Incumbents Blocking Broadband Stimulus Efforts Because They Don't Like Competition
from the leave-us-alone dept
Back when the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus plan was announced, we were a bit worried that it was really just a bailout plan for incumbent broadband providers. The focus of the plan was on "shovel ready" projects in an attempt to create jobs, and that generally meant incumbent providers who could hire a lot of people. The last thing the government wanted to do in the middle of a recession was help fund an innovative startup that would disrupt a big employer. But there was one interesting aspect of the stimulus package: it suggested that anyone taking the government money would have to share access to infrastructure -- something that makes a lot of sense, if you're encouraging competition.But, of course, the incumbents don't want competition at all. They've based their entire business models on the very lack of competition in the marketplace. So, it quickly became clear that they would not only resist taking any of the money, but they would actively seek to block upstarts from taking it as well. And... that's exactly what appears to be happening. lavi d points us to the news that lots of smaller companies are applying for the federal funds, and (surprise, surprise) the incumbents are not applying for the funds at all, but are drafting legislation in various local governments to prevent any upstart competitors from getting those funds. So, not only is it not stimulating the creation of jobs, it's not really providing much more broadband or competition.
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Filed Under: broadband, broadband stimulus, competition, incumbents
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or how about the jobs created by people running those businesses. even if these new "web based businesses" employ only the owner, those owners will still need to buy groceries, pay electric bills, have cars serviced, have packages shipped and delivered, have books books kept, and roofs repaired.
helping businesses compete, especially small ones, is just about always a net win for the economy.
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Regulatory lock in makes it easier to define what you get in a market space in terms of jobs and economic activity (good for gov't planning), but it's invariably less than what the chaotic free market would allow.
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Re: Competition and Increased Jobs
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well, they're stimulating lawyers
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Nonsense...
But just THINK of all the paralegals the lawyers and lobbyists drafting that legislation will be hiring! That's NEW work that wouldn't have needed to be done if there were no stimulus legislation to legislate against through legislation....Okay, now I've gone cross-eyed....
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This is EXACTLY why Google's attempts will fail too
Upstarts don't have the funds to deal with the corrupt people, and they don't have the funds to compete with the big guys where corruption isn't an issue.
Utilities such as phone, cable, and internet feed a lot of money back into the city and county budgets. All the incumbant has to do is reduce the money they are willing to give back to the city if the city allows competition in. In the short term that loss of revenue really hurts the city budget, and in the long term competition is good for the citizens but shatters long term revenue for the city and overall the city and the citizens are hurt.
And since the overall revenue fed back to the city will be less no matter how many competitors they allow in or how many subscribers they gain the city still loses.
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Re: This is EXACTLY why Google's attempts will fail too
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Solution
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Incumbents Blocking Broadband Stimulus Efforts Because They Don't Like Competition
To stick to the subject the incumbents really need to worry about the next election in the US. I am personally voting against every incumbent in my district. It's time to put new blood in Washington. It's time to get some politicians who feel indebted to their people rather than being indebted to lobbyists for Insurance companies.
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Re: Incumbents Blocking Broadband Stimulus Efforts Because They Don't Like Competition
A friend of mine sums it up pretty accurately, no matter how extreme left or right the person you elect are before the election, they are forced into the middle through compromising to get even some of the things they want accomplished.
Our system is Broken here in the US, but there is no way to really fix the mess we have either. It's a self feeding disaster that is geared only towards self preservation. The only fix would be to totally dismantle the entire mess and start from scratch which hasn't happened since 1776.
And even that cannot happen because the self serving engine is in control of all the massive firepower too.
When the founding fathers seperated Church from State they should have also seperated the military from the Church AND the state too.
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Succession isn't an option
Texas signed away it's right of succession in exchange for something a number of years back. I'd need to do research to find out what it was that they did this for. And Texas was the ONLY state with that as an option.
Economically Texas is the only state with the resources to survive on it's own, and even that is marginal at best, and depends on the population as a whole staying in Texas. If Texas did manage to succeed from the Union a huge amount of it's residence would leave. Most of us aren't born Texans, and while we live here we aren't willing to suffer for a few die hard rednecks.
There are actually something like 13 states that have succession proceedings going on, and in all cases it's nothing more than a political statement to the US Government that is absolutely toothless.
These proceedings are about as affective as putting a "Vote for XYZZY" sign in your front yard and adding "or else" to the bottom of the sign.
The only way that a state is going to withdraw from the Union successfully is going to be through a Civil War, and Americans have been bred to be week and cowardly when it comes to our own Government which works in their favor. And If a state was to grow enough of a backbone to even attempt, no state in the Union has the military resources to fight the US Military even after the small minority of the soldiers willing to stand against orders on principal were removed.
BUT THERE is hope sorta. I read an article a few years ago that spoke of world powers, and how power is always a balance. In that article it talked about how right now the US is the dominant power, and can sustain that power through military force for about 50-75 years before we develop enough "resistance" to balance the world against us. Once enough countries unite against us the US will be overthrown and a new leader will take it's place.
It's some cycle that somehow repeats it's self over history and one of the recent examples used was Hitler, and how the world united to overthrow him....
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Re: Succession isn't an option
States' rights were originally intended to be every bit as important and viable as those of the central government, to act as a balance to keep it from getting out of hand. Too bad most states have forgotten that. In some ways we might be better off without a bloated central machine and instead relying on more local governance.
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quite the opposite
and this my friends would be as they say the end for those not being google in and for there users.
this move is a block by greedy old farts who need a bigger golf course and a diamond made golf cart and adamantium golf clubs
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It worked in the 90s
The problems were -
Engineers who know how to build systems, but not run a business-
The Big Boy club that was too hard headed to take advice
The greedy who were only in to make a quick buck and exit
Wall Street who crushes customer service and development budgets in favor of quick profits
David vs Goliath legal departments
Now, if we could solve all of those problems, it could be our ticket out of the mess we're in - just like it was the last time.
Even if we can't solve those problems, it could give us a jump start that would last a few years at least before it fell apart.
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How dare a company try to protect thier market
The idea of Broadband Stimulus was not to only put people to work but further develop broadband availability to underserviced/unserviced areas of our great county. Many of the grant/loan request submitted simply do not meet the sustainability requirement so they demand a piece of the incumbent’s service area. That doesn’t do anything for rural America and progress. Ask yourselves do the Chicago suburbs or City of Philadelphia really need another broadband operator. If so the money would be available to them through other means to build plant not the tax payers.
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Too much Competition
I will grant you that the AT&T MFJ seems to have worked admirably but I don’t think you have your facts straight as for the 45,000 jobs lost by consolidation. The telecom market became super heated in 2009, over saturated by competition then reality set. The consolidation was a result of the lack of sustainability by too much competition and naïve investors that pushed it over the cliff. Since then industry corrected itself without government intervention. Granted the fast and rich times of World Comm and Adelphia are but a memory but I think many of those people are still in prison.
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Re: Too much Competition
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When the government passed this stimulus they should have anticipated (and probably did anticipate) that broadband providers will simply get local governments to draft legislation against it. So the stimulus bill should have naturally included provisions to prevent such local laws from blocking it.
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