The current Administration intends to spend $100 billion on expanding WiFi or its alternative. The NY Times notes:
A year after the pandemic turned the nation’s digital divide into an education emergency, President Biden, inheriting the problem, is making affordable broadband a top priority, comparing it to the effort to spread electricity across the country. His $2 trillion infrastructure plan, announced on Wednesday, includes $100 billion to extend fast internet access to every home. The money is meant to improve the economy by enabling all Americans to work, get medical care and take classes from wherever they live. Although the government has spent billions on the digital divide in the past, the efforts have failed to close it partly because people in different areas have different problems. Affordability is the main culprit in urban and suburban areas. In many rural areas, internet service isn’t available at all because of the high costs of installation.
During the Obama term they did a similar thing and see where that got us. I know of entities getting almost $250 million and now some te plus years later we wonder where that went. Private companies have built out wireless, fiber, satellite and the like.
One question to ask is who gets the money to spend and what are their credentials and how do we know where it goes. Is it some Government entity that decides, and remember almost all Government employees are grossly incompetent to make business decisions. The deployment is an economic decision, unless true socialism takes over and the Government provides and operates. If so, think USPS and AMTRAK. Both are examples of gross incompetence. Competition, albeit limited, makes telecommunications work. I have been there and done that. The Government does not achieve anything other than the spending of money. Look at the Obama Administrations shovel ready projects, there were none.
However, the real problem is multimedia communications. The complexity of systems and techniques. The current classic examp0le is the head of the CDC who must be using a 3G flip phone in her interactions. Doom is the case if we are to be "led" by people like that.
If 95% of the US has adequate Internet access, whatever that means, then $100 billion is for 30 million people, or $3000 per person or $10,000 per HH.
What a waste! We have been here many times, and we are back again! Just try to get the vaccines out!
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