[HN Gopher] The FCC Is Taking Steps to Wind Down the Affordable ...
___________________________________________________________________
The FCC Is Taking Steps to Wind Down the Affordable Connectivity
Program
Author : _delirium
Score : 136 points
Date : 2024-01-27 03:50 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fcc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fcc.gov)
| gurchik wrote:
| The wind down period is a bit complicated so it's worth pointing
| it out.
|
| If you're already on the ACP, you will continue to receive the
| benefit until the funds run out, which is probably April unless
| Congress adds more funds which may not happen.
|
| If you're not already on the ACP, you still have a chance to
| enroll. You can send in an application until Feb 7, 11:59 pm ET,
| and if approved, you will have the opportunity to sign up with
| your local ISP. After completing _both_ steps, you will then
| receive the benefit until April as said before.
| silisili wrote:
| I'm not going to opine on the program itself or who it serves,
| but they are -way- too loose with the money IMO.
|
| I make plenty, and still had my child's school, my ISP, cell
| phone carrier, and others browbeating me into applying. I even
| told them I didn't know much about it, but think I probably don't
| qualify, and they kinda imply 'oh theres other ways.' I did
| qualify, because my daughter's school is a CEP school. Out of
| curiosity I did as they were instructing, and sure enough it was
| approved without issue. Why? What's in it for my ISP and cell
| provider to give me a discount? Were they receiving more back in
| kickbacks?
|
| I didn't renew because ultimately I felt guilty, but have to
| wonder how many people who didn't need it took advantage.
|
| On the plus side, it did allow me to keep Comcast's "secret"
| $30/mo plan, that they let me keep after it expired.
| chii wrote:
| > What's in it for my ISP and cell provider to give me a
| discount? Were they receiving more back in kickbacks?
|
| the person you're talking to probably earned a commission or
| bonus based on how many they can convince to sign up.
|
| This is what happens to gov't incentive programs - the cash and
| value generation is distorted.
|
| Look at how homelessness problems in california is not solved,
| despite paying more than some $200k per homeless person in
| subsidies and grants. This is more than most (or any) job
| would've paid to that person. And yet, it fails to achieve
| anything of note, because the value generation (taxation) is
| _not_ aligned with the value recipient (which is not the
| homeless person, but the various orgs that spring up to eat the
| value while attempting to prolong the gov't subsidy/grant).
|
| Have a watch of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNxQ8JWxWMA
| WesternWind wrote:
| Actually helping people who have become homeless is like two
| steps away from what it should be, of course. One step in the
| right directly would be more homelessness prevention (there's
| some, but not nearly enough). Two steps would be systemic
| changes so housing was more easily affordable.
|
| That said, I had dinner tonight with a formerly unhoused
| person here in SF, who is now living her life successfully
| because of that help, has an apartment, is paying bills, etc.
|
| So while you think it fails to achieve anything of note, I
| think the problem would be a heck of a lot worse without it.
| nielsbot wrote:
| I also think people be overly concerned with the
| "moochers". that said we should still dedicate resources to
| make sure programs are applied fairly and not taken
| advantage of.
| rocqua wrote:
| I love basic income for this. It prevents needing to
| solve any kind of missuse since everyone is supposed to
| get it.
| largbae wrote:
| A noble dream solution, but even in this case there will
| be folks who try to collect the UBI of others in addition
| to their own.
| chefandy wrote:
| Not all, but many of these concerns are drummed up by
| people that want to add every conceivable resistance to
| wealth redistribution possible, and the rubes that
| believe their fabricated justification. Drug testing for
| food and housing assistance is a great example. A
| fraction of the amount of money spent gets "saved" and
| the rare addict thrown off will probably cost the system
| more money as a homeless addict. Ultimately, it comes
| down to contempt for people who have less, and wanting to
| see them humiliated.
| ponow wrote:
| Yes, wealth redistribution is genteel theft and should be
| thwarted at every turn.
