re: Americans Taxed $400 Billion For Fiber Optic Internet That Doesn’t Exist

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What's also bullshite is the major ISPs suing your local governments when they want to let new players into the market, or want to build out their own fiber networks that the ISPs refuse to do. Which they have done in many states.

Comcast sued (and lost, shockingly) when Chattanooga TN began building out their fiber network. 7 years later Comcast finally offers fiber in Chattanooga.

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i'm still shocked that Chattanooga won

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Picking winners and losers, you bet. It's the epitome of what's wrong with the country

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Which car manufacturer lost out on the loan Tesla and Musk received? The vast vast vast majority of "subsidies" for electric car purchases didn't actually go to tesla, but to consumers who decided to buy an electric car (any electric car, not just tesla).

I’ll be looking forward to the class action lawsuit verdict. My check for $1.13 will be justice served!

If you from what understand and know about how schools get and pay for internet the fact of 400 billion could be true about waste, but there are some things to consider about the internet.

The internet has always been seen as a type of subscription service. You pay x for y speed for z time. No where have I seen a place where you can pay x and get lifetime service. Someone is paying somewhere.

So I don’t know how a school or place could get free internet once they built their lines, so essentially the money or subsidies kept going back to the ISPs in a big circle jerk.

Also, schools get their costs for service based on the number of students on free lunch. One school’s internet bill could run in the thousands and be right by a fiber node (if it is in an affluent neighborhood, less kids on school lunch) and the cost to run the connection is minimal. On the other hand, another school in the hood several miles from a node and a wire had to be special run for that location could be just a few hundred because of subsidies (more kids on free lunch)

One school system I know built a fiber LAN (metro circuit) interconnecting the schools and central office and the WAN access was purchased for central office was then shared and monitored down to the schools where it could be purchased cheaper (closer to the central office days of pricing). I remember hearing horror stories about how there was never enough bandwidth to the internet.

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Which car manufacturer lost out on the loan Tesla and Musk received? The vast vast vast majority of "subsidies" for electric car purchases didn't actually go to tesla, but to consumers who decided to buy an electric car (any electric car, not just tesla).

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not to mention Musk petitioned to have the subsidies ended because it would benefit his company

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So do I l, our government actually delivered and were the first ones to do it in America.

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I have LUS Fiber (Lafayette, La) . It was delayed a couple of years by lawsuits from Att and Cox, but eventually got rolled out. It is pretty sweet

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So I don’t know how a school or place could get free internet once they built their lines, so essentially the money or subsidies kept going back to the ISPs in a big circle jerk.

Also, schools get their costs for service based on the number of students on free lunch. One school’s internet bill could run in the thousands and be right by a fiber node (if it is in an affluent neighborhood, less kids on school lunch) and the cost to run the connection is minimal. On the other hand, another school in the hood several miles from a node and a wire had to be special run for that location could be just a few hundred because of subsidies (more kids on free lunch)

One school system I know built a fiber LAN (metro circuit) interconnecting the schools and central office and the WAN access was purchased for central office was then shared and monitored down to the schools where it could be purchased cheaper (closer to the central office days of pricing). I remember hearing horror stories about how there was never enough bandwidth to the internet.

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it's called e-rate and it has created a fukery of situations in my life. i used to work for schools (and still do to a degree.)

it's a legit "use" of tax breaks but gets abused regularly. i have some funny stories of what your tax dollars have gone to over the years.

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I’ll be looking forward to the class action lawsuit verdict. My check for $1.13 will be justice served!

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I was thinking the exact same thing except I expect a Coupon not Cash refund to be issued for $20 dollars towards future services.

But let the free market do its thing!! Small government in the internet realm is better for the consumer!

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But let the free market do its thing

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wtf?

What's free market about mandated taxes and fees? This isn't a free market issue, it's a regulatory issue