Found: One Troll

I got this link in my inbox today. Head over there if you feel like testing the pressure seals on your arteries. At a time when our national debt is skyrocketing out of control, a time when ISPs are struggling to meet our margins because people have decided that high speed internet isn’t as important as, say, food or shelter, the Federal Government wants to help us all get broadband internet! Let’s see what they’re on about.

Goal 1: At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.

Well, at least it’s only 1/3 of the population. DOCSIS3 cable is technically capable of providing those speeds, but not with any kind of guarantee and not with a high oversubscription rate. Fiber to the home can do it a lot more easily, but not affordably except in areas with a relatively high population density. It’s branching out, but you’re still not going to see folks in Sedona, AZ with FTTH for at least a few years, probably longer if the current recession continues.

Goal 2: The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.

Great idea. I’d love to see how we’re going to pay for it.

Goal 3: Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.

I don’t even know what this means. There are a number of Federal subsidies to encourage ISPs to build their networks out into otherwise unprofitable and remote areas, but are they also suggesting that we help people finance their internet connections?

Goal 4: Every community should have affordable access to at least 1 Gbps broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.

This one is actually doable. As long as we’re building leagues of (government subsidized) fiber across the US, it’s trivially easy to get 1Gbps service for any given city. The cost is only a few thousands of dollars per site compared to the millions required for the other goals. The ISP that I work for provides Metro Ethernet to a large number of cities, schools, and hospitals.

Goal 5: To ensure the safety of Americans, every first responder should have access to a nationwide public safety wireless network.

And, folks, here is the real goal. The Government would like to turn Internet access into a public utility so that they can regulate it like one. It will be done under the guises of “safety” and “fairness.” Innovation in the Internet sector will slow to a halt as it comes under increasingly byzantine regulation, drafted by people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a bit and a byte and think a “firewall” is a bad movie starring Harrison Ford.

Goal 6: To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

This is just bullshit environmental fuzziness to gloss over the “safety” they just shoved up your internet tubes.

Here’s the deal.

The Internet is not a basic human right. It’s awesome (in the original sense), I love it, and it keeps me employed. But it’s optional. It’s a luxury, just like cable TV or owning a car. The Internet, cable, and cars are useful tools. They make us more productive, they can help us stay informed, and an informed population is a more free population, but we don’t have the money to give everyone in the country free Internet, free cable, or free cars. Trust me when I say that we also don’t have the money to subsidize the upgrades necessary to accomplish the government’s goals; they’ll have to come at the speed the market is capable of supporting.

Frankly, I don’t understand this drive to be “#1!” at teh intarwebs. Fine, Japan has 100M symmetrical access across the country. Whoop-de-doo. I frequently see municipal governments and schools with 100M pipes that don’t use more than 10% of their available bandwidth. If you want people to be “connected” to surf the web and download some pr0n movies and stuff, 5M is sufficient. 100M is overkill for greater than 99% of users. If we let the market run its course, we will get 100M to residences across the states in a few years when there is an actual demand for the service. There’s no need for the .gov to pump in billions of dollars for negligible benefit.

Frak, wasting this kind of money just pisses me off.