If The Internet Becomes A Public Utility, You’ll Pay More Taxes

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You know, this whole thing with the FCC is turning into "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. :(

Under this decision to reclassify broadband, Americans would face a host of new state and local taxes and fees that apply to public utilities. These new levies, according to the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), would total $15 billion annually. On average, consumers would pay an additional $67 for landline broadband, and $72 for mobile broadband each year, according to PPI’s calculations, with charges varying from state to state.
 
They all want their piece of the pie. But, if I'm paying more taxes for this, I expect regular upgrades to the infrastructure.
 
No need to look further than the by line to see that article is complete bullshit.

"By Grover G. Norquist ..."
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?
 
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
 
I can live with that if we get a regulated infrastructure and not these freaking monopolies.
 
$15 billion USD annually.

Well, the USA has spent $50 billion USD PER YEAR since 2006 on the F-35 that still isn't a flyable aircraft that was supposed to be in active service already....and is still in development. With the volume of money wasted on the project, the USA could have purchased 1/2-million dollar USD homes for every homeless American, or paid for most of the projected cost for single-payer healthcare for 10 years for every man/woman/child in the USA.


Perspective. OMG! $15billion USD to get ISPs that don't completely suck ass and steal billions in tax dollar funds (Verizon)
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?
There's already a budget for roads and bridges, which increases yearly. I don't want an additional tax for the same roads and bridges.
 
I would gladly pay extra if it actually meant my Internet would improve. What we really need is more competition. If classifying it as a utility increases the chances of new providers moving in, I'm all for it. If it does nothing to promote competition, I'm against it. If there are only a few providers, there is no incentive to improve anything.

If we had a high level of competition, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in. If someone didn't like policies of one provider, they'd simply switch to one with different policies. As things are now, people are lucky if they have TWO providers in their area that offer reasonable speeds.
 
I would gladly pay extra if it actually meant my Internet would improve. What we really need is more competition. If classifying it as a utility increases the chances of new providers moving in, I'm all for it. If it does nothing to promote competition, I'm against it. If there are only a few providers, there is no incentive to improve anything.

If we had a high level of competition, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in. If someone didn't like policies of one provider, they'd simply switch to one with different policies. As things are now, people are lucky if they have TWO providers in their area that offer reasonable speeds.

Letting these regional monopolies build out and then own the infrastructure was one of the more monumentally stupid decisions of the 90s.
 
There's already a budget for roads and bridges, which increases yearly. I don't want an additional tax for the same roads and bridges.

Someone needs to read up on the gas tax, not to mention have a reality check on the state of our infrastructure. It sucks that things cost money but in this case it's an investment.
 
$5-$10 more a month, okay as long as it works, I get full speed 24/7 and i am not throttled in ANY ways shape or form no matter the content....and no data caps either..
 
Article is bullshit, and the person who wrote it has bias that overlaps the interest of major telecomms.
Surprise, surprise.
While the idea of non-profit utility being more costly then a private owned service is a possibility, that is only a result of extreme incompetence and corruption.
 
They all want their piece of the pie. But, if I'm paying more taxes for this, I expect regular upgrades to the infrastructure.

This, and it should be free, considering I'm paying for it through taxes. 100mb up/down unlimited to every house by default. Pay extra to get more speed.

Then again, you pay taxes for water/sewer yet still have to pay for water/sewer separately too. Goverments always find ways to tax you as many times as they can.
 
By Grover Norquist

5763428843_ce57f1f3a9.jpg
 
They all want their piece of the pie. But, if I'm paying more taxes for this, I expect regular upgrades to the infrastructure.

Yes, I'll gladly pay slightly more for everyone to have access to the internet. Nothing in life is free, so might as well get something useful out of it.
 
Someone needs to read up on the gas tax, not to mention have a reality check on the state of our infrastructure. It sucks that things cost money but in this case it's an investment.

