Bernie Sanders's $150 Billion Plan to Bring High-Speed Internet to All, Dismantle Monopolies

[Tsing]

Does everyone deserve high-speed internet? Bernie Sanders thinks so. The democratic presidential candidate has unveiled a $150 billion plan called "High-Speed Internet for All," which is somewhat self-explanatory: it's a proposal that aims to bring premium net access (i.e., 100 Mbps downstream/10 Mbps upstream) to everyone in the country. The legislation would also take aim at internet and cable monopolies by using existing antitrust law to “bar service providers from also providing content and unwind anticompetitive vertical conglomerates.”

As part of the new plan, Sanders defines “broadband” as 100 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up, which is significantly higher than the Federal Communications Commission standard of 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. If elected president, Sanders said he would also work to restore net neutrality and ban internet and cable companies from instituting data caps and throttling consumer access to the internet.

 

[JosiahBradley]

Inb4 thread lock.

 

[magoo]

Hahahahahaha.........
You bet, a chicken in every pot and a brand new car ( foreign, domestic who cares) in every driveway......
Don't worry about your taxes going up or anything.......
We're just going to take ALL your money and GIVE **** AWAY!!!!

 

[Nanobot]

Can we please not post political stories?

 

[Brian_B]

intersection of tech and politics — unfortunately no way to really comment on it without jumping into the deep end

 

[SmokeRngs]

And the exact same thing would happen the last time they did this. The big companies would get all the money because no one else would be able to do it. Then they'd turn around and spend about 10% of it on what they were supposed to, say it's too expensive and difficult because reasons. They'd pocket the remaining 90% while watching share prices soar because of "record profits" and cash out before the "record profits" disappear and the stock price plummets back to Earth.

 

[Nanobot]

intersection of tech and politics — unfortunately no way to really comment on it without jumping into the deep end

If the proposal was about spending tax payer dollars on creating new tech that everyone would benefit from then it's a different story. But since we already have the tech it's nothing more than a policy proposal which is best discussed elsewhere, otherwise this will quickly devolve into tribalism.