Good point, the exception to the rule, oh and extraction industries that are drying up rivers around the world, they need subsidies, I mean how are they supposed to stay in business pulling liquids from deep in the Earth and selling them for whatever price they want?
The ugly truth is that the best solution is going to create big winners (fiber providers, tower providers) and will probably also be ripe for small-time corruption (locals running the local network), and it's going to have to have a LARGE government footprint. The bigger, kick-backs-for-contracts style corruption can be dealt with by standard competitive bid practices, but only if there is enough of a chance to make money to draw multiple bidders. The harder part is keeping the local guys from lining their pockets by selling what should be a community asset, or by taking bribes to award local management contracts. I almost think the fucking cell companies should be the ones managing the last mile, make them set up 'community service' nodes that just do data; if they want to offer voice & service to standard mobile users, they have to add a separate antenna. The thing is, since they're already installing one, and the costs for backhaul are already subsidized, the 2nd antenna costs a fraction, so they'll do it and enhance their network. It's just that I'm not sure that cell companies are the best corporate citizens. I'm slowly working on a business plan to run up the chain of my company. We're large enough to have teams of lobbyists that could push this, were I able to actually make the business plan viable. In your situation, you might want to look at a community broadband network. Here are two examples of people doing just this:
This sounds a bit like those studies that look at breastfeeding and children's grades without taking maternal income into account. I'm sure covid had an effect on children's scores, but if you added in how much the district spends per child it would probably swamp covid's small effect size.
I’ve looked at all the options in my state. We moved from a place with fiber to where we are now. It was a big bummer. The speed the DSL claims they provide isn’t even close to what we get. We are dicey on cell as well, though my hubby now has 5G he claims is slightly better. They even have a state map online where you can see who covers what and where, and you can report that yours is inaccurate. It rarely updates on the map. We sit just outside “city limits” of a shitburg and they already have adequate broadband. The motivation for local leaders to take advantage of the grant to institute the locally managed WiFi is very low. They could care less about anyone sitting outside city limits, regardless of incorporation. And, as I mentioned, there are other broadband options all around us, but not in the tiny cluster of homes in this section of the street. They recently built a upscale gated community just up the road, and they certainly are receiving modern resources.
I am very lucky my kid was old enough to navigate it mostly on his own. But I know several parents that were struggling to help their kids with things they hadn't done in 20+ years
Not totally relevant, but when I did Americorps I was tutoring elementary school kids, and it felt like I was mostly helping but there were a couple kids who were really smart but really lazy and it annoyed the shit out of me.
^^THIS - is we pay 'high performing' schools lots of money and 'low performing' schools less money, we are furthering the gap and punishing kids who are already disadvantaged
What we're saying here is that we may never actually know when exactly the pandemic became Barack Obama's fault.
Chef's kiss, Dok.
Good point, the exception to the rule, oh and extraction industries that are drying up rivers around the world, they need subsidies, I mean how are they supposed to stay in business pulling liquids from deep in the Earth and selling them for whatever price they want?
The ugly truth is that the best solution is going to create big winners (fiber providers, tower providers) and will probably also be ripe for small-time corruption (locals running the local network), and it's going to have to have a LARGE government footprint. The bigger, kick-backs-for-contracts style corruption can be dealt with by standard competitive bid practices, but only if there is enough of a chance to make money to draw multiple bidders. The harder part is keeping the local guys from lining their pockets by selling what should be a community asset, or by taking bribes to award local management contracts. I almost think the fucking cell companies should be the ones managing the last mile, make them set up 'community service' nodes that just do data; if they want to offer voice & service to standard mobile users, they have to add a separate antenna. The thing is, since they're already installing one, and the costs for backhaul are already subsidized, the 2nd antenna costs a fraction, so they'll do it and enhance their network. It's just that I'm not sure that cell companies are the best corporate citizens. I'm slowly working on a business plan to run up the chain of my company. We're large enough to have teams of lobbyists that could push this, were I able to actually make the business plan viable. In your situation, you might want to look at a community broadband network. Here are two examples of people doing just this:
https://arstechnica.com/tec...
https://www.wired.com/story...
Record profits seem not worth writing about when Joe Biden is personally going crazy with the price gun at Piggly-Wiggly's!
This sounds a bit like those studies that look at breastfeeding and children's grades without taking maternal income into account. I'm sure covid had an effect on children's scores, but if you added in how much the district spends per child it would probably swamp covid's small effect size.
How about losing a caregiver? Yeah, we always blame societies ills on local schools instead of confronting systemic problems.
That's a feature not a bug. Local municipalities that could probably provide better access for less money are barred from doing so. Capitalism!
I’ve looked at all the options in my state. We moved from a place with fiber to where we are now. It was a big bummer. The speed the DSL claims they provide isn’t even close to what we get. We are dicey on cell as well, though my hubby now has 5G he claims is slightly better. They even have a state map online where you can see who covers what and where, and you can report that yours is inaccurate. It rarely updates on the map. We sit just outside “city limits” of a shitburg and they already have adequate broadband. The motivation for local leaders to take advantage of the grant to institute the locally managed WiFi is very low. They could care less about anyone sitting outside city limits, regardless of incorporation. And, as I mentioned, there are other broadband options all around us, but not in the tiny cluster of homes in this section of the street. They recently built a upscale gated community just up the road, and they certainly are receiving modern resources.
Ohmygod. It was so hard. And I had one kid, not twenty.
Obviously the answer is privatization schemes market solutions grifting.
It did, for about 2 weeks. Then they started bitching about the Dem government.
I am very lucky my kid was old enough to navigate it mostly on his own. But I know several parents that were struggling to help their kids with things they hadn't done in 20+ years
Not totally relevant, but when I did Americorps I was tutoring elementary school kids, and it felt like I was mostly helping but there were a couple kids who were really smart but really lazy and it annoyed the shit out of me.
Not to mention more then 200,000 kids lost parents or caregivers.Funny how that gets left out.
Was it over a million children orphaned in this country or world wide?
^^THIS - is we pay 'high performing' schools lots of money and 'low performing' schools less money, we are furthering the gap and punishing kids who are already disadvantaged