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

[ARikozuM]

Wait, Pai says that the government should make regulations that push innovation rather than run the network themselves? There were plenty of rules already put into effect that have done nothing for the infrastructure, but line pockets of the corporations. 

[CostcoSamples]

This is great news!  This way the market will provide it better and cheaper.  Awesome.

[Beowulff83]

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Wait, Pai says that the government should make regulations that push innovation rather than run the network themselves? There were plenty of rules already put into effect that have done nothing for the infrastructure, but line pockets of the corporations. 

Yes, just like how they gave DSL companies subsidies to expand the infrastructure but they did not make it contractually obligated to use the money for that purpose.  Most DSL's just used the money to improve the existing infrastructure and invested very little into expansion.  The United States Government can't even hand out money properly. . . and we are supposed to trust them to do a good job on creating a nation wide cellular network. This is laughable.

[CommandMan7]

38 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

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

USPS.

 

You call that successful?

 

USPS is pretty successful if you ask me. I send packages between these two approximate locations semi-regularly and USPS is a no brainer. I could not afford to send my family packages if I had to use third party shipping services.

[AlwaysFSX]

3 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

USPS is pretty successful if you ask me. I send packages between these two approximate locations semi-regularly and USPS is a no brainer. I could not afford to send my family packages if I had to use third party shipping services.

The majority of the offices are terrible experiences to ship a package and business hours have barely improved over 20 years. Not to mention packages being lost in transit, dead mail issues, etc.

[Not_Sean]

58 minutes ago, DutchTexan said:

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.

ok I've got a idea.. Lets just call him Tonald Drump.. that way the admins won't have a clue what we are talking about.. They should be pretty easy to outsmart right?? 

51 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

wanna really reduce spending? Axe the ponzi scheme known as social security. Then rather than raise the minimum wage, bring back labor unions so people can be paid well without the entitlement of a minimum wage. Next, switch from a income tax to a consumption based tax system to give people the incentive to save their money. 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. 

7

Well buddy, i might not be an america but you got my vote!! Please also bring back Tide Pods and let natural selection have its way. 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

9 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.

Then get a decent government.  Common carriage works just fine in developed countries. 

[AlwaysFSX]

2 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

Then get a decent government.  Common carriage works just fine in developed countries. 

Yes but first, we need to spend a ton of money immediately and hope the plan works!

 

[Beowulff83]

14 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

USPS is pretty successful if you ask me. I send packages between these two approximate locations semi-regularly and USPS is a no brainer. I could not afford to send my family packages if I had to use third party shipping services.

Not so sure,  You get a cheaper rate because of the extras the usps receives out of our pockets.

http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

[DutchTexan]

17 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

 

USPS is pretty successful if you ask me. I send packages between these two approximate locations semi-regularly and USPS is a no brainer. I could not afford to send my family packages if I had to use third party shipping services.

I'm not so sure. I mailed something just before that weekend the government shut down and it still hasn't been delivered. The dude on ebay wants a refund now, because USPS is taking so long. 

 

[DutchTexan]

1 minute ago, DutchTexan said:

I'm not so sure. I mailed something just before that weekend the government shut down and it still hasn't been delivered. The dude on ebay wants a refund now, because USPS is taking so long. 

 

It was shipped 1/13/2018, 7 days before the shut down. It is now over 7 days after the shut down ended. Sounds legit for a small package to move from Texas to Florida.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

3 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Yes but first, we need to spend a ton of money immediately and hope the plan works!

That's what you get for having done it wrong all these years. 

Spending a ton of money shouldn't be too much of an issue.  Remember those hundreds of billions that the ISPs received for upgrading their infrastructure but pocketed instead?  Forcing them to pay that back because they didn't live up to their end of the deal would be a good start. 

 

As for hoping, no need to hope.  If it wouldn't work, most of the world would not be doing it.

[Ryujin2003]

Wait.. so if he supported it, the forum would be enraged today the government was going to control their cell phone network and spy on them.

 

He said no, and everyone is still upset...

 

Apparently you can have your cake, eat it too... And still be grumpy.

[AlwaysFSX]

1 minute ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Wait.. so if he supported it, the forum would be enraged today the government was going to control their cell phone network and spy on them.

 

He said no, and everyone is still upset...

 

Apparently you can have your cake, eat it too... And still be grumpy.

There's no winning. Plus people would be mad about Pai supporting it solely because they hate Pai.