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Please stop hitting that straw man. My hay fever's
| starting to play up.
| sha2468 wrote:
| An effective test for determining if reading an opinion
| is a waste of your time is: watch for language that
| assigns an explanation to the behavior of others.
|
| Basically: they don't describe what happened. They
| describe how other people are less good.
|
| "These concerns are drummed up by people who what to add
| every conceivable resistance to wealth redistribution
| possible"
|
| Not the language of an open hearted soul. I'm going to
| default to "unconvincing argument" as the infinitely more
| plausible explanation.
| chefandy wrote:
| > watch for language that assigns an explanation to the
| behavior of others.
|
| K
|
| > Not the language of an open hearted soul.
|
| Found some.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Amazing the number of people on HN who dislike any
| measure of helping those less fortunate.
| whythre wrote:
| If what you consider evil is standing in the way of
| Marxist utopia, well bud, I think you have your moral
| heuristic exactly, murderously wrong.
| kiba wrote:
| We shoulda leave words like Marxist utopia out of
| conversations, even communism and capitalism. It shortcut
| people's thinking.
|
| That said, welfare programs are probably more efficient
| if they applied more broadly to society as opposed to
| adding paperwork barriers to people applying for aids.
| chefandy wrote:
| Evil is a useless term unless you're discussing fictional
| super villains or religion. If you think basic assistance
| is a Marxist utopia, well bud, I think you need to look
| utopia up in the dictionary and learn what Marxism is
| from a different source than Newsmax.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| actually the moochers wear business clothing.. the actual
| homeless are often damaged and addicted people who are
| stuck in hell loops
| gopher_space wrote:
| The majority of homeless people are at work or in school
| during the daytime. The people you see on the street are
| the tip of an enormous iceberg.
| EasyMark wrote:
| California's failures are part of throwing money at something
| with no feedback loop to kill off unsuccessful strategies
| (like a lot of government programs). California is too lax on
| enforcement side. If you don't have the ability to take drug
| addicts and mentally ill off the street and put them in
| therapeutic programs nothing will ever happen because those
| are 80-90% of the chronically homeless, the systems will
| absorb whatever money you throw at it and there will never be
| any positive results.
| specialist wrote:
| > _despite paying more than some $200k per homeless_
|
| And yet we're told universal basic income is too expensive.
|
| Give People Money [2018] https://www.amazon.com/Give-People-
| Money-Universal-Revolutio...
|
| Am policy noob, so I don't know how to articulate this
| properly:
|
| I support whatever social safety net wrap around services
| people may need.
|
| But I don't support our top-down welfare bureaucracy. When a
| mere fraction of our spending benefits the actual people in
| need, wtf are we doing.
|
| How I usually phrase it:
|
| Help people help themselves. Then help those who can't.
|
| (Rant over, thanks for listening.)
| underlipton wrote:
| >When a mere fraction of our spending benefits the actual
| people in need, wtf are we doing.
|
| Giving jobs to the people "worthy" of a non-profit position
| (unemployable anywhere else). Which isn't to say that non-
| profits are particularly useless, just that a large swath
| of jobs in the US are just there so that someone's friend
| or family member or neighbor won't become destitute. If
| you're not in the network? Tough luck.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I don't know about ACP, but its sister program Lifeline pays
| for signups. That's why here in Chicago's South Side there is
| someone giving away phones and tablets on every street
| corner. Really.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >I didn't renew because ultimately I felt guilty, but have to
| wonder how many people who didn't need it took advantage.
|
| Honest people finish dead last in the race that is life. The
| winners are people who know where to draw the line between
| honesty and God Damn Lies(tm).
|
| I say that as another fellow honest person (or at least I like
| to think I am...).
| vasco wrote:
| There's a race?
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| You nailed it in three words. Bravo.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Kind of four words, though... lol
| silisili wrote:
| Oh, you're absolutely right about that. With the rise of
| slumlords, crypto bros, etc. in the last few years it's been
| a test. At times I think about the ways I could have 'made
| it' less than ethically.
|
| At the end of the day we all end up in a pine box. And if I'd
| taken advantage of people for money, it'd probably keep me up
| at night feeling guilty. Heck I felt guilty accepting money
| back from people I'd loaned it to that needed it.
|
| I like to think there's enough of 'us suckers' to keep
| society as a whole running functionally, and don't want to
| know if not :).
| GreenWatermelon wrote:
| One of the benefits of having religious beliefs is the
| piece of mind that comes with knowing that someone is
| keeping note of those sacrifices I make, and the life is
| especially not a race, and finishing dead last in the money
| race does not mean losing.
|
| So yeah, we aren't suckers, and without us our civilization
| will collapse.
