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BTW that article showing how much capital they spent doesn't say what they actually spent that money on. My bet is most of it went to their cellular networks and other business interests. Their own data shows broadband investment has fallen[1]. Only 12 billion in the last 4 years. So clearly that 100+ billion each year isn't going to faster internet... at least not in landlines. Guess I can download videos to my phone slightly faster now. Yay.
At the same time we keep paying more[2]. And now they want to suck dry the content providers as well, who will probably only pass on the costs to us? Eff That.
Maybe they should actually reinvest their money into building out a 21st century network, and then they wouldn't need a fast lane.
[1]http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadban...
When capital investment into broadband is set by vote, do you think you'll be happy with the resulting level of investment?
I'll be accepting of it. At least we get the end results of our own failure to persuade the public or politicians.
As it is our fate is left to 'market forces'. Market forces have been undeniably screwing us for the better part of a decade. And it's looking like they want more for less in the future.
Excuse me? What's been screwing us in broadband is precisely that market forces are not operating, because local governments have been giving sweetheart deals to particular providers.
There are a lot of essential communications going on that aren't classified, and not everyone doing an essential job function has a security clearance.
However, that being said, the big question is if the Internet is a common carrier or not. (I would argue that it is.) Apparently Ted Cruz and Al Franken agree as well. Nationalization isn't the answer, the proper framing of the industry is what's really needed.
As a counter example, all roads in the Netherlands are owned by the government - and the Dutch roads are considered to be of outstanding quality. Major roads are taken care of on a province level, smaller roads on a municipality level - however all of them have to ensure the roads are safe to travel and will not cause damage to your vehicle, nor are unsafe to drive.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoroutes_of_France#Administra...
If you were to compare the Vinci-managed ones with the state managed ones, there's a vast difference in quality.
Which, the point is that some of the autoroutes are maintained by the state, however the ones that are are privately manage are of better quality. The ones that ARE toll roads, such as the A9 are fully managed and operated by Vinci and they are exceptionally good. The A31 (Luxembourg to Beaune where it turns into the A6) on the other hand is not privately managed and it has a higher number of potholes and the overall quality is lower. The A7 from Avignon to Marseille is also privately managed and is of exceptional quality.
I'm not making the case that government-owned roads are all necessarily bad, however I am making the case that private, profit oriented roads are almost always better because they have to be -- why pay to use a bad road? Drive from Hamburg to Marseille and you can see the effects with your own eyes. I've driven all across Europe, with the exception of the Netherlands, which I will concede are probably very good. However the Netherlands can't easily compared to the United States both in terms of economy, demographics or size. Korea, for example has better internet than most of the world, but the population density is astronomical compared to the United States, so there are different economies of scale at work. The same thing goes for Dutch roads.
The interesting thing is the quality of the roads that are publicly operated toll roads, such as the New Jersey Turnpike are terrible compared to the free highways of Texas. So you do have some good government owned things, however very rarely is the government version better than a private version. Otherwise we'd be drinking Evian out of the tap instead of the chlorinated crap that passes for municipal water.
Given that a publicly managed, national internet would likely be run by some government agency along the lines of the Veterans Administration or the New York New Jersey Port Authority -- I would far prefer private infrastructure.
However, that being said, the Internet pipes almost definitely should be considered a common carrier by pretty much any definition of the word.
I'm just clearly arguing against nationalization. It worked so well for Mexico's Pemex that they are actually privatizing it. If you fill up your gas tank in Juarez vs. El Paso, you'll find the quality of the gasoline vastly different, despite the fact that they are refined from the same crude oil.
Last night my wife got seen by an emergency dentist at 21:45 an it cost £18.50 ($31).
My grandmother was on the waiting list for her hip replacement for 11 days and that cost... $0
I broke my ankle and it was X-ray'ed cast and dealt with in 2 hours from being picked up by the ambulance and it cost...$0
My wife had three C-sections over the space of a decade an that cost...$0 (no wait either!)
My wife has had two other surgeries and they cost $0 and the waiting time was less than 3 weeks.
Oh and our medicines cost a max of £104 a year (if you get a year prescription certificate) and for most people they are free. That's for ANY amount of them.
Yeah nationalisation of healthcare is absolutely fucking awful especially here in London...
You seem to operate under the assumption that healthcare in France is private. It isn't. It's underfunded and has had a gaping deficit for as long as I can remember, but it still sort of works.
> The government doesn't have a profit motive, thus they have no incentives.
The government doesn't have a "profit motive". They have what is called a "mandate to deliver a public service". Which means that they're not going to deliberately screw over non-profitable areas. Not to say that everything is rosy (see, eg, the absolutely shameful state of the French penal system), but they're trying. As a bonus, you can compare the (privatized) UK railroad system and the (still public) French railroad system, and run a customer satisfaction survey.
There are as many different ways of running a health care system as there are countries. It's not the US in one bucket, everyone else in a second bucket. The set up of the Sweden system looks more like the US than it does like Canada or Taiwan, which both have single-payer.
They need to be force all ISPs to act as common carriers.
