| U.S. Telcos want $30-60B bailout |
| Wednesday, 26 November 2008 00:21 |
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AT&T is spearheading a massive campaign for "broadband" subsidies and tax breaks, which will not produce a significant improvement in U.S. broadband. The numbers sought are startling, especially since 70-80% of the U.S. should have 50 megabit+ speeds by 2012-3 even if the government does nothing. DOCSIS 3.0 is that good and has come in incredibly cheap (<$100/home,) so will be widely deployed. Comcast is passing 25M homes by 2010, and the other companies are not far behind. 93% of the U.S. can get cable modems today. Upgrading them beyond the current plans can be done for less than $3B. Targeted broadband spending for the 5-10% not likely to get high speed service soon is sensible, but that has nothing to do with the proposals on the table from Jim Cicconi and allies. They provide no specifics, no plans, no cost models, nor any description of what the money would actually be spent on. But it's clear they want the money to go to upgrade the existing AT&T and Verizon networks, or straight to the carriers p & l. In 2003, Verizon and AT&T blocked a proposal that was ready to go through for "100 megabits to 100M homes by 2010." Technet had lined up all the tech CEOs behind it, and had support from the White House for a 30% tax credit or similar. Afraid some of the money would prop up competitors, they pushed it aside.Obama has been strong about cutting waste from the budget. From the NY Times “Just because a program, a special interest tax break or corporate subsidy is hidden in this year’s budget does not mean that it will survive the next,” he said. “The old ways of Washington simply can’t meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.” "We are going to go through our federal budget, as I promised during the campaign, page by page, line by line, eliminating those programs we don't need and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way," Obama said. |