perceived threat to the tee-vee is what it takes to get the poor off their asses and on their feet, then maybe this is the best thing since, er, um, tee-vee."

So the poor's problem is that they're sitting around on their asses watching TV?

Wow. Nice understanding of poverty you have there.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

22. NIce Flame

Maybe I have a better understanding of poverty than you think. When you work two jobs (or three . . . or four) the tee-vee is more than entertainment. It's solace. A chance to forget the poverty, if only briefly. But it's also an anaesthetic. And an isolator. And it can, does and will keep your feet out of the street. "Free your head and your ass will follow" is true, as is its converse.

[TexasProgresive]

11. Broadband is a whole lot more then TV

The poor and those in rural areas will be essentially cut off from the rest of the world as fiber networks bypass them. Historically when any technology has an increase in speed the industry rises to meet that speed with bloated applications and downloads - which obsoletes earlier technologies that were adequate.

I live in a rural area and will likely never see any thing as broad as ADSL service. As it it on dialup I steer clear of TV network sites which have no more content then others but are obese. They take forever to load where other sites don't. This is a growing trend and will only get worse. In a few short years we will not have access to much of the net that are forced to use dial up service.

The only reason that rural and poor have basic phone service and electricity is because of the Federal Government. If not for the carrot and the stick there would be no phone service outside of the city limits like there is no cable service there.

[nonconformist]

17. As a member of your "underclass"

Who quite enjoys shows like Desperate Housewives and Survivor, but is political and involved, I say your broad-brush holier-than-thou attitude sucks.

What makes one "worthy" of having cable TV and broadband to you?

[aquart]

3. What happens if the idiots do it?

I mean, aside from the instant disposal of all free market malarkey, what happens next? Television supports itself with advertising which sets its price by number of viewers. The number of viewers will drop off SHARPLY.

I mean, it's nice to advertise to millionaires, but what do they buy, really?

All this does is set up a rival to develop a technology for the underserved market. Poof! Bye Bell. Bye Verizon. Hello smarter entrepreneur.

Whoever heads those corps really needs to be beheaded.

[aquart]

4. Remember when they charged extra for a touch tone phone?

They got over that. I was one of the people who wouldn't have one until they did.

Sometimes companies just get really stupid. You know, like bribing congressmen to put a nice bonus for buying a Humvee into the tax legislation so people would buy lots of the expensive things. Instead of working on vehicles that could conserve fuel or use alternatives...

Want a Hummer?

[GrpCaptMandrake]

6. I remember it well

My Mom and Dad were the same way. We dialed, by God. And I respect that kind of stubborness.

There are people out there who still have dial-up for the same reasons.

It's the same thing that keeps me from adding channels to my "basic" cable.

[TexasProgresive]

10. You still get billed extra for touch tone.

I work for Verizon and every now and then I get a trouble report where the customer can't dial out. Sometimes it is because the requested basic service with no special features. If the clerk doesn't advised them about touch call they only have dial pulse and are unable to make calls because their instrument is set for tone.

[lostnfound]

7. Possible silver lining is lowering the startup costs

for new entrants into the market? Rolling out to entire large cities has got to be very expensive. Any chance this law would allow some smaller companies to get a foothold?

Well, not a chance, probably, because the laws will be written by the very biggest companies. Like the corporate media, the "lawmakers" are now just stenographers for the lobbyists.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Tempest in ye olde teapot...

a brazillion years ago the US got universal phone service because AT&T was given a monopoly over most of the country provided that everyone could get a phone. It took a while, but there are phone lines pretty much everywhere.

Swoop to today, where the cable companies are given local monopolies and have pretty much the same requirement to serve the entire community and not just cherrypick.

So the cable companies, with their monopoly, are able to give phone now and the phone companies want to break into the TV business. Without the TV monoply to spread the risk and gurantee profit, they're essentially screwed if they have to provide the hardware and then just hope everyone wants their product.

So they want to cherrypick. So what's the big deal? Ain't no poor people gonna be denied their soaps-- just they won't have the opportunity to figure out where they can get another hundred bucks a month or so for digital TV. broadband, and whatever else from another guy who wants to sell it to them.

[Armstead]

14. No -- You forget how heavily regulated the old phone monopolies were

You're missing a basic point of the modern economy.

Public utilities were granted monopolies, but they were highly regulated, in terms of how much profit they could make, their rates, etc.

Today, the modern day monopolists want the benefits of a monopoly, but without the public control over them through regulation and otehr forms of accountability.

