FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Opposes White House Plan For Government Run 5G Network

[shermantanker]

4 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

I mean most governments do suck at making stuff.  Australia is one example of this.  Didn't they invite wifi yet have the worst net?  Ours is notorious for fucking up at everything it touches.  My point was about the timing, though.

Isn't ATT rolling out 5G end of this year? And if so the other big 3 will do the same in order to compete, and not loose customers. Because you know ATT will be rolling commercials every 20 minutes saying they have the only 5G system in the nation. Don't really see the need for the Feds to create their own network, and nor do I want that.

[AresKrieger]

I actually agree with Pai for several reasons, 2 he already laid out in his statement, it would be incredibly costly and the market can do this better (now if we could simply force competition......), in addition I find internet on phones to be incredibly unproductive and have absolutely no interest in it.

 

Not to mention the idea of more government control in this space is unwanted.

[Poofu]

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Uh wasn't he just their lawyer?

Yes, but he is doing only what benefits the ISPs so he might as well be part of the ISPs.

[bcredeur97]

As @AlwaysFSX put it... it doesn't make sense for a government (especially ours here in the US) to put together any sort of infrastructure.

 

Move to Louisiana and you'll see exactly what he means... the roads are horrible here. And in many other states too the transportation infrastructure is pretty terrible and very old in the US. And we can't afford to fix it all because the system is stupid.

Eventually this fancy new 5G network will be some old broken down thing that is way behind everyone else and we won't be able to move forward and just be stuck with it. Not without private companies taking over anyway... so might as well just start there

 

 

NASA is another good example. No funding. Now private companies are doing all the cool space stuff.

NASA still does some stuff, just nothing exceptional like they used to.
 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

To be fair, Pai is right. The government trying to do anything with infrastructure is a fucking disaster. And it'll end up costing tax payers more money than if you just let companies do it themselves.

Got any examples of this? Please bear in mind that the networks ISPs like Comcast and Verizon currently owns were funded with tax money because they threatened to stop developing their networks without funding, and in hindsight it has been extremely expensive.

 

Over the last 20 years ISPs have gotten over 500 BILLION dollars (that's 0,5 trillion dollars) in different types of government funding and tax breaks.

 

You know those sports stadiums American ISPs build? A large portion of those were paid for with your tax money. Why? Because without it ISPs wouldn't even have given you the shitty service you got today.

 

There are very solid arguments to be made that it would have been far cheaper for the government to have built everything themselves, rather than try to encourage private companies to do it.

 

 

 

Personally, I am all for government funded/owned Internet infrastructure. It works great here in Sweden. A large portion of our fiber networks are owned by the municipalities, and our cellular carriers very often cooperate and share cellular towers and frequencies, a lot of which was built by Telia (Swedish government owns 37.3% of it, and it used to be more).

 

I get that people in the US has a very negative view of governments, and I completely understand why when I look at yours. However, I don't think you should be too quick with dismissing things just because you don't like them. There are countries where these types of things works wonderfully, and there are several real benefits to it.

Saying that you don't trust the government and therefore is against it is fine. Saying that it will be bad because the government can't do anything good is unfounded and very ignorant.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 hour ago, shermantanker said:

Isn't ATT rolling out 5G end of this year? And if so the other big 3 will do the same in order to compete, and not loose customers. Because you know ATT will be rolling commercials every 20 minutes saying they have the only 5G system in the nation. Don't really see the need for the Feds to create their own network, and nor do I want that.

The proposal, whatever it was, is frankly strange. It's only a national security issue if the Chinese back-end tech is all compromised. That can be easily dealt with by local-production directives.

 

First roll out of 5G is high-band stuff. So, probably 28 Ghz, which means very short distances and not transiting walls too well.

45 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

As @AlwaysFSX put it... it doesn't make sense for a government (especially ours here in the US) to put together any sort of infrastructure.

 

Move to Louisiana and you'll see exactly what he means... the roads are horrible here. And in many other states too the transportation infrastructure is pretty terrible and very old in the US. And we can't afford to fix it all because the system is stupid.

Eventually this fancy new 5G network will be some old broken down thing that is way behind everyone else and we won't be able to move forward and just be stuck with it. Not without private companies taking over anyway... so might as well just start there

 

 

NASA is another good example. No funding. Now private companies are doing all the cool space stuff.

NASA still does some stuff, just nothing exceptional like they used to.
 

