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Bush and Co. Poops On Free National Wi-Fi
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Bush and Co. Poops On Free National Wi-Fi |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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When you put anything in the hands of the state and make it "free" (meaning, you still pay but with taxes...it'll just FEEL free), the quality of service goes in the toilet.
A call to the "Dept. of Wireless Internet" to complain about the shitty wi-fi signal in your area will be the equivalent of a complaint to an MTA employee because you just missed your subway, or you just lost your Metrocard.
After that, since everyone is taking advantage of the free shitty internet, all of the companies that were charging you for it (the same companies you could hold accountable when shit went wrong) would have no incentive to a actually carry the service since nothing beats the price of "free" and their entire high-speed internet business disappears because it's no longer profitable.
Thus, the nation is left with free shitty wireless that everyone uses and nobody cares to maintain because there's no incentive to do so since there's no profit involved.
Take away the profit, you take away the quality. That, my friends, is why socialism is bad. Not evil, but just bad. That said, I hope we can figure out socialized medicine because I think we can agree that going broke because you can't pay for chemo is worse than dealing with shitty internet....right?....right?
the end.
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So, are you Carl Lewis, or did you just steal his comment?
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No one would be FORCED to do anything. It would be a government contract handed to the lowest bidder. Also, this would not be government run. You guys should really read the article.
The government would pay a private company to provide a service to people in the rural areas. It's a pretty straightforward deal when you think about it. But hey, kneejerk reactions are so much more fun, so why bother?
12/12/08
What is amusing to me is that this range of frequencies will basically have sweet spots and I'm guessing the top and bottom 12.5% of the spectrum will be reserved for this government service. It will ensure poorer reception, and encourage people to "pay" for the service.
(Ever notice why the station in the middle of your radio spectrum seems to get the best reception?)
12/12/08
Free libraries, as another source of information, weren't started by the government either. It was Andrew Carnegie and his steel money. Let Google pay for the free wifi, not our tax dollars.
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Why is it that conservatives believe charity is giving your own money, while a liberal believes charity is forcing someone else to give theirs?
12/12/08
Quick cheat sheet for you:
A conservative (as Goldwater might represent) American political viewpoint would align with:
- low spending by government
- less government regulation of industry, labor and commerce
- less government intrusion into people's lives: their religion, sexual preferences, gun cabinet
- avoidance of foreign wars and international alliances
- reliance on older, proven methodologies as less risky
- a perception that new ideas are inherently risky and unproven
A liberal(as Kennedy might represent) American political viewpoint would align with:
- a belief that government has a positive role to play in people's lives
- that commerce, industry and labor require some regulation
- that affirmative action today helps balance the inequalities and degradations experienced by marginalized minorities in the past
- that the USA has a positive role to play in the worldwide balance of power
- a perception that new ideas represent progress, and older methodologies must stay current with the times
There's nothing about "charity" there. I think your comment is echoing the "I don't want my tax dollars spent on [something I don't like]." And maybe that's what you're referring to as "charity". For example, my childless friend might vote against a mill levy to fund a teacher pay increase and music programs, seeing it as a giveaway of his money to overpaid union teachers and sniveling kids that someone else decided to have. I (also childless), however vote for it, and see it as a giveaway of my money to my community to see that the kids in the neighborhood have the kind of motivated teachers and learning programs that will make them more productive and law-abiding members of society. One of us is selfish and lacks empathy, the other is magnanimous and empathetic. One of us is conservative and the other is liberal. Can you guess which is which? Which one is being more "charitable"?
12/12/08
No.
You hear liberals all the time talking about raising people's taxes (or raising taxes on the "wealthy") and giving it to the poor because we need to help the poor. That would fall into your "a belief that government has a positive role to play in people's lives" category.
Where as conservatives say leave my money alone. I don't want the government taking my money to "help" anyone. Which would fall into your "less government intrusion into people's lives / low spending by government" type of category.
Yet, conservatives typically give more of their own money to charity. Why is that? Why are the "compassionate" liberals more apt to NOT give money unless the government does it for them?
12/12/08
If you live 6-7 miles outside the city, you can't get broadband period (outside of satellite).
12/12/08
Your argument is that because you don't have a choice with who provides your service, you should get government mandated wifi for free?
I know someone who lives in downtown Seattle who can't get cable or satellite, they can only get DSL. Should they get free wifi too because they have a lack of choice?
12/12/08
i dont think he's saying the government should provide wifi to him for free.
likely a national wifi network wouldn't cover my area - there are too few residents (maybe one per mile of road) and the mountains, with their torrential rain storms and treefalls and such make installing and maintaining new infrastructure virtually impossible.
and let us not forget, things provided by the government aren't 'free' - it's just that you've already been coerced into paying for it through taxes.
that goes for healthcare, too.