Big difference.

[TreasonousBastard]

25. No monopolist ever wanted to be controlled, but...

they put up with it.

The old thinking was that with something like electricity, which required massive capital outlays and everyone would use, was something of a commodity and the most efficient way to provide it was with one provider whose rates and profits were regulated so it wouldn't go out of control. There were problems with that, but most of the time it worked.

The new thinking is simply bizarre. It's a mix of the free market and regulation where everyone seems to be out of control.

[Armstead]

26. That's what I meant

But there were also different kinds of utility monopolies. Some acted like pirates, but there were also those that were community-based and oriented to providing the universal service....Like local electric utilities people bought for a safe but not flashy nest egg.

Our once-local gas company got bought out by an out-of state corp. It quickly went from being a reasonable company to deal with to becoming gouging, mercenary bastards.

[Bridget Burke]

20. Yup, the poor people only watch "soaps"

Since soaps are shown during the day, when many "poor people" are at work, I doubt that's true.

Yesterday, I checked out Warner Cable's latest update on prices for their services. "Value" Digital is hardly more expensive than Basic & Standard Cable. But Digital offers real science & history channels, a better selection of non-English programming, several children's channels & other interesting options. (BET Jazz, anyone?)

And some of those "poor" people might be trying to get educated--so why should they NOT be able to get a high speed internet connection if they have the money. After all, they can sell one of their Cadillacs & cut back on the crack & meth!

Not all "poor" neighborhoods will remain poor. Yes, there is yuppie gentrification. But some of these people are trying to better themselves & their neighborhoods. Houston's 3rd Ward is a good example. If these areas are "redlined"--their future is limited.

[TreasonousBastard]

24. You miss my point...

that historically the highly regulated phone and cable services, electricity too, were designed to insure that the services were available to everyone regardless of location or income, which was, and still is, the proper way to do things.

The problem with the phone companies getting into the TV business is that they have a massive investment to make to offer their "competition" and they want some assurance that they will recover that investment, so they want to cherrypick. I lost DSL when I moved to the other side of my city simply because I'm now a mile further away from their station with the DSL equipment. I'm in a less affluent, but not poor, neighborhood and they don't see the return in building a new station just for my area. Since just about everyone here has either cable or satellite already, I don't see them building any new equipment for anything here any time soon.

The poorest neighborhoods in town are filled with the usual mix of working poor, public assistance, and gangbangers. They do have inexpensive phone and cable service available for them, as they should, but the question is whether the phone company should be forced to subsidize another new service for them.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

12. I cannot believe the cavalier attitudes displayed on this thread

Let's see if I can follow the logic here:

"It's only teevee for which I display an elitist disdain, and it's only being denied to poor folks who are lazy sit-on-their-asses who only want their soaps, so it's okay to discriminate against them so long as someone else will make money off it. Anyway, those poor people should be out in the streets clamoring for whatever political cause I think is right for them, so they don't deserve broadband, it'll just makes them lazier. Basic cable and dial-up internet are good enough for me, so screw the lazy poor."

Do I have that right?

[Armstead]

13. You are correct. Those are the attitudes of freepers

Let big business screw the poor and working classes.

Heck, if they can;t afford fuel, let 'em wear more sweaters.

When you make the basic system for delivering information into just anotehr dog-eat-dog commodity, you are limiting a basic form of infrastructure -- information -- to the elite.

[nonconformist]

15. That's how I'm reading it too.

:mad:

[Taxloss]

16. This would do long-term economic harm.

It's neglect for infrastructure. Imagine if no railways were built west because "there aren't enough people living there". Duh. Same principle.

[Armstead]

19. That was what happend with electricity

The utilities didn't want to build in less populated rural areas,l but they also wanted to prevent the government from doing it.

[TahitiNut]

21. It's funny how corporations have not been at all shy about ...

... claiming they're far more able to deliver services cost-effectively if the government merely turns over the publicly-financed infrastructure to them. Their privatization claims are every bit as fraudulently self-serving as their refusal to make long term investments in the national infrastructure in the first place. It's funny how they claim to be more cost-effective but are the very first to whine when government pays skilled workers at levels above the slave wages that permit corporations to profit from labor. It's funny how the aluminum companies were so happy to profit from the cheap electricity from Grand Coulee Dam ... but are now finding that dealing in derivatives (selling their power 'rights') is more profitable than actually producing aluminum.

[porphyrian]

23. What about this...?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-09-29-broadband-socket_x.htm