[IP] Re: Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ken Kousky <kkousky@ip3inc.com>
Date: April 4, 2007 1:43:45 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: RE: [IP] Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill

A great parallel can be found in the Federal governments E-Rate  
efforts to
assure high speed internet access to all schools. What a boondoggle!!

Working with the public schools in St. Louis I saw first hand how the  
public
paid higher taxes on their phones to insure broadband to the schools.  
Funds
were given to the schools - millions! What every school in St. Louis  
ended
up with was a wire closet of expensive Cisco gear and high speed  
internet
terminating at each school. The money to the schools all went back to  
the
phone companies. The bandwidth ended in the closet since there was
inadequate networking in the schools and few if any computers to  
connect to
the net. Yes we had bandwidth, but there was no internet services  
since you
still needed computers and trained faculty. The phone lobby was  
successful
in adding a tax that was completely recycled to them. The money was all
channeled back to pay for idle capacity so their networks didn't even  
have
to carry extra load.

It's likely that this effort for rural broadband will generate  
millions of
dollars in lobbying fees. It is an important source for funding  
presidential
campaigns. It has little to do with the needs of the rural  
communities and
the constructive application of technology but telecom is one of the  
biggest
industries and we need their dollars in the campaign funds.

This is not to say we should ignore rural access.

In terms of Homeland Security it is vital that we connect the remote
communities more effectively.

Any serious risk analysis would place a pandemic right up there with  
a dirty
bomb as a high impact threat.

First responders in a bird flu pandemic are not likely to be law
enforcement, fire departments or the military. If bird flu crosses  
over it
will first be seem by elementary school teachers in farming communities
(chicken and turkey farms specifically) and showing up in young  
children and
the elderly.

Rural access requires two-way communications to these first  
responders but
that will take a lot more than just bandwidth. Getting the money to  
these
schools for computers, staff training and online support programs is far
more important than the bandwidth issue but there are no major  
election year
lobby funds to place this first and foremost on the public agenda.

Regards
Ken Kousky

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 7:00 PM
To: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: [IP] Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill



Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Preiss <michael.preiss@earthlink.net>
Date: April 3, 2007 5:38:29 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill

If this isn't a government boondoggle - and a giant double-BOHICA for
the rest of America - in the making, I don't know what is.  If this
bill comes to pass, it won't be the broadband providers who pay for
this initiative, it will be their customers, in the form of some type
of surcharge or user fee.  Or perhaps the Dems will be bold enough to
call it what it really is - a tax.

Will service providers really obtain ROIs worth their time and money
by spending hundreds of millions of dollars building infrastructure
and capacity (in some cases) in places that have a smaller
concentration of people per square mile than space contains oxygen
molecules?  Are the "beneficiaries" of this bill going to be able to
afford to pay for the service?  Do they have computers?  Can they
afford computers if they don't already have them?  Maybe there needs
to be a tax placed on computers so we can subsidize the manufacturing
of computers for people who can't afford or don't want them.  As if
we don't have enough hands in our pockets already.

What I mentioned in the previous paragraph was only the BOHICA.  How
this is going to be mismanaged is a combination of a boondoggle and
the second BOHICA.  First, what the heck does the Department of
Agriculture know about broadband, communications and the economics of
that industry?  I don't think too much.  Does it make any sense
whatsoever to build the same level of incapabilities within the DOA -
which is what I hope happens to this bill - that already exists
within another bloated government agency, the FCC?  I don't think so.

Now we have another needless bureaucracy in the making, inside an
existing needless bureaucracy that already contains more pork than a
pig farm has pigs, that's going to need funding.  The government sure
isn't going to rob Peter to pay Paul.  It's going to rob us, the
taxpayers.  We are going to be socked with having to pay to fund the
initiative for service providers and for the bureaucrats to provide
undersight, mismanagement and corruption.

Looking at this from another angle, this bill could be a bluebird for
those ISPs that use satellite technology to deliver their services.
They already have the delivery channels.  Could the existence of
satellite technology negate the need for Clinton's bill?  Could
Clinton's bill begin an argument that satellite providers must share
- or sell at a sizable discount - their bandwidth with ISPs who don't
use satellite technology but want to sell their services to the rural
market?

There are definitely many facets to this jewel-less gem of an issue.


David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: April 2, 2007 8:02:01 PM EDT
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy@warpspeed.com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill
>
> Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill
>
>     Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) introduced legislation on Friday
> entitled The Rural Broadband Initiatives Act (S.1032). According to
> a statement from Senator Clinton, this legislation "will extend and
> improve access to broadband services in small towns across
> America."  The bill would establish an Office of Rural Broadband
> Initiatives within the Department of Agriculture. It would also
> establish a Rural Broadband Innovation fund to explore and develop
> cutting edge broadband delivery technologies to reach underserved
> rural areas.
>
> <http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=271662&&;>
>
> -------------------------------------------



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