Davis-Bacon and then the Federal Contracting Rules in general. They were made in such a way as to make everything more expensive. How well do politicians work both sides of the graft issues? (This isn't a joke. This is, mostly, why.)

 

As for NASA, it used to be a military branch and run as such. Got things done but at a huge cost. After the end of the Apollo Program, which lost support because no one could figure out why we were there (besides just to do it), NASA just became a jobs program for a few states. All of the construction & major engineering work has always been done by contractors, while NASA's job was to oversee the programs and manage the deployments. 

 

Unfortunately, like most things with Governments, their stated purpose and their actual purpose are generally wildly diverged.

[AlwaysFSX]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Got any examples of this?

 

I get that people in the US has a very negative view of governments, and I completely understand why when I look at yours.

 

However, I don't think you should be too quick with dismissing things just because you don't like them.

 

There are countries where these types of things works wonderfully, and there are several real benefits to it.

 

Saying that it will be bad because the government can't do anything good is unfounded and very ignorant.

If I were allowed to and/or could be arsed to pull up contracts sure. Will I? No. You will not agree with me even if I gave you a text book of examples because "well it works here."

 

Okay so you can see that our government does things wrong.

 

It's not that I "just don't like them," I have reason to. The spending for example.

 

Wonderful for you, this is not one of those countries.

 

Except.. You just agreed that my government is in a negative view..? Which is it?! My government can't do anything right with infrastructure. This is a well known thing. Just look at our roads, apparently laying pavement is too hard. You want them to manage digital networks spanning the country? You're out of your damn mind.

[Juanitology]

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

To be fair, Pai is right. The government trying to do anything with infrastructure is a fucking disaster. And it'll end up costing tax payers more money than if you just let companies do it themselves.

Except for the fact that if every carrier has to build their own infrastructure, they'll pass that cost to the consumers. It also incredibly inefficient to build the same infrastructure several times just because carriers want to only use their own network and not lease it.

 

Several countries have run programs where they fund the initial infrastructure and then lease it out to carriers and it actually ends up generating more revenue over its lifetime than what it cost to build.

 

It also significantly lowers the barrier of entry for carriers to offer their services, which means more competition and lower prices for consumers. So even if the government can't build that infrastructure at the same cost as a private company, it still ends up being a pretty good deal for taxpayers as long as the program is half-decently managed. 

[GoodBytes]

5G doesn't have its standard fully completed. If they implement it now, it will end up costing a lot of money to change equipment again (remember when router manufactures jump the gun with Wireless N 1st gen routers?)

 

I know why the government wants to do it, because currently their is a race between big countries (China), who are pushing 5G to claim "first". China especially wants to demonstrate how they ahead of everyone. And they are doing a pretty good job making look like it. For instant, China is pushing crazy strong fully electric public transport, and are pushing Chinese car companies to do the same. China has it's own Intel/IBM like company as well: (https://www.pcworld.com/article/3086107/hardware/chinas-secretive-super-fast-chip-powers-the-worlds-fastest-computer.html). And also, they are mass spending on infrastructure, where you see tall building beings continuously... you don't see that much in the US anymore. The US looks like they are sleeping. It is of course mostly an image thing. China has been caught countless number of time of stealing tech, and many companies don't want to work with China, and even refuse large contract as they know that their patent would be infringed and their is nothing they can do. Some still do as they see it as it will happen regardless, so better take the money.

[Taf the Ghost]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Got any examples of this? Please bear in mind that the networks ISPs like Comcast and Verizon currently owns were funded with tax money because they threatened to stop developing their networks without funding, and in hindsight it has been extremely expensive.

 

Over the last 20 years ISPs have gotten over 500 BILLION dollars (that's 0,5 trillion dollars) in different types of government funding and tax breaks.

 

You know those sports stadiums American ISPs build? A large portion of those were paid for with your tax money. Why? Because without it ISPs wouldn't even have given you the shitty service you got today.

 

There are very solid arguments to be made that it would have been far cheaper for the government to have built everything themselves, rather than try to encourage private companies to do it.

 

 

 

Personally, I am all for government funded/owned Internet infrastructure. It works great here in Sweden. A large portion of our fiber networks are owned by the municipalities, and our cellular carriers very often cooperate and share cellular towers and frequencies, a lot of which was built by Telia (Swedish government owns 37.3% of it, and it used to be more).

