patrick.net

https://berniesanders.com/issues/high-speed-internet-all/

Article starts off with fairly reasonable-sounding and noble goals. Maybe similar to programs that pushed electricity, water, and telephone service to under-served / poor communities.

High-speed internet service must be treated as the new electricity — a public utility that everyone deserves as a basic human right. And getting online at home, at school, or at work shouldn’t involve long waits, frustrating phone calls, and complex contracts and fees meant to trap and trick consumers. It should just work.

And then we get some details...

It’s time to take this critical 21st century utility out of the hands of monopolies and conglomerates and bring it to the people while creating good-paying, union jobs at the same time.
...
Condition grants on strong labor, wage and sourcing standards to ensure that federal funding goes toward creating good-paying union jobs. Ensure all funded projects cannot subcontract work to evade labor law through the Workplace Democracy Plan.

So it's a "jobs program" for unions and work is conditioned of being only for special people who have special labor rules.

The situation is even worse for under-resourced groups, communities of color, Native Americans, and people with disabilities.
...
Set aside $7.5 billion of this funding to expand high-speed broadband in Indian Country and fully resource the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy.

Isn't the whole idea of setting aside parts of the country for "native peoples of North America" is that they can continue to live a stone-age lifestyle? If they want to enter the 17th century 21st century, they should integrate with society.


But what will it cost us, Bernie?

Provide $150 billion through the Green New Deal in infrastructure grants and technical assistance for municipalities and/or states to build publicly owned and democratically controlled, co-operative, or open access broadband networks.

This is but an estimate for a single part of his plan. Of course the actual cost will be much higher, the goals will not quite be reached, and there will be other huge additional payments for other aspects.

What, if anything should the federal government's roll in high-speed internet be? I'll grant that the service lends itself to monopolies and anti-competitive behavior. My part of Sunnyvale has only a single provider; there's no fiber or DSL, just Comcast.

Some discussion questions:
• Maybe the federal government should employ some anti-trust action, help to stimulate competition, and let the private companies vie for customers.
• As for lowering costs, perhaps there could be some law that forbids ISPs from writing contracts that don't allow you to share your service with neighbors (especially in apartment buildings). If you pay for service, you can use it any way you want.