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Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by technofiend on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @11:44AM (#12797412)
We've tried, man. Billions of dollars were given to Verizon, AT & T, etc to build out infrastructure. They took the money and did little or nothing. We have "regulatory capture" which is where an incumbent lobbies and gets state or federal regulations that blocks competition. A widely cited figure states that the average broadband customer costs Comcast less than $2/month for broadband internet. Yet they charge more than $50/mo to supply it and recently rolled out data transfer caps. Without any real competition Comcast, et. al. can do what they like.

Google's switching to wireless is in part an acknowledgment that competing in the wired space is costly and fraught with hurdles including lawsuits from incumbents. Could we wire the nation tomorrow with gigabit everywhere? Well not literally, but if there was a "moonshot" program that captured the public's imagination yeah I'd imagine we could get it done in a few years. We've done it before when we really wanted to - the Rural Electrification and Highway programs are two examples from the last century. But it would represent an incredible change from how business is done today and the resulting lawsuits would drag on for decades after the work was done.

Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by godzillabrennus on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @11:50AM (#12797464)
Guess this means we should see Google at http://www.wispa.org/ next year :-)
Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by greedo on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @12:44PM (#12798055)
Imagine if in 2009, instead of ephemeral "shovel ready" projects, we invested in building fiber to every home.
Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by mzw_mzw on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @01:13PM (#12798359)
Heck, we didn't even invest in "shovel ready" projects. 90% of what we were told was "infrastructure" spending went to shore up state entitlement budgets.
Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by refurb on Thursday October 27, 2016 @12:03AM (#12802835)
A widely cited figure states that the average broadband customer costs Comcast less than $2/month for broadband internet.

Sure it's $2/month if you ignore any fixed costs. Net margin after interest and taxes is high single digits.[1]

[1]http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=CMCSA

Re:Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout by hash-set on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @12:33PM (#12797902)
We have worse than that now--we have an FBI and DOJ that have become political enforcement only.