[Ryujin2003]

3 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

There's no winning. Plus people would be mad about Pai supporting it solely because they hate Pai.

I love pie. And pi...

 

But I agree. The government shouldn't control telecommunications infrastructure....

 

And I don't see this being Pai's fault. I see this proposal being a successor to Obama's failure to grow high-speed internet, be something that was killed of earlier this year I think? Maybe last year. The reasoning behind it was that more people rely on cellular internet instead of land line. It was a huge deal because no one is going to be PUBG over a cellular hotspot....

 

Government shouldn't control it or make it.

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

But I agree. The government shouldn't control telecommunications infrastructure....

It's been successful for Sweden. New Zealand and that other island are also government-controlled, IIRC. @LAwLz @leadeater

 

[Ryujin2003]

16 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

It's been successful for Sweden. New Zealand and that other island are also government-controlled, IIRC. @LAwLz @leadeater

 

Yes, but they are also geographically smaller, so cost would be less, plus readier to reach population dense areas.

 

I mean, the US has hard enough time getting a stupid budget passed.. next thing we know, or network won't get finished unless some lunch and unrelated thing gets passed to... No 5G network unless we **insert something from an onion article**.

 

Not reliable enough. If rather stick with a company that doesn't have to worry about that.

[Jito463]

2 hours ago, CUDA_Cores said:

wanna really reduce spending? Axe the ponzi scheme known as social security.

I concur.  SocSec was never sustainable long term.  Each generation is paying for the previous one, and succeeding generations are accountable for supporting us.  It's irreparably and fundamentally broken.

2 hours ago, CUDA_Cores said:

Then rather than raise the minimum wage, bring back labor unions so people can be paid well without the entitlement of a minimum wage.

People can already form unions, what exactly do you mean by "bring back labor unions"?  Besides, a union isn't the be-all, end-all solution.  There are many situations where a union isn't the best idea, and sometimes it's even the worst.  When one joins a union, they're basically allowing that group to mediate your wages.  If one is a high skilled employee, they may be able to negotiate a better wage for their skills than when grouped up with others.

 

However, I do agree with you about the minimum wage.  That's never led to lifestyle improvements for anyone.  There may be short term gains, but the minimum wage isn't meant to be sustainable.  It's intended for entry level jobs only.

2 hours ago, CUDA_Cores said:

Next, switch from a income tax to a consumption based tax system to give people the incentive to save their money.

People have been pushing for a national sales tax, rather than a income tax, for many years now.  The biggest concern is that we don't end up with both a sales tax and a income tax.

2 hours 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 sincerely hope you're being facetious.

 

In any event, I'm not really sure what any of this has to do with the topic at hand.

[Canada EH]

10 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.

Government cant even build a simple wall. They should have survelance towers every 0.4 miles, and catch them illegals!

And now they want to build 5G network. NYC couldnt even build an ice rink on time or on budget, yet a business man did it in a flash.

 

 

 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Yes, but they are also geographically smaller, so cost would be less, plus readier to reach population dense areas.

 

I mean, the US has hard enough time getting a stupid budget passed.. next thing we know, or network won't get finished unless some lunch and unrelated thing gets passed to... No 5G network unless we **insert something from an onion article**.

 

Not reliable enough. If rather stick with a company that doesn't have to worry about that.

US has a LOT more money than NZ does, per mile it would be cheaper for the US than NZ as well. Our country is also mostly mountains and forest which a lot are protected which causes significant issues as we are not that wide, you can't just lay fibre where you want.

 

Still private companies deployed and controlled everything, public money was used just like public money in the US is already used for internet services and infrastructure. The only political part of it was passing the agreement to fund it and to run the tender process to pick the companies that would be involved with the deployment.

 

I do agree that budget issues would be a problem, fairly confident to say that's not a maybe it will be.

 

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

I sincerely hope you're being facetious.

If you have no clinical or genetic reason to be clinically obese then sure tax them for it, I as a skinny person is all for that . Seriously though human weight is a big problem in terms of energy required to feed, transport and provide health care. Science and math just isn't kind on that front.

 

I think it was something like if the US population reduced their average weight by 10%-15% they would actually just by that meet the original targets of the Paris accord.

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, Jito463 said:

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.

It's not really that I am conflating the two, I just haven't made a differentiation because it's a complicated thing and I think there are several ways of approaching it. I think the best solution would be where the federal government gives directives to the states, which then "gets the job done" so to speak.

