World News

22063 readers

9 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

ISPs say US should force Big Tech firms to pay for broadband construction (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://vlemmy.net/post/152995

Alternative published title: AT&T/Verizon lobby group pushes for payments from Big Tech

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (16 children)

Or maybe we should hold ISPs accountable for the $400 Billion they pocketed instead of laying fiber in the late 90s.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I’m surprised they’re saying anything about this since it immediately made me remember that garbage they pulled.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Retired telecom worker here:

Every single time your telecommunications provider goes to DC to lobby against their taxes they promise "Please oh please please if you'll just lower our taxes we pinky swear to expand broadband. We're going to expand the reach of DSL, we're gonna lay cable for Uverse internet, we're invented this thing where high speed internet goes over your electrical grid. We promise you we can do the thing if only you'll cut our taxes."

So DC does and guess what happens? Job cuts. Cut back on techs needed to actually do the work. The money is used for stock buy backs, to buy a company or two (bought at a high price then sold at a loss of course) and the CEO bails with a golden parachute:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/05/12/atts-ceo-steps-down-with-a-64-million-gold-plated-retirement-plan/?sh=3ede18b759bd

load more comments (14 replies)