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[Lord Shonus]

Don't recall the specifics of the one that's going/gone through, though. Lot of stuff's shifted around, and until it's actually signed and done (which I think it isn't quite there, yet, on the smaller one?) it's hard to say exactly what's in it.

The bill is finalized and through Congress. Don't know if Biden's formally signed it yet, but it's done.

Breakdown (according to CNN)

$110 billion for roads, bridges and major infrastructure projects.
 $39 billion to modernize public transit
$65 billion investment in improving the nation's broadband infrastructure,
$17 billion in port infrastructure and $25 billion in airports
$7.5 billion for zero- and low-emission buses and ferries
$7.5 billion to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers
$65 billion to rebuild the electric grid
$55 billion to upgrade water infrastructure
$50 billion would go toward making the system more resilient
$21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned gas wells

[The_Explorer]

Well, I posted a twitter link about it. This is far more official and legit source. China is trying to say nothing is going on and all that, but why so many military going toward taiwan if that is the case

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/chinas-actions-show-early-signs-of-taiwan-invasion/news-story/fae1fb19b5f1e1128d916cf3c051cf88

[LordBaal]

What if, Biden comes from the future, time travel and war trauma accounts for his occasional strange speech patterns and this bill just passed if for rebuild the whole infraestructure after world war 2, electric boogalo???

[Frumple]

What if, Biden comes from the future, time travel and war trauma accounts for his occasional strange speech patterns and this bill just passed if for rebuild the whole infraestructure after world war 2, electric boogalo???

I'm living with someone that served during that one, silly. That was nearly a century ago. You're thinking WW3, tech trauma tango.

[Frumple]

The bill is finalized and through Congress. Don't know if Biden's formally signed it yet, but it's done.

Breakdown (according to CNN)

$110 billion for roads, bridges and major infrastructure projects.
 $39 billion to modernize public transit
$65 billion investment in improving the nation's broadband infrastructure,
$17 billion in port infrastructure and $25 billion in airports
$7.5 billion for zero- and low-emission buses and ferries
$7.5 billion to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers
$65 billion to rebuild the electric grid
$55 billion to upgrade water infrastructure
$50 billion would go toward making the system more resilient
$21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned gas wells

Ah, cheers for that. Probably woefully insufficient, but it's a damn sight more than the fuckall that was happening last administration, ha.

[Duuvian]

Which infrastructure is going to be improved first? From what one can see on movies, social media and "news" sources your roads, water, gas and electricity are very good. Or is to further improve them over all?

tbh like a good 50% of this plan's budget's going to graft for contractors.  That's mostly why the infrastructures so shit to begin with.

It funds a lot of things that are necessary to be funded, but alas for most of the subject of the bill I don't find myself knowing enough to say they are funded correctly or not. The one exception is perhaps the $65 billion in internet cable expansion. A noble goal and one I fully support, especially expansion in unserved areas, but there are a myriad of problems with the current system that don't seem to be addressed unless there are simply no summaries on that part yet.

I didn't go through the bill text in much detail on the bill that passed today, but the major complaint I had about a relatively modest portion of the  $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, was the internet cable laying financed by the federal government. I don't know enough about the other things in the bill to think I personally could issue an opinion of use on those.

I haven't found any search results of summaries saying the new fiber will be owned by the government paying for it, or that the government is requiring the government funded cable/fiber to be open to competition at least, or that the process has even changed, so it seems likely (without actually looking in the passed bill itself yet) to be the same.

Here is a free book about previous attempts to expand access to cable and now fiber internet that I found along the way of a search to see to if there were any changes.

http://irregulators.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BookofBrokenPromises.pdf

Here is a post (from four years ago on a similar topic) by the author talking about what happened with the last $200 billion the cable companies received for fiber.

Spoiler: Reddit post by the author about $200 billion which is what was supposed to expand access last time (click to show/hide)

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c5e97/eli5_how_were_isps_able_to_pocket_the_200_billion/
User avatar
level 1
kushnick
ˇ
4y
GoldHelpfulSilverTake My Energy

Maybe you should go to the source: I've written 3 books about this starting in 1998 -- and all of these appear to be related to the same threads -- over 2 decades.