 

I get that people in the US has a very negative view of governments, and I completely understand why when I look at yours. However, I don't think you should be too quick with dismissing things just because you don't like them. There are countries where these types of things works wonderfully, and there are several real benefits to it.

Saying that you don't trust the government and therefore is against it is fine. Saying that it will be bad because the government can't do anything good is unfounded and very ignorant.

Part of the issue, which shows in this comment, is you're bringing a Swedish assumption to the structure of the US Government. Unless one lives near DC itself, the United States Federal Government is this over-arcing extra layer of Government you don't normally deal with. FedGov is little different from the EU, in that regard. (Note the latter was designed to operate a lot like the former.) The system you're used to dealing with is very similar to the way a lot of States have gone about Internet development. There's a mess of 100s of different approaches done all over the country.

 

The problem is that anything done at the Federal level is little more than a just hammer that breaks everything that passes near it. Internet coverage within the USA doesn't really exist as a "topic". It's coverage of 1000s of municipalities with slightly different local laws and structures for utilities. This is actually part of why the Mobile rollouts went so smoothly: FCC controls the airwaves and Towers require much less infrastructure. (It also produced a boom in the production of tree-looking metal poles.)

[Juanitology]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

And also, they are mass spending on infrastructure, where you see tall building beings continuously... you don't see that much in the US anymore. The US looks like they are sleeping. It is of course mostly an image thing. China has been caught countless number of time of stealing tech, and many companies don't want to work with China, and even refuse large contract as they know that their patent would be infringed and their is nothing they can do. Some still do as they see it as it will happen regardless, so better take the money.

The reason why China has caught up and is leapfrogging the US, is because over the past 15 years they spent 10+ trillion on infrastructure while the US spent 10+ trillion on Defense spending instead.

[LAwLz]

6 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Okay so you can see that our government does things wrong.

Yes, but that does not mean all things they do are wrong, nor that all future things they do will be wrong either.

 

6 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

It's not that I "just don't like them," I have reason to. The spending for example.

Again, there are very strong arguments to be made that letting the government build the infrastructure would be cheaper for everyone.

• It would be cheaper for ISPs because they would not have to build the infrastructure. This is especially true for the small ones.
• It would be cheaper for consumers because there would be a lot of competition with no clear "I have to use this carrier because all other ones suck in my area".
• It would probably be cheaper for the government too because as I said earlier, they are basically already funding all privately owned ISPs and it's a terrible ROI for them (the government).

If you're against frivolous spending then you should probably be for this proposal, not against it.

 

10 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Wonderful for you, this is not one of those countries.

Not with that attitude.

 

4 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Except.. You just agreed that my government is in a negative view..? Which is it?! My government can't do anything right with infrastructure.

The difference between you and I is that I don't view the world is simple black and white terms.

You dislike the government so therefore you dismiss everything they do. I think your government is stupid too but can see clear benefits with allowing them to do certain things.

Just look at your post. I said that I can see why you don't trust your government but think there are benefits to doing things this way. Your follow up to this was a statement saying that everything the government does is bad.

You shouldn't use absolutes like that. It's a very simplistic way to look at things and doesn't reflect the real world all that accurately.

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

5G doesn't have its standard fully completed. If they implement it now, it will end up costing a lot of money to change equipment again (remember when router manufactures jump the gun with Wireless N 1st gen routers?)

 

I know why the government wants to do it, because currently their is a race between big countries (China), who are pushing 5G to claim "first". China especially wants to demonstrate how they ahead of everyone. And they are doing a pretty good job making look like it. For instant, China is pushing crazy strong fully electric public transport, and are pushing Chinese car companies to do the same. China has it's own Intel/IBM like company as well: (https://www.pcworld.com/article/3086107/hardware/chinas-secretive-super-fast-chip-powers-the-worlds-fastest-computer.html). And also, they are mass spending on infrastructure, where you see tall building beings continuously... you don't see that much in the US anymore. The US looks like they are sleeping. It is of course mostly an image thing. China has been caught countless number of time of stealing tech, and many companies don't want to work with China, and even refuse large contract as they know that their patent would be infringed and their is nothing they can do. Some still do as they see it as it will happen regardless, so better take the money.

China is also a ticking time-bomb of debt. We don't know the exact numbers, but the level is somewhere beyond 300% of GDP. They make Japan look frugal.