| 0134340 wrote:
| That's such a naive take and insulting to those who
| haven't encountered any believable gods. You're implying
| those without religious beliefs are holding society
| together when it's proven that in nature that even birds
| have a sense of fairness. Even without belief in gods,
| birds will 'take note' when other birds receive food non-
| proportionately[0]. That's not even mentioning how
| religion has been used in the past to tear societies
| apart as well as individuals. Once again, I get tired of
| having to defend secularism from this special snowflake-
| ism, virtue-signalling and self-righteousness that
| pervades the religious mindset. You do things animals do,
| be careful in thinking you're much better than we are.
|
| 0: https://www.oipa.org/international/animals-sense-of-
| fairness
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Honest people finish dead last in the race that is life.
| The winners are people who know where to draw the line
| between honesty and God Damn Lies(tm).
|
| It depends on what race you're running. The problem is
| letting the con artists define the race - for money, for
| power. If you are running for something else, the cons are
| the ones that are losing. For some reason, our society defers
| to the cons, especially these days.
|
| The cons disparage honesty because it doesn't work in their
| race - how can you be an effective con if you act honestly? -
| and they don't understand how to operate it; they've
| accumulated skills and habits in manipulation, not honesty
| (which takes skill and experience to do effectively in real
| life situations).
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The biggest thing is the ISP is making money the customer isn't
| hurting for. So their total profits are higher, and they might
| even be able to raise your rates with some nonsense junk fees,
| but because the government is footing part of the bill, you
| don't care as much/tolerate it.
|
| The ACP has the same problem our healthcare often does: Rather
| than forcing corporations not to fleece people, the government
| foots the bill and gets fleeced itself instead.
|
| The US government seems unwilling or unable to just put their
| foot down and say "you're charging too much, and we're putting
| a stop to that".
| jtbayly wrote:
| The largest gov run health care programs tell providers
| exactly what they will pay. What are you on about?
| ufo wrote:
| They're arguing that the USA doesn't do that, but should.
| fnimick wrote:
| Then why is Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices
| instead of being required to pay the list price such a big
| deal?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It sets a subsidized price floor preventing true competition
| that would naturally offer cheap plans. It's ridiculous that
| you can't buy sub-$50 plans in many markets.
| tzs wrote:
| A program that started in 2021 is responsible for the lack of
| cheap plans?
| Operyl wrote:
| I
| EasyMark wrote:
| how would those companies browbeating you know that you "make
| plenty". The program needs a policy revision not "lets cut poor
| people off internet". They would expect honest people not to
| take them up on the offer if they making plenty of money. It's
| called being part of a society and knowing you're taking money
| from a program being targeted at the poor.
| underlipton wrote:
| People forget that ISPs took billions in government money a few
| decades ago to fund a broadband rollout (and the attendant drop
| in prices) that never happened. Overall costs aside, as an
| individual, any discount like this is just someone putting back
| money in your pocket that should never have been taken out in
| the first place.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| The ISPs themselves only recieve the amount from the FCC of
| your discount. The advantage to the ISP of enrolling everyone
| they can in the program is stability. They get that money every
| month, wether you lose your job and can't pay or you just
| forget to pay. Maybe thats not a rsik for you, but the ISP has
| enough customers for whom that is a risk, that marketing it to
| everyone is well worth it.
|
| I don't know why the school would push ot so jard, except
| making sure that everyone who needs it gets on it so they jave
| internet at home. Schools do push everyone to apply for the
| Free and Reduced lunch program, wether they need it or not,
| because there are many other funding programs tied to it. I
| don't know of any programs tied to the ACP directly, though.
| aetch wrote:
| If you think $30 is low, wait until you find out about
| Comcast's fixed rate secret $10/mo plan that you can ask them
| for.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| I looked into this for a relative and the ACP provider space is
| full of scammy looking companies that don't appear to offer much
| above what is already offered by the Lifeline program. The big
| providers also participate in the program and unless you
| absolutely have no money for a monthly fee, seem to be the way to
| go instead of with the questionable resellers that fit their fee
| into the ACP subsidy completely. And don't get me started on the
| "low cost" trash devices they're selling for a "co-pay of $10".
| The program is good in theory but the implementation feels like
| it is coated in a thick layer of pond scum.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I'm confused by this. As someone who has set up dozens of
| released prisoners with ACP, I think you are wrong.
