Look at the public utility districts in Eastern Washington state, which both own and operate their own last mile and middle mile electrical grids, and also dark fiber networks on the same poles.
In my opinion some of them are run better than others, but overall, it's a worthy effort and provides service via third party ISPs, to places that are grossly underserved by the local incumbent telephone or cable TV operator.
If we have Water, Electricity and I assume Phone line ( not sure if that is still the case ) as necessity, why cant we replace the requirement of Phone line to Fibre Optic Cables? At least mandate all new building to have FTTH. The whole GPON tech has 10G-PON to the recently ratified 50G-PON upgrade path.
A FTTH new build mandate is a tax on the poor. Building a home in a rich area in an inner city would cost $5-10k or less to install fibre. Building a home in a poor rural area could result in over $100k of fibre installation costs.
Blanket policies like these often tend to beat down poor people.
How much new construction is aimed at the poor? Developers are greedy and targeting the poor limits their profit.
Isn't what little new low income housing construction heavily subsidized? For low income housing, have the (local) government cover the FTTH costs.
Could the same argument not be used for Phone line or Cables? At least have an extra pipe for the the fibre to be pulled would be sufficient. Unless it is rural area, I dont see how it cost $10K to install Fibre in cities. Is this an US specific thing?
>But it is unprofitable for major internet providers to build broadband infrastructure in rural and low-income communities
Are they living in an alternate universe where Starlink was never launched?
>state and federal governments need to step in to make high-speed internet truly universal
Ah, yes, the same governments that brought you toxic lead pipe plagued water infrastructure that subsequently poisoned thousands of children and adults, affecting them permanently.
>A broad coalition for universal broadband has the potential to cut across the petty partisan divides and culture war skirmishes that continue to frustrate real working-class politics in this country — especially in rural communities, where progressive politics desperately needs to make inroads.
So their true goal is to push propaganda into select markets? Given the state of political censorship on the internet, it seems likely they want to force "fact checked" information onto the masses via corrupt political organizations like Politifact, AP Politics and the Washington Post.
Let's take a look who publishes this, shall we? Oh yeah, it's Bhaskar "executing children is fine if it aligns with your political priorities" [1] Sunkar.
> >But it is unprofitable for major internet providers to build broadband infrastructure in rural and low-income communities
>Are they living in an alternate universe where Starlink was never launched?
In what world is Starlink suitable for low-income communities? Starlink is a rich persons' gadget for when they don't want to lose internet access when they are in their fancy remote cabin, not a low-cost rural broadband access.
> Ah, yes, the same governments that brought you toxic lead pipe plagued water infrastructure that subsequently poisoned thousands of children and adults, affecting them permanently.
Well, yes. The USA seems to be particularly unable to provide public services, but that seems to be problem with the political system and ideology in the USA, not with public services in general. Europe is pretty happy with its public services and you should definitively visit it once.
> via corrupt political organizations like Politifact, AP Politics and the Washington Post.
These are private commercial entities and not "political" actors. If you want to point out that money and its influence has corrupted the political system of the USA to the point of dysfunction, I totally agree with you.
> Let's take a look who publishes this[...]
You are mistaking the person for their argument. The person can be flawed, that doesn't necessarily mean the argument is not sound.
>Europe is pretty happy with its public services and you should definitively visit it once
Are Germans "pretty happy" with 30% higher energy prices in a single year, due to anti-nuclear (anti-science) policies? [1]
Are the French "pretty happy" they're in a massive energy crisis and have resorted to burning fuel oil? [2] Next year, they're planning on a massive energy price increase related to anti-nuclear (anti-science) policies. [3]
Energy prices are directly related to poverty. The EU themselves admit they're plunging people into poverty. [4]
Your appeal to European supremacy is not just wrong, it's deadly. People die when energy prices rise, according to multiple studies. [5]
If the US followed in these "government does it better" footsteps, it would smash the disadvantaged and kill people. European governments regularly stomp on the neck of the poor. When given the choice between climate ideology and preventing poverty and death, they'll choose climate conference photo shoots every single time. After all, Germany and France are currently doing just that.
>>Europe is pretty happy with its public services [...]
> Are Germans "pretty happy" with 30% higher energy prices in a single year, due to anti-nuclear (anti-science) policies? [1]
I think you might be conflating two things here; energy is not a public service in Europe, electrical power is provided by commercial companies, so I don't quite see how this is relevant to the discussion of public services.
I just want to add I dont think any Europeans ( including Brits ) are exactly "happy" with our public services, so to speak. I mean NHS in UK get constant complain on just about everything.
But once you zoom out into the world, the surprising results and conclusion is that they are not too bad. I often find that strange, as if there are lots of low hang fruit not optimised.
> > state and federal governments need to step in to make high-speed internet truly universal
> Ah, yes, the same governments that brought you toxic lead pipe plagued water infrastructure that subsequently poisoned thousands of children and adults, affecting them permanently.
Well, no. State and federal governments did not build the water pipes.
In my opinion some of them are run better than others, but overall, it's a worthy effort and provides service via third party ISPs, to places that are grossly underserved by the local incumbent telephone or cable TV operator.