Re:Google buying $39M fiber service in Utah for $1
by ctdonath on Friday April 19, 2013 @09:16AM
(#5576438)
Efficient implementation and operation of infrastructure does not happen by fiat, and is not improved by throwing more money & personnel at the problem - especially when individuals involved benefit from prolonging and expanding the problem, assuring job security and expanding their bureaucratic fiefdom by extracting ever more funds from taxpayers. It's not a consequence of "small government", it's that the project will fail (or, worse, just not die already) regardless of funding. Such projects are better run by those with an incentive to succeed at low cost, who can afford to find & hire people good at making such projects succeed, and who will soon suffer significant consequences if they don't.
Of course the infrastructure gets scooped up with peanuts. Insofar as it exists, those running it are unable to complete it or operate it, much less break even. Best to consider it "sunk costs" needed to jump-start private completion & operation thereof where the startup cost was prohibitive. Google had no incentive to put an awesome network in that particular town until the municipality basically gave Google $39M to make it happen.
This notion of "we don't know anything about the subject, but we can do it faster, better, and cheaper than somebody who gets paid very well to do it" must be eradicated from governmental thinking, both because it's stupid for obvious reasons, and subject to abuse by those who see great profit therein. Don't confuse legitimate opportunistic taking over a failing project with illegitimate opportunistic creation of the problem: I doubt Google was pulling strings behind the scenes in Provo Utah just so they could get $39M of infrastructure for a buck; far more likely the town discovered the hard way they didn't know squat about implementing and operating a broadband WAN at any price, and realized the best way to salvage their failing investment was to sell it to someone who does know for $1.
It's kinda like the old joke about home repair pricing of "$100/hr to do the job, $200/hr if you tried to do it yourself first".
Of course the infrastructure gets scooped up with peanuts. Insofar as it exists, those running it are unable to complete it or operate it, much less break even. Best to consider it "sunk costs" needed to jump-start private completion & operation thereof where the startup cost was prohibitive. Google had no incentive to put an awesome network in that particular town until the municipality basically gave Google $39M to make it happen.
This notion of "we don't know anything about the subject, but we can do it faster, better, and cheaper than somebody who gets paid very well to do it" must be eradicated from governmental thinking, both because it's stupid for obvious reasons, and subject to abuse by those who see great profit therein. Don't confuse legitimate opportunistic taking over a failing project with illegitimate opportunistic creation of the problem: I doubt Google was pulling strings behind the scenes in Provo Utah just so they could get $39M of infrastructure for a buck; far more likely the town discovered the hard way they didn't know squat about implementing and operating a broadband WAN at any price, and realized the best way to salvage their failing investment was to sell it to someone who does know for $1.
It's kinda like the old joke about home repair pricing of "$100/hr to do the job, $200/hr if you tried to do it yourself first".