|
| With Lifeline, in my neighborhood, you have a dozen scammy
| people on every street corner giving you a free phone or
| tablet, sometimes with no fees, other times they charge you
| (whether this is legal I don't know). These devices all come
| with only 15GB/mo of data which the ex-cons use up on YouTube
| or PornHub within the first three days of each month and then
| have no data to do anything essential with.
|
| With ACP I can go into any cellphone store, Cricket, Metro,
| etc, get them a real 5G unlimited plan and decent phone for
| $40/mo, take off the $30/mo for ACP and off they go. All they
| have to do is make sure they find the $10 to keep their plan
| every month and, believe me, they want that porn to keep
| coming...
| cowpig wrote:
| I'd be interested to see some kind of economic analysis of this
| program.
|
| On its face, the government subsidizing a for-profit company that
| has a monopoly seems like a terrible idea. Comcast already
| extracts monopolistic profits and thus captures as much of the
| economic surplus as possible.
|
| Given that, price caps make a lot more sense to me. That's what
| has worked for utilities in general. If there's only one
| producer, they should be negotiating with one consumer.
|
| But maybe I don't see the whole picture. Did the subsidy
| agreements work as a carrot to entire Comcast to lower its prices
| for enough residents that it was a net benefit? Are the positive
| externalities of a connected population worth the cost? Did this
| program work in some other way than subsidy?
|
| Would love to learn more about this if anyone has good sources
| zbrozek wrote:
| In California we have the CPUC which regulates utilities. Our
| three biggest utilities charge around 3x the national average
| for electricity. The largest--PG&E--has also been setting the
| state on fire and blowing up neighborhoods.
|
| It doesn't seem like this model works either.
| Retric wrote:
| The actual implementation matters, when a bridge fails the
| issue isn't bridges it's the design of that specific bridge.
|
| As the model works fine in other locations, fixing
| California's issues with mismanagement/poor incentives should
| be the priority not simply giving up.
| hedora wrote:
| For example, for PG&E, the root cause of them blowing up
| that neighborhood was that the money that was supposed to
| go to upgrading the gas lines was embezzled and they faked
| the repair logs for the repairs.
|
| Now, we have no idea which lines were repaired and not.
| Since this started decades ago, they have to dig up and
| inspect a huge number of lines.
|
| Anyway, "mismanagement/poor incentives" is leaving out a
| lot of details involving graft and corruption, and
| malicious local governments.
|
| For an example of corrupt/malicious local regulators: the
| Golden Gate Bridge maintenance road they recently built in
| Marin cost more than the bridge (inflation adjusted) and
| took longer to plan + build as well.
| bushbaba wrote:
| What i dont get is that you have a private company which
| mis managed its assets. Caused harm to the public. And
| the public bails them out with no equity or upside. Total
| shame as the CPUC could have demanded the state or rate
| payers get equity/bonds in the company for the bail out.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The USA basically has one politically viable solution to
| every problem it faces: "handing money to corporations."
| That's all Congress and States are willing to do.
| Electric utility graft and corruption? Hand them money.
| Banking failure? Hand them money. Airplanes falling
| apart? Hand them money. Health Care incentives
| misaligned? Hand them money. Poverty? Hand money to
| corporations that will embezzle most of it. People out of
| work during COVID? Hand their employers money. Top
| corporations getting too big and powerful? Believe it or
| not, hand them money. That's the only tool in the
| toolbox. It's helpful to think of Congress as a gigantic
| money funnel where our tax dollars go in and they take
| turns aiming it at their favorite corporations.
| the_optimist wrote:
| The government itself is akin to a perfect corporation:
| not liable, no accountability, monopoly on taking,
| monopoly on force. What's this alternative that
| corporations that you're alluding to?
| paholg wrote:
| Jesus, in my mind the first thing you do there is arrest
| a bunch of people and nationalize (or statenize I guess,
| or whatever the word would be) the company.
| eropple wrote:
| _Statenize, v.: to banish to Staten Island._
|
| Can't say it couldn't help.
| zbrozek wrote:
| What seems to actually work is increasing market
| competitiveness. The open access rules that gave us MVNOs
| appear to have worked great. Texas electric customers have
| lots of choice and lower costs under similar rules.
