President Biden is heading to North Carolina on Thursday to announce $82 million in new investments to connect homes and businesses in the state to high-speed internet.
He will go to the Raleigh-Durham area in the critical battleground state to make the announcement, alongside Gov. Roy Cooper (D). The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, which was the COVID-19 relief package Biden signed into law in 2021, and aims to connect an additional 16,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina.
The investment, according to a fact sheet from the White House, will also create jobs in manufacturing and construction to produce “Made-in-America fiber-optic cable that will build out internet infrastructure across the country.”
And they’re still not going to get it. That money is going straight to internet provider exec bonuses and reported profits.
We don’t want 82 million in giveaways to Comcast.
We want public Internet that is free to users and run by the government
$82 million goes to Comcast
Comcast fires 20% of staff
Delays rollout by 3-years
Asks for more funding to complete project
I feel like we’ve seen this show before…
Ding ding ding. I’ll gladly open a holding company and promise to bring high speed internet to the masses. All I need is $82M in funding from the government. Then I’ll delay the installation by 20 years, lay off staff in those 20 years, give myself an $82M bonus, then say I need more funding with a renewed promise to bring high speed internet to the masses. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s a tale that has been going for as long as ISPs have existed.
then you want a congress that will pass a bill and approve that
Free, and run by the government sounds like ‘highly regulated and restricted’ to me. Like they would have any reservations on sucking up everyone’s data.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, but remember Snowden and the NSA.
You haven’t heard of municipal ISPs?
i mean exactly considering that republicans are literally trying to do that with kosa, which republicans are admitting is just to censor lgbtq content.
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A VPN solves this
Not really anymore. Browser tracking through fingerprinting is quite effective.
I’m not here just to be a contrarian, but I really don’t fully agree with some of the hot takes in these comments. So here’s my perspective:
I’m in a rural area and because of this type of funding, I have decent high speed internet. The same can be said for my neighbors, some of whom didn’t have internet until very recently because the options weren’t really viable or reliable.
I get that this is a wonderful opportunity to sling vitriol at the government AND businesses. I get that there were spectacular failures in the past. But the reality is, like usual, more nuanced than that.
A lot of this type of money has, and likely will be, used to support building infrastructure for rural areas that would otherwise not be economically viable for companies to provide that kind of service to. Living in a rural area, I’m not convinced that many/any people are going to change their vote to Biden because they suddenly have access to (or promises of future access to) fiber internet. I’m also not convinced that Biden and his administration would have any reasonable expectation otherwise.
Additionally, I’m sure some of this money will go to the big corporations and directly into the pockets of the top execs. However, it does provide work and jobs for regular “commoners” as well. It’s also the case that the big players aren’t always the ones getting that money. A lot of this type of money is going to replace copper infrastructure with fiber, and a lot of the work is being done by smaller / regional companies because they’re the ones who have been operating these areas all these years while the big players focused on the most profitable areas with the higher returns on investment.
Of course, feel free to aimlessly hate on the entire system, but at least do so knowing that this type of thing IS helping real people and that if/when they see these types of comments, it’s pretty clear that folks are being unrealistic and dogmatic.
Will there be any rule changes/enforcement to keep ISP’s from dividing up territories into regional monopolies?
I have two AT&T fibers running under my front yard, but they’ll only offer me a dial up connection. Spectrum cable is my only real option, and they keep raising the price.
My problem has nothing to do with a lack of infrastructure and is clearly the result of collusion that is supposedly illegal.
“Thanks,” said the cable companies as they start shopping for new yatchs.
Let the brides begin! It’s campaign season!
Brides? Bribes
This is the best summary I could come up with:
President Biden is heading to North Carolina on Thursday to announce $82 million in new investments to connect homes and businesses in the state to high-speed internet.
The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, which was the COVID-19 relief package Biden signed into law in 2021, and aims to connect an additional 16,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina.
The investment, according to a fact sheet from the White House, will also create jobs in manufacturing and construction to produce “Made-in-America fiber-optic cable that will build out internet infrastructure across the country.”
Biden will give remarks and discuss his goal to connect over 300,000 more homes and businesses to high-speed internet by the end of 2026, through a total of $1 billion from the American Rescue Plan.
Biden’s remarks will highlight his so-called Bidenomics agenda, which is his economic plan to build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.
Trump also won the state in the 2016 election, beating former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The original article contains 305 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 45%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Now there’s Car-online-a.
Why he’s doing this:
Former President Trump beat Biden for North Carolina in 2020. Trump also won the state in the 2016 election, beating former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
All this stuff coming out now is just token measures to make it look like he’s helping people so they vote for him.
And sure, they’re better off than if nothing was done, but it’s going to be obvious for voters they’re only getting attention because an election is coming up.
Trying to help them the whole term and not just pre election would get a lot more votes, and help a lot more people.
But would be a bigger hit to donors pocketbooks.
The article is light on details too, so I suspect most of this money is going to telecoms again for them to run the fiber, and like every other time we’ve given them money, they’ll likely just keep it and not do anything
The article is light on details too, so I suspect most of this money is going to telecoms again for them to run the fiber, and like every other time we’ve given them money, **they’ll likely just keep it and not do anything **
That is the real problem, the government throwing money at Telcos and expecting them to do something other than line their bottom line.
A cynic would say Biden knows this and is trying to get in with giant telecos and trick voters.
Although it would be even worse if he legitimately expects them to go or their end.
Considering Biden legitimately ran his last primary on his ability to cooperate with Republicans…
There’s a pretty good chance he’s not smart enough to see this coming. If he is, then he’s still just lying and doesn’t see an issue with that.
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i mean it’s actually part of the infrastructure bill that was passed earlier but go off i guess
