Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Not Even Close to Good Enough

Three years until everyone in Kentucky is able to "tap into high-speed internet" is complete and total bullshit.
 
Right now, everyone is Kentucky is able to "tap into high-speed internet."  For a price. Equal to your entire annual income due every month.
 
Availability of "high-speed internet" is not the problem.  AFFORDABILITY of high-speed internet is the problem, you lying motherfuckers.
 
And just to put the vomit icing on this shit cake, "every corner of the Commonwealth" really means just eastern Kentucky, and the contract is going to a private company, which means it will cost 10 times as much and take 10 times as long and complete 10 percent of intended service as it would if Kentucky just told Bell South and Verizon to fuck and die and built statewide broadband itself.
 
By 2018, all parts of Kentucky will be able to tap into high-speed Internet service, a move state leaders say will propel the state in education, economic development, health care and public safety.
 
At a news conference Tuesday in the state Capitol with Gov. Steve Beshear, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, called the expanded service "the modern-day equivalent of the interstate highway system."
 
Beshear and Rogers, who are partnering to improve Eastern Kentucky through SOAR, the "Shaping Our Appalachian Region" initiative, announced that the state last Friday signed a contract with Macquarie Capital of Australia to develop "a robust, reliable, fiber backbone infrastructure to bring high-speed Internet connectivity to every corner of the Commonwealth."
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can assure you that availability IS the problem. My only options for Internet access are either dial-up or satellite (HughesNet, WildBlue, Exede, etc.) and even the always-on satellite connection does not meet the definition of "broadband." I have been promised for years that AT&T Uverse will be available in my location "next year" but it hasn't happened yet. The prices seem reasonable; comparable to what I paid for AT&T DSL when I lived in an area where it was available. It was half as expensive as satellite service, a zillion times faster, much more reliable, and it didn't have monthly download limits that won't even allow me to download the newest MacOS without eating my entire monthly allowance and half of next month's.