|
| These broadband subsidies might be too good, or at least
| too well captured by too few players. They may be a good
| idea generally, but it looks like it's time to revisit the
| details.
| Retric wrote:
| MVNOs share infrastructure. Nowhere has competitiveness
| in terms of the actual grid only on the energy production
| and billing sides.
|
| The Texas grid is a massive failure in terms of both cost
| and reliability. Somewhere between 246 and 702 people
| were killed in 2021 when operators had already seen
| similar issues in 2011. Similarly people received bills
| that more than wiped out any long term savings they had
| received from hourly rate charging.
| dangus wrote:
| Is Texas electric a good example? It seems like a lot of
| people in Texas were swindled into buying variable rate
| plans that caused rate spikes resulting in $5,000
| electric bills.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/why-texas-residents-hit-
| with...
|
| ERCOT is not a model that anyone should strive to
| emulate.
|
| https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/grid-locked/
| 9659 wrote:
| Not a swindle.
|
| One company offered a plan where all of the electricity
| was purchased on the spot market. All of it.
|
| Spot market purchases of electricity are very cheap.
| Except when they aren't.
|
| Most months my electricity bill was 1/2 of current.
| dangus wrote:
| It's a swindle because of the marketing of the plans and
| the exorbitantly high maximum rate caps. Every person who
| has knocked on my door to sell variable rate plans
| emphasizes the upside of the deal: why pay more than the
| current rate? You're wasting your money on paying for the
| fixed rate that's mostly higher than the going rate.
|
| Like you said, most of the time you save a good amount of
| money. The salespeople and marketing pamphlets emphasize
| that. Do you really believe that the executives at these
| utilities are ignorant to the fact that most of their
| customers don't fully understand the implications? I
| think they sell the plans specifically because customers
| don't understand them.
|
| Worse for Texas, their system's market pricing setup
| incentivizes power utilities to minimize their overhead
| capacity. The closer their supply is to demand, the
| higher the price they can get. But it leaves very little
| wiggle room for emergency situations (99% Invisible has a
| good episode about this). Therefore, their grid is more
| prone to spikes in variable rate pricing than other
| states.
|
| Like financial instruments such as options trading,
| financial games like this make sense for the wealthy who
| have a cushion of risk tolerance. I can make more money
| faster with options trading compared to an index fund!
|
| But for the median and below wage earner, sudden bill
| surprises shouldn't be something that the government
| enables for basic necessities like utilities.
| 9659 wrote:
| we agree on all the facts.
|
| i paid my $2,300.00 monthly electrical bill without
| complaint. (usual about $75)
|
| the upside and downside were understood.
| dangus wrote:
| Great. I am sure that you can understand why you're
| probably the exception in:
|
| 1. Fully understanding the potential of the downside.
|
| _and_
|
| 2. Being able to financially cover the downside.
|
| The median transaction account balance in America is
| $5,300, which includes money in the accounts for things
| like paying mortgage and rent.
|
| https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/savings-account-
| ave...
|
| So the median person signing up for that plan has to be
| ready to liquidate half their cash on an electric bill.
| If you're below the median you're even more screwed.
|
| And I'm sure to all this you'll say "I made an informed
| choice and I should have that choice," but I think that's
| a highly debatable concept that depends a lot on the
| details - one of those critical details is the maximum
| rate.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Not a swindle.
|
| I'm going to assume, based on this statement, that you
| have an education that allows you to forecast and do
| cost-benefit analysis. Most people do not, and just hear
| "you will pay less". When you knowingly do this to
| people, it's a swindle.
|
| Yes, we do need to protect some people from bad choices,
| and yes, that will limit the economic freedom of the very
| well-educated to some small degree. That's society, baby.
| 9659 wrote:
| As a resident of texas, allow me to describe / explain
| how electricity works.
|
| Consumers can select from maybe 50 "retail providers".
| They all have some kind of marketing deal, like "all
| green" or "free weekends" or "0.14 a kwh fixed for 3
| years".
|
| You pick your deal and deal with this 'company'. All of
| the electricity comes from the same place. All of the
| wiring is maintained by one company.
|
| Your "choice" is deciding who sends your bill and
| collects the money.
|
| Seems like a monopoly would be a lot cheaper. Less
| employees, less infrastructure, less advertising.