Further....with gasoline, it is federal law that the quantity read out at the pump must equal what you get inside your take. You never see gas pumps that state:

"Gasoline as cheap as $2.99/gallon!!*
*Actual quantity of gasoline dispensed, and end-cost as measured per gallon, to the customer may vary greatly based on time of fill up .
**void where prohibited.
***For full terms and conditions please see were-raping-you-at-the-pump.com/TOS for Terms and Conditions"
 
Article is bullshit, and the person who wrote it has bias that overlaps the interest of major telecomms.
Surprise, surprise.
While the idea of non-profit utility being more costly then a private owned service is a possibility, that is only a result of extreme incompetence and corruption.

By Grover Norquist

5763428843_ce57f1f3a9.jpg


You don't trust our corporate monopoly shill overlord spokespeople? Why do you hate America?
 
Article is bullshit, and the person who wrote it has bias that overlaps the interest of major telecomms.
Surprise, surprise.
While the idea of non-profit utility being more costly then a private owned service is a possibility, that is only a result of extreme incompetence and corruption.

Most utilities are for profit unless they are state run ... utilities just have more rules on their profits then a free market company does ... the issue with the internet isn't profit but service ... I think a company should be able to sell at whatever profit they wish as long as they are offering a competitive service

Making ISPs a utility is not the solution, separating the infrastructure from the service provider is the best solution (like Texas has for electricity and many mobile companies have in Europe) ... Texas has one company (Oncor) that owns and maintains the power lines ... all of the electricity providers use the same lines to provide the power you contract for (different companies offer different rates and there are different rates for longer term contracts than shorter term contracts)

Although it would require some industry standardization and probably rewiring most cities you could do a similar thing for broadband ... lay the appropriate new infrastructure (copper, fiber, etc) from hubs to the end users ... make the hub facilities conform to standards so that a provider can simply insert blades or other hardware to manage the services they are offering at the hub (and connect out to the wider net) ... you could use a Google style approach where you require a minimum number of residents to commit to using this service model before you install the infrastructure

We won't do that, but that is the right model ... it keeps government mostly out of the picture and allows competition (if companies want to compete) on a level playing field
 
Of COURSE we have to pay more taxes if the Internet becomes a public utility. Either way, the GOVERNMENT ALWAYS GETS PAID, NO MATTER WHAT.
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?

Have you've driven in Chicagoland?!? Safe roads and bridges??? LOL. I've been here 50+ years. I've seen what Chicago taxes have bought ... and that is NOTHING. Don't fall for the hype.
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?

bridges still collapse, pot holes everything and not enough money to fix it all, gas lines fail, along with waste lines this creates sink holes, water lines... the list goes on and on you say you would gladly pay for working equipment, the stuff we have now fails all over, all we hear is there isn't enough money to maintain the junk we have now, what makes you think there will be enough money to maintain the internet?
 
There's already a budget for roads and bridges, which increases yearly. I don't want an additional tax for the same roads and bridges.
Actually depending on how your state taxes are done the funds for roads and bridges can be diverted into other areas. Funny thing is that you can have taxes for things that aren't earmarked for the very thing they are suppose to fund so it ends up getting used to "fix" budgets for other projects, usually projects by tax hating politicians who don't want to raise taxes but create new laws and crap that needs funding.
 
You get what you pay for and the gas tax example is perfect because the federal gas tax isn't indexed to inflation and hasn't been raised since 1993. The money raised in 1993 might have covered most of what was needed, but $1 million doesn't go nearly as far today as it did twenty years ago.

Utilities need to be public because private investors don't have the stomach to spend the huge sums required to build infrastructure that lasts 50 years They want quarterly profits TODAY.
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?

This is such a lazy fallacy.

No one is against roads and bridges. We're against government borrowing trillions of dollars to pay for wasteful projects that are outside of its Constitutional mandate.
 