 

The original report from Axios is still strange. I think someone leaked the report simply to boost their stock values. That's still the only logical reason I can come up with.

[GoodBytes]

6 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

To be fair, Pai is right. The government trying to do anything with infrastructure is a fucking disaster. And it'll end up costing tax payers more money than if you just let companies do it themselves.

That is not true.

Anything that is run by the government as a BUSINESS, is quite successful. Of course, you can point to exceptions, like you can point to private company failures.

But as examples of gov ran as business: Bell Canada used to be crown corporations in Canada, and rates where fair, service was decent, and it provided phone service throughout Canada, where normally, no sane company would even consider to due to the vast land and low population. BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada) is returning a lot of money to the government (they provide loans to Canadian companies of all sizes to help them grow. Electric companies in Canada, although each provinces run their own crown corporation and service quality and decision making depends on the competencies of who is in charge of the province, but usually, they bring to the government a lot of money. I think the most successful one is Hydro-Quebec, which they have so much power, that they sale mass amount of it to the US.

 

Sure you might say "Oh it's Canada, it's different", sure. I just don't know any examples in the US on the top of my head. I do recall reading about a city in the US delivering Internet service to its citizens at ridiculous low cost, all by having excellent service compared to private companies and super fast speeds, and still manages to bring some money to the government.

 

So, having 5G deployed by the government, can mean full wireless 5G network (including 4G/LTE, 3G, and Edge) to even the most rural areas in the US. The government doesn't need to worry "Oh, if we invest in this and that, we will miss our market goals set by our investors and shareholders, and so the stock will go down, and so I'll make less money and potentially fired by the board, if I don't have full 100% support out of them.", and they don't need to do business plans, and convince anyone. They just do it.

 

The problem, however, is that many of the US citizens has a distrust with US government, and this is not helped by some actions that the government does. That is what I expect a big problem to arise from this if it had FCC support. But that is not really the reason of the FCC decision to not support it.

[GoodBytes]

28 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

China is also a ticking time-bomb of debt. We don't know the exact numbers, but the level is somewhere beyond 300% of GDP. They make Japan look frugal.

Oh yea for sure. Like I said, it is all about appearances. The reality., is that China is not doing anywhere near as well as they like to make themselves appear.

[Taf the Ghost]

52 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Oh yea for sure. Like I said, it is all about appearances. The reality., is that China is not doing anywhere near as well as they like to make themselves appear.

From a macroeconomic perspective, China is weird. They'll pretty much have rising GDP for the foreseeable future, but they could actually be in near economic collapse while the numbers are still going up. Main thing is China has probably peaked in their growth cycle and it's going to be stagnation from here out. People don't become 7% more efficient year over year, so the rapid decline in new, "better" working population always causes that issue. Same thing happened with Japan.

 

As for Federal Government run businesses, it's generally not worked well. And they've normally preferred just to protect a monopoly company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System for instance. If the Feds wanted to deploy massive Infrastructure Grants for a rapid deployment, it would help if there was even a set of Standards done already.

[Jito463]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It would probably be cheaper for the government too because as I said earlier, they are basically already funding all privately owned ISPs and it's a terrible ROI for them (the government).

You seem to be conflating federal spending with state & local spending.  Those are two very different things.  The federal government - to the best of my knowledge - does not provide any funding to ISPs.

[Beowulff83]

6 hours ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

Relax Buddy Taxes are not Theft at Gunpoint.  So much of your everyday life is not possible without Taxes.  And if you have this big of a problem and think your taxes here is just the same as Gunpoint Theft. no one is holding a gun Requiring you to Live and pay taxes here. The Untied states Tax is relatively low-ish middle compared to many other developed countries. 

 

Heres 10 Countries that have 0 Income Tax

I disagree, if i choose not to pay i will eventually get a gun pointed at me . . . not sure how this isn't theft at gunpoint.  I will concede  that some taxes are necessary for a country to function but we have well exceeded what is just necessary.  I have often thought of moving but most cases you are trading one set of freedoms for another.  I would rather stay here and make it a better place for my kids to grow up in.

 

5 hours ago, divito said:

The difference is, the percentage of tax that may or may not go to funding it is a ridiculously miniscule percentage than paying monthly out of pocket. 

 

In what universe is paying like $50/month better than .003% of your tax amount?