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Now, the readers whining about a "government-run" Wi-Fi won't have any excuses to post what is technically known in scientific circles as n amounts of douchebaggery cock.
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Plus, is there a proven technology for this band for such use currently?
I understand that we already subsidize phone/cable access for rural areas both at the Federal and Telecom levels. The telcos are basically required to provide service, and as such high density population areas subsidize the outlays for providing service to remote areas. I imagine the infrastructure cost (hardware not cabling) is probably steadily decreasing over time, but I'm not sure how much of that existing infrastructure is still being paid for, etc.
I just think that most areas at this do actually have broadband available, even if it isn't great for some uses (games).
12/12/08
Honestly, I really don't want the government involved in providing Internet access. At least not the Federal Government.
Could someone give me an example of a rural area without broadband access within the US? They pretty much effectively do not exist at this time.
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yeah dude. my house. 24k baud dialup is the only option. no 3G, no cable, no dish, and the lines are too far from the hub for DSL.
then again i live 14 miles from the nearest town (which only has 8000 people)
it's faster for me to drive 20 minutes into town, surf on coffeshop wifi for 20 minutes, and drive back - an hour of dialup would accomplish 1/10 as much.
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because i live in the middle of a redwood forest. the house is on a hill and so surrounded by 200+ ft trees that you can't see my house on google earth.
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have you actually looked at broadband access availability in the us? my guess is no. there is still a very large area that doesn't even have access to cable tv much less broadband, and the satellite as we all know is a joke and even that doesn't work everywhere.
and why would free broadband be bad for anyone. of course it wouldn't be the best out there. for those that complain, buy the speeds you want from existing carriers. this would have little to no impact on people with ready access to real broadband.
12/12/08
And wireless likely wouldn't penetrate the trees that well either.
12/12/08
Also looks like the local telephone co-op offers some sort of DSL service in the area?
12/12/08
Have you looked at satellite recently? You can get 1.5 megabit service from them at this time, and it isn't a joke. It's just a little slow to begin the initial connection. If you utilize the caching service response speed increases dramatically.
Otherwise you can expect round-trip response times between 400 and 900 ms on average. Not good for games, but the bandwidth available would still be better than the proposed wireless coverage I'm guessing.
So, what you're saying is you believe satellite to be a joke. And no I'm not referring to the old Satellite down, phone-line up service. I know that DirecWay has satellite only up/down service available. One can even purchase a heated dish (really damn expensive) if one wants. Or, you know, have built-in phoneline service for dial-backup.
Nothing like working to manage a 1400 store base spread out across the country (97% of which were satellite based and reliable) to educate you about connectivity alternatives, ways to improve service response, and reliability.
12/12/08
look I could scale a tree and do that, but at 250', the sway at the tip of a redwood is somewhere around 2 feet in any direction when the wind is blowing. I've been at the top of one and 'rode' it pretty wildly before.
that's me, im a tree rodeo-er.
12/12/08
satellite does offer good throughput, and i could certainly deal with the latency, but again, can't fix a signal, so we're screwed.
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Can you get 2.5 or 2.0g wireless there?
12/12/08
im at work in the city. i never comment or even go online at home, it's too painful.
12/12/08
i probably COULD get some sort of signal for shitty wireless through a cell tower, but the price and the data caps make it pretty useless, not being able to torrent for me means not really using the net. $60 a month just to browse quickly isn't worth it.
12/12/08
I would like national free internet about as much as I like standing in line at the DMV.
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A lot of the problem lies in the system. It takes freaking forever to get anything done, and one hangup along the way can kill an idea off. We're still going to be dealing with that until the system is streamlined. The second Obama takes office, it's not going to be all sunshine and roses instantly like so many people seem to think it is.
This "change", if it happens at all, will happen over an excruciatingly long period of time, and only then in small bits.
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" FCC wants to set a condition for the winner: Reserve one quarter of the spectrum for a free nation-wide Wi-Fi service for rural areas which don't have internet access, therefore making the web available for everyone-like in the rest of the world-and not letting the US lag behind."
Bush is against this. Obama, would clearly be for it. If Bush squashed it Obama, by most indicators would be likely to reverse that decision. What part did you miss?
12/12/08
Couldn't get his idiotic ass out of there soon enough.
Let's hear the defenses now, Repukes. You fucking idiots.
12/12/08
I just want to see what gadgetplay and rabidpenguin have to say about your comment. oh, and the article too.
12/12/08
Then again, you've been removed from posting. Have a nice day.
12/12/08
I'm not about to defend everything W has done, but I will say the more government is out of my life the better.
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He never said we were freer from the government now than we were eight years ago. It sounded to me like he was merely saying he's for limited government and agrees Bush's decision on THIS topic because he believes it promotes limited government.
Either way, there's no need to be such an ass.