Now let us discuss a few facts. You see, I know Lativia, I have been to Riga and it is one of those old Hanseatic League countries. Then again it is also home to may Soviets transplants and in my experience is not necessarily a great place. It also is tiny, there is not much there with the exception of the Baltic Sea.
As for broadband in Lativia, I negotiated that for my company in 2001. I did all of Central Europe and even Russia. It was easy. Then I thought that I could come back to the US and do the same. Wrong. Why? Franchises and the local Boards.
I tried some 35 towns in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. There are, except for Vermont, Cable Boards in each and every hamlet. Composed of what appeared to be people who have nothing else to do except delay and demand exorbitant add ons for free. The Barrier to Entry in the US are the very people who complain. They want everything for free! No wonder we have a health care mess. Free just does not exist, at least in this current world.
Now the Times states:
There is ample evidence that faster broadband spurs economic growth. The White House cites a study of 33 of the largest national economies worldwide, which found that from 2008 to 2010, doubling a country’s broadband speed increased gross domestic product by 0.3 percent. In its report, “Four Years of Broadband Growth,” the Obama administration says that since 2002, Internet access has contributed an average of $34 billion a year to the economy, or 0.26 percent of G.D.P. growth.
The problem is that the Government also spent some $8 Billion on Stimulus Grants, that is free money, or as we on the right say, more debt, and thus the $34 B putative gain must be offset by that $8 Billion at the very least. How much of that $8 Billion is accounted for? Is there any public record of what has been done? I have gone back to USDA and DoC, NTIA, sites and they are vague at the very best. You see very little was done, Billions just flew out the window.
Let us examine some of the Times statements:
But those speeds can come at a very high price. In Chattanooga, Internet service of 1 gigabit a second costs a consumer $70. But in Lafayette, the same speed costs nearly $1,000 a month. In Seoul, it’s about $31 — a result of government subsidies to encourage Internet use.
First, 1 Gbps is awfully fast for a residence. Just what are you doing with that, running a cloud service from your garage! Second, to get a Gbps one only needs a single strand of fiber, as is in most FTTH builds. Yet, and this is a critical yet, that is 1 Gbps to a hub, at which point you mix with all the other 1 Gbps folks dramatically dropping your speed! Does that author have any clue about what he is saying? 1 Gbps at the home is meaningless, it is the backbone network. You do NOT have a strand supporting 1 Gbps to everyone else. It is a network for God's sake! Thus neither need nor reality drives any 1 Gbps demand.
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