Just once and you are correct it's not much, the problem is its done over and over and over again in multiple areas of our lives.  That .003 stacks and adds up.

5 hours ago, Not_Sean said:

 Maybe if you guys stopped spending a complete fortune on your Military budget you would have more money for nice things  

I Agree,  Although i think there are multiple other areas where we should be cutting our spending at before we start into cutting defense.  Our defense spending is still obscene.

5 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

A_I never said non-profitable. I said slow ROI . There's a difference between something taking 40 years to ROI vs something that's never ROI.

B_Something just never see a return , but are important for the well being of a community at large . Road repair , fire fighting , etc aren't necessarily profitable , but they are necessary.

A: understood, i misread your post on that point.  Although slow ROI still means the tax payers foot the bill until if and when you get an ROI and probably even after you get the ROI as taxes never seem to go away.  

B: Our roads and travel infrastructure is crumbling and falling apart.  We still get taxed for this yet get a garbage return.  Municipalities   around the country are can barely keep enough firefighters employed.  This furthers my point on why Government shouldn't be involved with creating a nation wide 5g cellular network.  #1 they are just bad  at this stuff and #2 We should be focused on doing a better job of your B_ ,the necessary things.

 

[AlwaysFSX]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Just look at your post. I said that I can see why you don't trust your government but think there are benefits to doing things this way. Your follow up to this was a statement saying that everything the government does is bad.

You shouldn't use absolutes like that.

The problem is I don't need to use absolutes, it just kind of happens when almost everything the government does doesn't work or costs far more than it would have if you had a private company do it.

 

This isn't rocket science. The US Government is a running case of overspending. So far they have given no indication that they're able to be competitive in the market and until they can prove otherwise they deserve no extra funding for new projects that would be a CLEAR disaster.

 

I am not required to trust any more of my money to them until proven otherwise. How it works anywhere else is irrelevant.

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

That is not true.

Anything that is run by the government as a BUSINESS, is quite successful.

USPS.

 

You call that successful?

[DutchTexan]

7 hours ago, Max_Settings said:

I get a strange feeling this thread is going to get locked

You can see it in everyone's face when they have to say the word 'Trump'. The last vlog from Linus and Luke that I saw was a perfect example. It's as if 'President Trump' has become the most taboo and risky phrase known to man.

[Beowulff83]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I get that people in the US has a very negative view of governments, and I completely understand why when I look at yours. However, I don't think you should be too quick with dismissing things just because you don't like them. There are countries where these types of things works wonderfully, and there are several real benefits to it.

Saying that you don't trust the government and therefore is against it is fine. Saying that it will be bad because the government can't do anything good is unfounded and very ignorant

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Personally, I am all for government funded/owned Internet infrastructure. It works great here in Sweden. A large portion of our fiber networks are owned by the municipalities, and our cellular carriers very often cooperate and share cellular towers and frequencies, a lot of which was built by Telia (Swedish government owns 37.3% of it, and it used to be more)

LoL if the Swedish Government wanted to to build this in the US i would be willing to see what they had to say.  but as it is the US Government we are talking about . . No thanks.  You are comparing apples to oranges.

[AlwaysFSX]

Just now, Beowulff83 said:

 

LoL if the Swedish Government wanted to to build this in the US i would be willing to see what they had to say.  but as it is the US Government we are talking about . . No thanks.  You are comparing apples to oranges.

Noo... just be open minded about how much this'll cost.

 

$20T is a good starting estimate.

[AlwaysFSX]

2 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

We could also fine people for being fat like they do in japan, but i'm guessing out junk-food addicted population wouldn't like that because it's too good for them. 

I don't think you could legally do that?

[AlwaysFSX]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

it's called higher health insurance premiums

Would be interesting how they could actually go about that without getting sued in to oblivion for discrimination based purely on weight.

[AlwaysFSX]

1 minute ago, CUDA_Cores said:

facts are facts. If you are overweight, you will spend more on health care than a skinny person. 

 

Health care is expensive because they know that you HAVE to pay the price they set whether you like it or not, or you will die. The free market economy doesn't work in health care for this very reason, because private entities will take advantage of this and charge whatever they feel. 

 

Health care in the US is a total and complete clusterfuck that needs to be simplified. We spend almost double per person in the US on health care compared to other countries yet we end up with worse results. 

Eh, topic for a different time. As much as this would be fun to continue, this is about the FCC and White House.