Internet as Infrastructure

[Indy]

[spacemonkey]

When electric money totally replaces cash, the web will be as vital as electricity has been for the last 100 years.

[John Galt]

since it has been agreed it is not treated as a luxury, the question comes to "what is 'too slow'?". you article itself notes that people don't even know what to do with a gig download speed. since we're talking about action from a government level, are such excesses -- like internet speed that is an order of magnitude beyond what people need at this point in time -- really needed when that money could instead be feeding hungry people?

you can use sliders and navigate various maps on this page: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/speed

this is a government website that can show you the various broadband speeds across the country. while there is certainly a lot of white space out west, that is full of mountains, crops, and livestock, and not many humans, while on the east coast it looked like someone spilled ink all over it, indicating that they have high speed internet at the 10+ Mbps range. in fact, it only starts looking like the infrastructure is lacking once it reaches 100Mbps+ on the slider (but still available in pretty much large cities outside of ohio, san antonio, and tampa). but then we return to the previous question.

an argument can be made that without the road the businesses wouldn't be built. this is true, however, there is already a road. the road is already 8 lanes both ways with not much traffic. changing it 80 lanes both ways doesn't mean that better businesses will spring up around it necessarily. yes, more traffic can use it, but again, we return to how much is really necessary?

if you look at that map you'll see something odd. north dakota is basically full of internet. there are no people there. it's pretty much a horrific place to live or visit to be honest. but they got the internets. the state there did do what you are suggesting. so i think it's a nice case study as to what are the benefits. north dakota is currently having a booming economy, but it has nothing to do with farming silicon fields, it's just oil. oil oil oil. there are some tech jobs in fargo but what companies have moved operations to north dakota? i can't find any.

you can then make an argument that this sets them up for the future. i agree it does, however, is that really a good thing? how much would it cost to upgrade the network to next gen tech? if you wait until it's needed you get maximum value immediately, but if you build now and they don't come for 10 years, you might only get a couple years of use before you have to rip it all up and do it again.

[Medius]

Yes, we should let the NSA build us a new internet. One that is completely open to all...

The thing is, I do agree, in part to the concept. It should be a point of infrastructure. The problem is that the people who build our infrastructure are not to be trusted with information. At all. Ever.

[John Galt]

[Indy]

Uh, yeah--I do.

[John Galt]

right, so what does "airwaves over which wi-fi is broadcast" have anything to do with the cost of the internet? last i checked, there are lots of wifi routers in range of of my house, but only one which i own, one which i use a password to connect to it and all my devices. there is public wifi in some places, but it's not common and it's certainly never paid for because who would pay for that? you get the internet either through land lines (which is what ex was talking about) or through cell data, wifi is what you as a consumer then do with it, not with how it is provided to you in the first place. this is because of how radio waves that wifi uses has difficulties in urban environments (stuff is in the way), not to mention power requirements for pushing out a longer range signal. here you go this is an explanation for 4 year olds https://blog.yourkarma.com/learn-about-wifi-4g-lte

since 5g will be 1 - 10 Gbit/sec i think 5g is a better way to get internet out to the people than adding more cords via land line. russia will have 5g for the world cup in 2018

[Indy]

Again, who owns the airwaves over which wi-fi or cellular (or cable, or satellite) are broadcast?

And what are you talking about "cost of the Internet?" I'm talking about the idea of taking something that the public owns, handing it to private corporations and allowing them to force us to pay for it. Anything other than that you think is Stalinism (Jesus is it 1957 already?).

[John Galt]

now you're bringing up other concepts, which makes it obvious you didn't know what you were talking about in the first place as you're just covering up for the fact you don't know what WiFi even is

[Spider]