Here's a free copy of the latest book, "The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net", which we put up a few weeks ago because few, if anyone actually bothered to read how the calculations were done. They were based on the telco's annual reports, state filings, etc.-- and the data is based on 20 years of documentation-- Bruce Kushnick http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/

I've been tracking the telco deployments of fiber optics since 1991 when they were announced as something called the Information Superhighway. The plan was to have America be the first fiber optic country -- and each phone company went to their state commissions and legislatures and got tax breaks and rate increases to fund these 'utility' network upgrades that were supposed to replace the existing copper wires with fiber optics -- starting in 1992. And it was all a con. As a former senior telecom analyst (and the telcos my clients) i realized that they had submitted fraudulent cost models, and fabricated the deployment plans. The first book, 1998, laid out some of the history "The Unauthorized Bio" with foreword by Dr. Bob Metcalfe (co-inventor of Ethernet networking). I then released "$200 Billion Broadband Scandal" in 2005, which gave the details as by then more than 1/2 of America should have been completed -- but wasn't. And the mergers to make the companies larger were also supposed to bring broadband-- but didn't. I updated the book in 2015 "The Book of Broken Promises $400 Billion broadband Scandal and Free the Net", but realized that there were other scams along side this -- like manipulating the accounting.

We paid about 9 times for upgrades to fiber for home or schools and we got nothing to show for it -- about $4000-7000 per household (though it varies by state and telco). By 2017 it's over 1/2 trillion.

Finally, I note. These are not "ISPs"; they are state utility telecommunications companies that were able to take over the other businesses (like ISPs) thanks to the FCC under Mike Powell, now the head of the cable association. They got away with it because they could create a fake history that reporters and politicians kept repeating. No state has ever done a full audit of the monies collected in the name of broadband; no state ever went back and reduced rates or held the companies accountable. And no company ever 'outed' the other companies-- i.e., Verizon NJ never said that AT&T California didn't do the upgrades. --that's because they all did it, more or less. I do note that Verizon at least rolled out some fiber. AT&T pulled a bait and switch and deployed U-Verse over the aging copper wires (with a 'fiber node' within 1/2 mile from the location).

It's time to take them to court. period. We should go after the financial manipulations (cross-subsidies) where instead of doing the upgrades to fiber, they took the money and spent it everywhere else, like buying AOL or Time Warner (or overseas investments), etc. We should hold them accountable before this new FCC erases all of the laws and obligations.

The free book is hosted on an interesting website. It's the first I've heard of this group but at a quick look at their website it appears to be aimed at removing corporate influence on government regulation of their business, notably regarding the FCC and telecom corps.

They have a nice link library, including a recent section I haven't read but whose title I like: The Case to Break up Big Telecom & Cable, April 2021
http://irregulators.org/reading-library/

Misc Related link:
https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2021/09/28/whats-missing-from-the-infrastructure-bills-65-billion-broadband-plan

From the last link:
The Federal Communications Commission, the office tasked with regulating telecommunications services, has used a speed of at least 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload speed as a benchmark for broadband service since 2015.

Related image 6 years later:

Use this converter to easily convert between MegaBytes per Second and MegaBits per Second (MB/s and Mbps).
1MB/s = 8.3886 Mbps

[martinuzz]

Good read about Texas' anti-abortion law and women rights

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/texas-abortion-law-subordinates-women-by-chiara-cordelli-and-aziz-huq-2021-11

[McTraveller]

I think that Texas bill is awful in about every sense of the word.  The financial incentives for people to penalize each other is not even subtle - it's basically "haha we know that people would rather get some MONEY instead of being nice to each other, so we are going to use that to push our particular agenda!"

[martinuzz]

One of the Capitol sturmers, Evan Neumann from California, has requested political asylum in Belarus to escape prosecution by the FBI, after being arrested for illegally crossing the border with Ukraine. The Belarus state television has made a triumphant reportage about it.

According to the FBI, he indeed faces persecution, not just for storming the capitol, but also for punching a police officer.

[dragdeler]

a

[da_nang]

Kenosha shooting trial update:

Last week was a disaster for the prosecution.

And today the prosecutor is dying on the inside.

[nenjin]

Welp. I guess that's that.

[martinuzz]

Looks like that boy is going to walk free of murder charges.
He's still a moron, to say the least, for going out there armed with an assault rifle though.
I hope they can still stick manslaughter charges to him.

[da_nang]

I think the best that the prosecution can get is a $200 fine for breaking curfew.

Maybe possession if the defense can't get the long-barrel exception for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds in 948.60(3)(c) into the jury instructions.

[nenjin]

Who knew that, in highly-charged intense political situations, everyone walking around with guns and pointing them at each other leads to people getting shot.

Rittenhouse is an idiot and a provocateur for going somewhere looking for a gun fight, and the people he shot are idiots for bringing a gun to a destructive riot.

Throw them all in fucking prison.