I personally know of one telco that is in bankruptcy because the RUS will
not bail them out. They could not make their loan payments, they filed
chapter 11. The RUS is hoping someone will buy the telco that will make the
payments. Otherwise it will be sold at auction.
-----Original Message-----
From: fiber...@mail.com
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2016 4:15 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Ammon City fiber
Lewis Bergman wrote:
I rail against these types of projects not because they typically fail,
which they do,
That's the second time you make that claim. Could you please back this
up with some sources?
Do you mind enlightening us with all the tales of success and glory?
Excellent deflection, again! That mean it's just something you made up then?
Could you also shine some light on those federal bailout programs you
say are paying for all the failures?
RUS is federal and has taken the hit for a number of projects, not sure on
Fiber and I wasn't just referring
to fiber. Maybe you are but I wasn't being that narrow.
I'm sure RUS has taken some hits on their projects.
However, that's not the point. RUS loans are applied for in advance of
starting a project, not after the fact.
You wrote that there is a federal bailout program that "they ask for ...
when they get in over their head."
What federal grants or assistance are you referring to, since it can't be
RUS?
Let the free market system take care of everything else.
How about them that the free market does not serve?
Who cares? Really...who cares.
That's not very neighborly of you.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but it totally ignores second
order effects.
Moving isn't free, neither for the individual nor for society. Then
there's the people that just can't move.
Marginalizing people isn't very beneficial to society either, not even if
you just count dollars and cents. A lot of things require or are made
possible by broadband. I'd rather have my tax dollars fund RUS loans or the
like than use them for unemployment benefits.
So, would you rather spend your hard earned tax dollars of building new
infrastructure so that the people that had to move can have needed services
or would you permit broadbandless people to pay for their own damn internet,
even if they have to bond for it locally?
According to the FCC, 1.4 million have no broadband available, not even
satellite. 16 million people have satellite with 4M/1M or less available.
There are not insignificant numbers.
And to be really honest, it seems like a large part of the customer base
in the areas I evaluated were wholly
disinterested in fiber.
I'm fine with excluding areas where there is no demand. I'm not fine with
excluding areas where there is both demand and willingness to pay, but no
private actor.
Jared