That way there can be clear national level goals and somewhat uniformity in all major cities, and the municipalities can work with the community to implement things in a nice and efficient manner (I don't think the federal government would be able to make contracts with local companies all over the country as well as the local government can).

I don't want to exclude one or the other because I think both have things to contribute.

 

 

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

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.

Oh good, you finally came to your senses and agree that not everything the government does is bad.

I'm not going to argue with you whether or not "almost everything" the US government does is inefficient or not, but it's nice to see that you recognize that it's not all of it.

 

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

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.

Yes the US government is a running case of overspending, but the problem is that private companies doesn't seem to be doing better either. Or well, the private companies demands a bunch of tax breaks and then put that money in their pockets.

The way I see it, the US has to choose between two evils which are fairly similar in size. That's why you can't just say "X is bad so therefore we should go with Y", without validating what benefits and drawbacks Y has.

 

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

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

What? Of course how it works in other places is relevant. Seeing how other places handles things is a great way of learning and adopting working concepts. Of course you sometimes can't adopt things 1:1, but to dismiss things like that is not exactly a good idea.

Want a more efficient government? Don't force them to reinvent the wheel over and over because you refuse to learn from others.

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, 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.

Well the Swedish government has already done it in Sweden. Our largest phone operator (which by the way shares their network with other providers) is government owned. Our second (or maybe it's third) largest is owned by the Norwegian government and works together with our third (or maybe second) largest provider.

A large portion of our fiber networks are government owned as well (on a municipality level). It's pretty amazing how much money you can save by only having to build things once and letting several companies use the same infrastructure. It strongly encourages competition too.

 

Can you please explain how comparing Sweden to the US is like comparing apples and oranges?

I get that we are in totally different situations at the time of writing, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to work towards a similar situation in the US as a long-term goal.

 

5 hours ago, AlwaysFSX said:

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

 

$20T is a good starting estimate.

Where did you get that estimate from, and what do you think the price differences would be between government build vs private companies building it?

[8uhbbhu8]

Hmmm this is interesting...

 

Where I am, most of our internet, phone, tv, etc lines are on telephone poles. These poles are owned by our provincial run power utility as they are the main way here of running high voltage/amperage power across the province from the generation stations to people homes and businesses. Having an agreement with the isps, carriers, tv providers, etc to allow them to use a section of the poles for their cables does 2 things: 1: It makes it so it's very easy to upgrade, change, run new,  and repair the cables, 2: It makes it impossible for 1 provider to have a monopoly over an area as the same agreement is given to all of the major providers who want to have access. There are also regulations stating what can be charged by the larger ones to the smaller ones for access to their lines as to not have to run new ones. This means it's "fair" for everyone. Now we all know there are ways these companies can collude and find ways to make it unfair but this at least gives everyone the same basic chance to get customers if they want to expand and not buy someone else out or if they are starting up a new company.

 

Government run infrastructure can be a good idea but only if they give the same chance to everyone and don't favor one over the other. Most times however it really can be crap if not done properly.

[GoldenLag]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Well the Swedish government has already done it in Sweden. Our largest phone operator (which by the way shares their network with other providers) is government owned. Our second (or maybe it's third) largest is owned by the Norwegian government and works together with our third (or maybe second) largest provider.

A large portion of our fiber networks are government owned as well (on a municipality level). It's pretty amazing how much money you can save by only having to build things once and letting several companies use the same infrastructure. It strongly encourages competition too.

 

Can you please explain how comparing Sweden to the US is like comparing apples and oranges?

I get that we are in totally different situations at the time of writing, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to work towards a similar situation in the US as a long-term goal.

 

Where did you get that estimate from, and what do you think the price differences would be between government build vs private companies building it?

Most Phone operators in Norway doesnt even own a stretch of cable, however they work as any other operators. 

The US as far as i know is one of the biggest spender on healthcare in the world...... (per capita)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita

Gets beaten by Norway AKA one of the best healthcare systems in the world. DId i mention it is state run?

I could see Canada, Mexico and the US being able to create a mutually beneficial network in North America. 

Saying that the Scandic solution is the best solution isnt the solution, but its a system that could work with some tweaks to be used in the US. 

 

I would love to see the lobbying money that would be poured if such a solution was considered.........

[MrDynamicMan]

Ajit is just shilling hard for his corporate overlords to avoid government competition.