On July 2, I posted/ranted about how President Obama's borrowed "stimulus" funds were being added to the funds raised via a fee on my cable bill (to be be supplemented by a proposed tax on my Internet Service Provider -- ISP -- bill) to bring a broadband "backbone" to the poor and indigent New York City residents that populate Western Massachusetts. Now that the details are coming out, including the need for a fourth source of tax receipts all designed to do the same thing -- Massachusetts state tax revenues -- the story gets better.
At over $71 million total ($71,000 per mile), according to the Boston Globe, the North Central and Western Massachusetts "broadband 123" project costs more than it cost to do the same thing in all of Afghanistan. North Central and Western Massachusetts has hills it calls mountains (actually in Worcester County they just call them hills) but Afghanistan actually has mountains, not to mention Taliban fighters and drug lords firing at the communications-union guys laying the cable. To be fair, Western Massachusetts has drug lords too but they are already connected to the home office via satellite.
That's actually an exaggeration: the Afghani project was more ambitious because Afghanistan connected its backbone to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan whereas the Western Massachusetts backbone will only be connected to Boston. (Jeesh! Not even a side spur to Bellows Falls?). And the Afghani cable was buried.
More interesting, the project doesn't include the last mile and neither Comcast (CMCSA) nor Verizon (VZ) seem that interested in making the effort to close the loop (so to speak). According to the Globe:
"“We’re always interested in exploring potential partnerships to serve as many Massachusetts residents and businesses as possible,’’ said Doreen Vigue, a spokeswoman for Comcast Corp.
"Phil Santoro, a spokesman for Verizon Communications, praised the backbone project as “another positive step’’ in expanding broadband services in Massachusetts. “We look forward to continuing to work with the administration on the broadband expansion plan, to determine what additional role we might be able to play,’’ he said.
"A spokesman said AT&T (T) Inc. was not currently holding discussions with state officials on selling access to the network."
If the process of getting the last mile works the same way it worked in the small "south central" Massachusetts town where I used to live, the New Yorkers in Western Mass should get 500 channels of mind-numbing TV just about the time in 2025 when Internet access moves from fiber optic delivery to laser delivery direct from space.
(Clarification: In my earlier post on this subject I said that much of Western Massachusetts was "jointly owned" by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Bill Cosby. That has a legal meaning I did not intend. In fact, Patrick separately owns about 30 acres and Cosby separately owns the rest.)
-- Dennis Byron
(no financial interest in companies mentioned)
Comments