| AaronM wrote:
| A monopoly would be cheaper in a perfect world with no
| corruption, and no profit motive/incentive. Competition
| seems to be the only way in our current capitalist
| society to reduce the prices consumers pay.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| A corporation operates in their own self-interest.
|
| A corporation that is a monopoly has no motivation to
| keep pricing "fair" and, in fact, has an interest in
| making prices as high as possible. It is never cheaper
| this way.
|
| We, as a society, seek to work around the problems that
| naturally-occur with monopolies by regulating them.
|
| In Ohio, most of our residents have one provider (AEP).
| AEP owns the local infrastructure, and they also own the
| transmission infrastructure, and they are pretty tightly
| regulated.
|
| To help keep pricing in check, it is required by
| regulation that the rate at which AEP buys their
| electricity at is set periodically by a competitive bid
| process. (This is, in theory, a process that works well
| for consumers and provides a _reasonably_ low price: If a
| supplier can buy and sell (or otherwise produce)
| electricity cheaper, then they can put their bid in and
| have an opportunity to do so.)
|
| The problem with regulation is that it is regulates. It
| is inflexible.
|
| And sometimes, this bid process goes wrong: Early in
| 2023, for instance, it resulted in a generation price
| that was set to approximately double in six months[1].
|
| The solution to both monopolies and regulation is
| consumer choice in a competitive marketplace.
|
| Obviously, we in Ohio can't usually decide whose lines
| and infrastructure we use -- they're monopoly-owned.
| There's some exceptions to this like [2][3], but broadly
| speaking: Of course AEP is involved, because they have to
| be involved.
|
| But we do get to choose our generation supplier[4], which
| is probably similar in function to how folks in Texas can
| pick their "retail provider" (except we don't get time-
| dependent metering).
|
| And that very limited aspect of consumer choice does work
| for me, the consumer. I was able to completely bypass the
| 2023 price hike by selecting a different generation
| supplier. In fact, my total billed price per kWh of
| electricity used (inclusive of distribution,
| transmission, and fees) was actually slightly reduced
| compared to what I had been paying previously.
|
| It's not a perfect system, as there are no perfect
| systems. But this little sliver of competition is better
| than being completely beholden to either an unregulated
| absolute monopoly or an inflexibly-regulated absolute
| monopoly.
|
| [1]: https://puco.ohio.gov/utilities/electricity/resource
| s/histor...
|
| [2]: https://clydeohio.org/159/Clyde-Light-Power
|
| [3]: https://www.columbus.gov/utilities/about/The-
| Division-of-Pow...
|
| [4]: https://www.energychoice.ohio.gov/
| aetch wrote:
| You aren't actually buying power from different people in
| states where you choose a "different" provider. Those are
| all middlemen offering a variety of more expensive rate
| plans and "benefits" that appear to be cheaper but
| actually are more expensive than buying directly from the
| main utility provider. (The middle man has to make money
| somehow after all) In reality the power travels over the
| main providers' lines so the main provider is usually
| cheapest.
|
| It's just an illusion of choice and I would rather not
| deal with the constant door to door utility MVNO
| salesmen.
| cowpig wrote:
| Are you saying the price capping model doesn't work? If so I
| don't follow the thought process: you're comparing California
| (price capped) against the national average (also mostly
| price capped to some degree)
| zbrozek wrote:
| That's a good criticism.
|
| The comparison is more to cellular providers where there's
| open access to the same underlying infrastructure, and we
| have consistently good pricing nationwide thanks to
| competition.
|
| The point in referencing national averages is to show that
| the electric utility model can result in sclerotic and
| under-performant regions that are impossible to fix.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The BLS actually maintains statistics on this, and while CA
| does pay higher than average prices, it's less than 2x the
| national average.
|
| Considering the geographic size of the electricity grid in
| CA, that's not surprising. A bigger grid is more expensive to
| build and maintain.
| hedora wrote:
| I'd like to see this as well. I suspect the money would be
| better spent subsidizing/establishing community-owned ISPs in
| underserved areas.
|
| There are still old telephone co-ops from the early days of the
| telephone in the US. The one I'm thinking of is extremely rural
| (population density is < 2 people per square mile), with a
| median county household income under $25K. They put in fiber to
| the home years ago, and 1GBit symmetric is well under $100 a
| month. (They have cheaper plans too.)