Oh there will be more taxes, because like phone, power, water, etc., once you classify it a public utility, we will have to subsidize it for the bottom rungs. Or rather we will have to subsidize it more. That it will translate into a higher bill considering how much they are likely overcharging us currently, is dubious. Who can say once the regulators get through. Infrastructure upgrades will be as needed to barely meet whatever numbers the government requires of them. The current lack of competition most areas now face will likely get worse.
Pretending making it a utility was not going to have any drawbacks is silly. We can look at what happened with the other utilities, the good and the bad, to see what will happen again once the internet becomes one. The way things go in other countries just does not apply here.

I still want it classed as a utility because, well because FUCK YOU ISPS, it will still hurt you more than me, and will likely be the best bet for the long run.
 
http://www.progressivepolicy.org/slider/outdated-regulations-will-make-consumers-pay-broadband/

The bottom line: Annual residential wireline broadband costs would likely go up
by $8 in Delaware to almost $148 in certain parts of Alaska
. The average fee for
wireline households would range from $51 (the average of the low end of the
range within a state) to $83 per year (the average of the high end of the range
within a state). Because the assumed monthly price of a mobile plan is not much
different from the price of a wireline broadband plan, and because wireless
broadband services would also be reclassified under the plan touted by the president,
mobile broadband customers would experience a fee increase of similar
magnitude.

Most of the screwing would probably go to low population areas. Many other people wouldn't see much of a difference in new taxes. If this actually increased competition, those taxes could be more than offset by much lower prices.
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?

Do you actually pay taxes? I pay more than 50% of my income in taxes, and you're saying that percentage should just keep going up?
 
That is the larger state/local taxes. The same report predicts "$17" in federal taxes per year.
 
What provision of the proposal would "increase competition"? Oh right, none.
The proposal isn't available yet. Google and others are pushing for access to public infrastructure like other utilities enjoy. So if it's actually treated as a utility, other companies should be able to access common utility poles and the link to create competition.

Right now it's actually prohibited by many states, due to Internet and cable monopolies pushing through those laws, that other competitors cannot even get access to that public infrastructure.
 
More taxes? I can't believe you commies who think it's ok to have MORE damn taxes and more Govt control! Stupid $%^(&^*#%$ twits! :mad:
 
I don't understand why everyone is so against taxes increasing. It's part of life. Do you want to drive on safe roads and bridges? Or would you rather save a dollar a month?

That's not how it works, at least out here in California.

They raise taxes on gas, and instead of fixing the roads with the money they pull it into the general fund, or hand it out to their crony supporters to build a train to nowhere.

The latest 20 year transportation plan (which was originally meant to help plan roads and other transportation infrastructure) for the LA area does NOTHING to relieve congestion, in fact it forecasts even worse traffic over the next 20 years. Instead it appears they plan to spend the money on environmental issues and social planning, like subsidizing high rise apartments, bike paths and light rail that almost nobody uses.
 
$5-$10 more a month, okay as long as it works, I get full speed 24/7 and i am not throttled in ANY ways shape or form no matter the content....and no data caps either..

I lol'd. 10/10 would lol again.

From the article that spawned the term Net Neutrality, written by Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu:

"Under the neutrality principle here proposed, this approach
would be frowned upon. Instead, a carrier concerned about
bandwidth consumption would need to invest in policing
bandwidth usage, not blocking individual applications. Users
interested in a better gaming experience would then need to buy
more bandwidth—not permission to use a given application."

Of course, Mr. Wu also has a general misunderstanding of how the internet is actually architected and operated, but that's neither here nor there. You should read the whole thing. He advocates for "application neutrality" by specifically arguing in favor of allowing QoS controls and also argues specifically for metered bandwidth.

http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/fp-legacy/timwu.pdf
 
They all want their piece of the pie. But, if I'm paying more taxes for this, I expect regular upgrades to the infrastructure.

Aren't we already? Aren't all of these telecom getting your tax money from the gov't.
 
Corporations have to compete with each other for your dollar in a free market. They are accountable to their customers. Government has no competition and thus has no accountability.

Ya, it's SO much better when the corporations screw us. :rolleyes:
 
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