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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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Did they ever find the billions dedicated to improving high speed network access during the Bush era? They certainly didn't find the upgrades
Find it? It's not exactly missing, it's in the pocket of telephone companies mostly and some cable companies.
https://conexon.us/blog/sunk-costs-a-cautionary-tale/
Tldr: There's a lot more to it than just this, but the bill specified broadband but didn't specify the speed that meant. FCC set a good at the time goal of 100 mb/s speed internet for urban areas but a not even that good for the time goal of 4 mb/s speed for rural areas. They would then pay companies to achieve those goals in essence. FCC calculated the cash awards for reaching those speeds based on if companies were to do it by building a fiber network. Companies didn't need fiber to hit those slow rural target speeds, built much cheaper networks, many already existing, and then pocketed the difference. Good idea, but ruined in the details and telecom companies made off like bandits.
I'm confused. The other guy asked if they found the money from the Bush era. The only dates I saw were 1995 and 2010-2020. Did the other guy get the dates wrong or are they talking about something different?
I believe they have the dates slightly wrong, pretty sure this is probably what they were referring to. At least that's the incident I usually hear people griping about online, where companies were paid with the expectation they would lay fiber and never did. I could be wrong though.
Below is the best I could find about bush's broadband policies. Sounds like he may have given out some tax breaks or something to broadband companies and gave them free access to federal lands and some other things. Does sound like he was basically giving them some stuff with no strings attached or even the appearance of benchmarks or things.
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap4.html
I also found this slimy junk from the heritage foundation from around that time.
https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/broadband-2007-look-the-presidents-internet-initiative
Basically saying, hey we should just give telecoms lots of tax breaks and not dictate or regulate anything about what we get in return and it'll all be great.
If there's other incidents of telecom companies screwing us over I'm happy to hear about them.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I really appreciate it.
I'm sure the next $40 billion will get the job done.