|
| Similarly, some places have started using companies like this:
|
| http://nextlevelnetworks.ca
|
| You pay them to build out a local fiber network. You just pay
| the line installation, and then the community owns the network.
| The minimum project size is about 100 houses because that leads
| to a $100/month per house bill from the incumbent network's
| $10,000/month fiber uplink.
|
| Concretely, imagine there was a subsidy for any area that
| doesn't have 1GBit symmetric for under $100 a month. Starting
| in the poorest communities, use the ACP money to establish a
| local co-op (per community, creating jobs) that charges 1.1x
| the cost of the fiber uplink per month, and saves 10% for
| network expansion / maintenance.
|
| The ACP burned through $14.2B since 2021. It costs about $10K
| to run fiber to a house (it's almost all labor, so in urban
| areas you have short runs with high cost of living for the
| workers, and in rural areas you have long unobstructed runs
| with low cost of living).
|
| They could have wired 1.4M low income houses for fiber with
| that money, and the co-ops could then charge the houses well
| under $100 per month for connectivity.
| cowpig wrote:
| This thought process makes some sense to me, though I have
| doubts about the implementation. Is fiber really the best fit
| for rural areas? What about some kind of wireless solution?
| Surely that would be more cost-effective?
| hedora wrote:
| Wireless could also work, but it requires line of sight,
| and you have to put it on a roof / poll, which isn't always
| feasible.
|
| Another subtle problem with rural wireless is that you have
| to point to a well-connected area, so the cheapest way to
| service houses that are on the side of the hill facing away
| from town is often either fiber or putting the tower in
| orbit. Otherwise, you'd need to run a fiber trunk line to
| the middle of nowhere to support the ISP side of the
| wireless link.
|
| Fiber has the property that you can run it in parallel to
| existing power lines, so any house with power already has
| an existing right of way to piggyback on (owned by the
| wrong person, but imminent domain exists). Also, you can
| choose to trench the fiber or run it on telephone polls.
|
| If I were running things, I'd look into strategically
| deploying fiber-to-the-home to areas with good line of
| sight to poorly connected areas, and then use a hub and
| spoke network topology where the spokes are directional
| wireless and some of the homes are hubs.
|
| That creates a second order problem though: You need backup
| power at the hubs or parts of the network will go down when
| the electricity goes out. Long term, it's probably cheaper
| to maintain a network of buried fiber than it is to
| maintain the electricity infrastructure needed to keep the
| towers online.
| tallowen wrote:
| My experience living in Montana has been that wireless
| internet providers can be great but they don't provide
| great low latency service. It creates a perception that one
| can't live in certain areas and do remote work since it's
| too hard to do video.
|
| When it comes to broadband there is a question of "how good
| is good enough" but for the people living in Hamilton
| Montana (population 5k) I hope there can be a path to
| infrastructure investment that leads to high quality
| internet in town.
| hedora wrote:
| Wireless internet should be low latency (unless you're
| talking about geosynchronous satellite).
|
| During high demand, our local WISP has 1 second latency
| to the internet because their wired backhaul link is
| terrible. It's less than 1ms to the tower. Starlink to
| the internet is in the 20-30ms range, and it's bouncing
| into orbit and back.
| hn_acker wrote:
| In the long run, fiber is the cheapest [1] and the best
| technological fit in rural and non-rural areas. Satellite
| internet is unreliable in storms due to attenuation, has
| decreasing bandwidth as more users sign up (which is one
| reason Starlink is expensive), and creates space junk down
| the line. Wireless solutions on land via 5G and the like
| require wires (will become mostly fiber) to carry the
| internet traffic to intermediate transmitters. 5G also
| needs more cells [2] per unit area compared to 4G to
| compensate for attenuation.
|
| [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/why-slow-
| networks-real...
|
| [2] https://www.lifewire.com/5g-cell-towers-4584192
| hedora wrote:
| I guess I spent a lot of words saying:
|
| The ACP tries to make an expensive thing less expensive by
| artificially increasing demand. What if we tried increasing
| supply instead?
| rtkwe wrote:
| Is it really something that has the same supply and demand
| curves though? Once the wires are run and especially with
| fiber the ability to add another customer is pretty cheap.
