on 11-22-04 10:41 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The Universal Services Fund has been there for years. It was justnot specifically listed on your phone bill. That fund is what made it financially viable to wire (POTS) much of rural america - places where you had to run miles of wires just to get to two houses, etc.
That may be so, but I still have a hard time coping with the fact that the USF boils down to taking from Peter to pay Paul. Shouldn't people who live out in the boonies have to bear the full economic brunt of their decision to live there? Subsidy systems always distort market forces that would otherwise operate to set prices.
Many product subsidy systems are ultimately bad, due to mismanagement and abuses. But we're not talking about "shippable product" here -- we're talking about a fundamental / basic infrastructure of today's civilization. Who cares if the people out on the farms get telephone service?! All that matters is that we get their cheap corn and wheat. Of course, those products might not be so cheap if they had to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the construction of their own telecom infrastructure. What's next? You want them to pay for the roads to?
> Since that's completed, the FCC changed the fund so it now pays towire schools for Internet service then pays their ISP bills. A great thing, IMO. It has encouraged big business to donate a LOT of computer equipment to the schools!
Yes, but might these businesses have stepped in of their own accord _anyway_, without any encouragement from the feds?
They did and they do. But what good is a computer in a school without the funding to pay for its maintenance? Now multiply that by thousands. Donating equipment is only PART of what the schools need.
> Here's where the intentions got screwed: The FCC made the fund aline item on your bill in order to make the public more aware of the fund and the great work it was doing. The Bells used that as a sleezy excuse for profit. They added the line item but then didn't reduce their rates by that amount! Congressional and FCC attempts to forceably fix this have been killed by lobbiests.
Sorry, I don't follow you. Wouldn't the Bells need to *increase* their rates in order to pass on the USF to their end users so they don't eat it themselves? In other words: feds charge telcos the USF to get money to reallocate => telcos pay the feds the USF fee => telcos then pass this cost onto their end users.
The Bells were *already* contributing to the USF *before* it became a separate line item in your bill. IOW, your phone rate had *already* been increased, years earlier, to cover it. Then it became a separate line item -- and your phone bill total increased by a buck or two a few months later to re-cover it!
IOW, they pulled a Dannon. 6 oz yogurt instead of 8 oz with no price break to the consumer!
I also feel strongly that schools quite often view technology as an end in itself and not as a tool, a tool that is only as useful as your basic skillset is. I remember NetDay and the importance that was assigned to getting all of the local schools wired.
NetDay was a great gap measure! It filled in the missing piece between the corporate donations of equipment and the USF paying for network access and such.
The problem is that unless the kids can read and write (and think) well, they won't be able to make full use of tools like the Internet.
What's next? Stopping kids from using calculators during science labs and tests? Banning slip sticks? Banning open toed shoes? Children have the unique ability to assimilate technology in ways us adults never considered. They make it their own then find new uses for it. We need that innovation. The sooner they're exposed to it, the better.
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. -- Marcus Tellius Cicero, statesman/orator/writer, (106-43 B.C.)
I'm sorry, but when I see a posting from someone who calls himself "WaRez DooD" and has the spelling/grammar skills to match his name (his 1337 hacking skills aside) it's hard for me to take that person seriously based on what he's written. But that's all the kids can do to express themselves (Internet subcultures aside) because too frequently, schools here don't impress students with the fact that people judge you according to your vocabulary, spelling, etc.
Cool daddio! You have totally missed the point of the l33t. :)
Anyway, since this thread is all about phone service, and how to get a lot for a little, the below may be of interest. It concerns Somalia, and the fact that the locals have to make do without a government (and rules and regs) of any kind:
Needless to say, in a land where enterprise is truly free, the customer is king. Ten phone companies compete for business in the capital city of Mogadishu. Landline service is connected eight hours after it's ordered. And it only costs $10 a month. North Americans should be so well off.
eh. This is just standard facet of post-war rebuild. We've seen this dozen of times in the last century: Countries with older infrastructure are often dramatically surpassed by countries with newer infrastructure. If you're building anew, you don't have to upgrade or pander to the old and its (financial) interests.
_Ten_ phone companies. I'm in Silicon Valley the (alleged) IT capital of the world and we sure don't have ten telcos competing here.
Give 'em 20 years. Between buyouts and other greed factors, they'll be down to one or two.
What prompted me to write all of this is the sobering fact that the US is ranked 10th in the world in per-capita broadband penetration:
Frustrating. But this too will cycle eventually.
There are technologies arising that will enable the construction of much faster last-mile infrastructure. The Bells and Cables are already moving to crush it, so they can keep their profits. But in the long run, things will improve. Either the Bells and Cables will wake up and provide it themselves, or we'll roll our own. Personally, I'm eagerly anticipating the re-birth of the local ISPs with 802.16a - 70Mbps wireless over a 30 miles range.
- Dan.
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