#ncga: State-subsidized internet? Pushed by Republicans? (*SIGH*)
Yep. State House Republicans are following the lead of Al Gore and Bill Clinton and pushing for broadband internet service in rural areas — paid for by YOU and ME. Reps. Jason Saine and John Szoka — two guys who never say NO to the lobbyist corps — are joined by Susan Martin and rookie Brenden Jones are responsible for waving this rotten piece of fish in front of us.
HB 68 authorizes the Rural Economic Development division to: “[…ESTABLISH[…]] BRIGHT MARKETS BY ADDING THE DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE NECESSARY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION IN KEY MARKETS, INCLUDING BROADBA
ND, RETAIL ONLINE SERVICES, INTERNET OF THINGS, GRIDPOWER, HEALTH CARE, AND TRAINING AND EDUCATION.”
Repeat after me: So-cia-lism. Socialism.
Is there ANYWHERE in this great state where someone cannot access Amazon, eBay, or Belk.com? There is likely a good reason Internet access is faster in Raleigh than it is in Tabor City. There’s more going on in the Raleigh area. More business, more people.
And when local and state governments grant exclusive geographic franchises to, say, Time Warner — there is very little incentive for said franchise-holder to innovate, shell out their own cash, and bust their butts to serve customers. No competition, no threat to survival, no need to worry, no need to hurry.
This is one great big payoff in return for campaign contributions from, for example: Time Warner / Spectrum (state money for digi
tal infrastructure expansion), Duke Power and the solar goons (grid power), and assorted health care interests that dump all kinds of cash into legislator pockets. The presence of Saine — Mr. $19,116.45 — and Szoka — the chief campaign cash shakedown artist for the House Republican caucus — on this legislation merely serves to strengthen that suspicion. The solar goons shelled out BIIIIIIIIIG during the last election cycle. They are expecting soething BIIIIIIG in return.
You might remember the Rural Economic Development division. It was embroiled in a wee bit of a fiscal scandal in the early days of the McCrory administration. There was a public show of allegedly busting it up, but it was quietly reshuffled and relocated deep within the bowels of the executive branch — with the hope that we would forget about it. 
If you guys in the House Republican Caucus are going to persist with this graft / shakedown game, just go ahead, quit and hand the keys over to the Democrats. Go ahead and do it before the voters MAKE you do it.
Saine and Szoka are little more that political prostitutes turning tricks for the special interests. This is yet another one, It sucks, They both badly need primaries.
Re: “Is there ANYWHERE in this great state where someone cannot access Amazon, eBay, or Belk.com?”
Well yes, sort of. I live in an area that has 100+ homes and 7 businesses that do not have cable internet access, The ONLY way for us to get internet is through a satellite dish or a internet hotspot, both of which with come with limited monthly usage and are very expensive when compared to cable internet.
It is a rural area where the houses are semi spread out and the 6 cable service providers who are close by, refuse to cover the costs to “hook-us-up”.
If I wanted to pay for it my self, it would costs me $107,379.00 to have them run a cable 3/4 of a mile to my house. That is a direct quote from Time-Warner.
This is in northern Cumberland County, so yeah, we could use some help.
“If I wanted to pay for it my self, it would costs me $107,379.00 to have them run a cable 3/4 of a mile to my house. That is a direct quote from Time-Warner.”
if you are trying to get it directly from Time Warner then that is your problem…. what you need to find is a out of state telecome reseller that will mark up and resell the Time Warner line and and somehow even with their mark up the price drops and the line gets run even though going to time Warner direct was no use
this was on a main street along a warehouse district in the biggest city in the state… the problems with connectivity is majorly caused by the monopoly created with the providers and they really do not care if they provide service or not but will spend millions to make sure no one else is allowed to compete with them
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/technology/broadband-law-could-force-rural-residents-off-information-superhighway.html?_r=0
Hmmm… Seems to me that I would be fixed for every possible kind of terrestrial telecom service for the rest of my lifetime if I had a fiberoptic cable coming into my home. And if the state & local governments wanted to pay for burying it, that would be OK too, as long as those same state & local governments LEASED service bandwidth on said FO cable to the likes of ATT, Verizon, TWC, CenturyLink, or three guys in a garage who could also offer telecom services to me… ALL AT THE SAME TIME over that ONE FO CABLE. No, I don’t want the gubmnt competing with private industry, but neither do I EVER AGAIN want to be “bent over a TWC barrel” and subject to whatever non-competitive monthly pricing whims they might dream up. We would NOT be the first to do this, on this-here planet.
Hey guys, please do not be mean to Szoka and Saine. They are some of the best politicians that money can buy.
Look at how they respond to the ”green” from our hard core environmentalist movement. They are fighting against the platform of their own party to support President Obama’s green energy legacy. It is not really that they support our green cause out of their personal beliefs, it is that they respond to the ”green” that is sent their way by our movement. When Republicans like these two are for sale to the highest bidder, we can advance President Obama;s green legacy even with Democrats in the minority. It is wonderful what a little well spent money can do.
Even though I invented the internet, I have not kept up with these internet issues, but I wish those guys the same sort of luck our hard core environmentalist movement has had with these guys.