| The main goal from what I've read is to encourage building
| out into poorer areas by boosting the customer base in
| areas where it might otherwise be uneconomical to build
| into. Most things diverge from the econ 101 model
| significantly.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I expect other parts of the business are more susceptible
| to the usually supply constraints, like customer service
| and maintenance.
| smegger001 wrote:
| What customer service? this is Comcast we are talking
| about. Consistantly ranked in the top ten worst companies
| in custom service nation wide. And maintaince already
| showed up only if the felt like when they felt and blamed
| your equipment when they do.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| Co-ops are fantastic for utilities, over half the landmass of
| the US is serviced by rural electric co-ops under the NRECA
| established by FDR during the Great Depression. Internet
| connectivity should absolutely be treated as a public utility
| similar to electricity.
| Triphibian wrote:
| I have outstanding fiber-to-the-door internet provided
| through my rural electricity co-op. I have no doubt that
| we'd still be waiting for internet if it was up to Verizon
| to supply it.
| genewitch wrote:
| It's the USDA that provides grants for small community ISPs
| but their rules are clownshoes. your service area can't
| overlap _any other service area_ , regardless of how awful it
| is. Well, technically, that's not true. If there's 1.5mbit in
| the area, they won't fund you - and it's not 1.5mbit in
| practice, it's 1.5mbit _advertised_.
|
| I went around and around with the government saying that at&t
| obviously doesn't want to maintain this network so why not
| get something up before they let the copper rot in the
| ground.
|
| Nothing doing.
| jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote:
| > _price caps make a lot more sense to me._
|
| Will never happen. Comcast has the power, not the politicians.
| As Marx showed us 150 years ago, a state under capitalism tends
| to become a capitalist state.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The idea on paper I think was to encourage building out the
| infrastructure to areas that would not otherwise be profitable
| enough to build to by increasing the number of available
| customers in a poor neighborhood.
|
| Personally I think it's a tough spot. Infrastructure projects
| like ISP connections are best done once to a residence like
| power or water/sewer which is usually a city or heavily
| regulated natural monopoly. Ideally you could have the city run
| fiber to residences in the metro area and companies could
| compete for the service across those wires if we wanted to
| cling to markets like some places do with various billing
| providers for electrical power.
| coryrc wrote:
| How about we just stop subsidizing rural living and force big
| city liberals to allow more housing?
| gnicholas wrote:
| Price caps could make sense, but in my experience the more
| important missing piece is a requirement that a lower tier be
| offered. Comcast keeps upping their lowest tier, and raising
| the price concomitantly. I started out at 12Mbps and am now at
| 80. I don't remotely need 80, and would love to pay half of my
| current rate for half of my current speed. I'd even pay 2/3 of
| my cost for 1/3 of my speed. But Comcast does not offer a tier
| below 80/10 in my area.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Whenever Comcast raised my rates, I would call and ask for a
| lower price or lower tier. In recent years, they always tried to
| get me to sign up for this. One rep claimed that I qualified
| because a student (my elementary aged child) lives in the home.
| Another claimed that I qualified because my child receives free
| lunch at school (as do all students at California public
| schools). He said that it was common in his experience for people
| to sign up under such pretenses.
|
| I don't know to what extent this program is being abused, but
| it's surely happening. The government is basically enabling the
| cable companies to keep upping their base price, knowing that any
| customer who is desperate enough for a discount will just find a
| way to qualify themselves for this program.
|
| I think being able to have internet at home is important. But
| there should have been limits put in place to ensure that this
| program was only being used for its intended purpose. Some
| lobbyist got rich off this thing, for sure.
| nilamo wrote:
| It's interesting that we're talking about helping people reduce
| costs, instead of penalizing companies that raise rates for
| something that should be a utility and has close to fixed costs
| to operate.
| gnicholas wrote:
| They are increasing speeds and increasing rates alongside.
| This would be less objectionable in my mind if they
| maintained the lower tier offerings. Instead they are selling
| us up our indifference curves, as an economist would say.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I don't know to what extent this program is being abused,
| but it's surely happening._
|
| It's non-zero, sure. And although the GAO identified fraud
| risks, no fraud assessment has been done. A humane response to
| this would've been to perform a fraud assessment and allow the
| FCC to take action against identified risks. This will hurt
| poor families by widening the digital divide, impact family
| education and employment, and reduce access to services.
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