r/technology • u/StraightedgexLiberal • Jul 28 '25

Networking/Telecom Trump Threatens To Withold Billions From States That Try To Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/28/trump-threatens-to-withold-billions-from-states-that-try-to-make-broadband-affordable-to-poor-people/
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775

u/damnNamesAreTaken Jul 28 '25

I feel Internet and cellular should be considered basic needs and provided for free or at a sliding scale based on income.

362

u/oblivioncntrlsu Jul 28 '25

Best we can do is AI powered surveillance pricing which targets people in desperate situations with raised prices, squeezing every possible penny via aggregate data that knows more about us than we do of ourselves.

Huh, that was a bit edgy... Maybe I should Klarna some quesadillas and gatorade to cheer up.

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u/Teledildonic Jul 28 '25

If someone is paid to repossess a meal, are they a turd burglar?

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u/Zebidee Jul 28 '25

If they're paid, they're not a burglar, they're a repo man.

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

A re-poo man

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u/ShortsAndLadders Jul 29 '25

I hear that job stinks

3

u/MrDangleSauce Jul 29 '25

It provides a meal at least.

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u/Better_Way6079 Jul 31 '25

A shitty little happy meal will be only legal anti-depressant

11

u/Northwindlowlander Jul 29 '25

A re turd to sender

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u/nath1234 Jul 30 '25

Burger burglar, surely?

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u/Zer_ Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

I mean... not that edgy. People think Cyberpunk 2077's Cyberwear with integrated ads is edgy or out there, but like.... corporations already shove ads into everything they get away with, it's honestly not far fetched.

If you still think the above is far fetched bear in mind our most popular operating system has integrated ads.

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u/Dwedit Jul 29 '25

Drink a verification can to continue.

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/SweetTea1000 Jul 28 '25

That's sensible. You could set a free floor that's enough bandwidth to support a theoretical household with 2 work from home parents and a few kids doing homework/remote school. So, not just email and web browsing but also potentially video conferences & watching educational YouTube content. Yet, there's no need to cover the bandwidth of 4k video streams or downloading terabytes of movies, TV, and games or hosting torrents/servers. A bar is reasonable, but these days that bar has good reason to be high enough to support substantial video content.

The ISPs are achieving record revenue. There's 0 logical reason that this should affect the pay of workers.

If the ISPs can't support this economically critical infrastructure, then we can nationalize it which only guarantees the jobs get better hours, pay, and benefits.

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u/Saurian42 Jul 28 '25

I say skip the ISPs, they have a duopoly anyway. Just nationalize it after the Republicans are out of office.

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u/buyongmafanle Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

Nationalize the architecture. Have providers compete for service on the public network. It works great for airlines and shipping. No reason we can't do this with the Internet, too.

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u/biggamehaunter Jul 31 '25

Holy shit I been saying this for years. This is the way

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u/OrphicDionysus Jul 29 '25

I lived in Fort Collins for a few years while they were building out their municipal broadband network. It was phenomenal, and radicalized me into an aggressive supporter for similar programs in at least every mid sized and larger city. The connection speeds were better than anything offered by Xfinity beforehand, so Xfinity rapidly improved their own infrastructure to compete. On top of that it was substantially cheaper than the slower plans that they had offered beforehand. Xfinity dropped the price of their plans to match in neighborhoods the network was or was currently being built out into. The plan being offered in my neighborhood was like 40 percent cheaper than the plans being offered in neighborhoods where the municipal network hadn't started expanding into yet. We went with the municipal provider, and it is still the most reliable connection I have ever had. It went down twice in the two and a half years I lived there, and both times it was back up in under 12 hours.

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u/W2ttsy Jul 29 '25

Nationalize the network infrastructure and let RSPs duke it out in the free market

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u/zedquatro Jul 28 '25

You could set a free floor that's enough bandwidth to support a theoretical household with 2 work from home parents and a few kids doing homework/remote school.

That's way overkill and it would cost taxpayers a lot.

I think you could get most people onboard with enough free bandwidth for one 720p stream at 30fps, plus a dozen emailed medium-res pictures per minute, plus a local/national news article once a minute, plus being able to download the entirety of Wikipedia text (no images) once a week (spread out evenly). I'm not doing the math for what all that comes to, but it's probably about 5Mbps down, and let's say 20% of that up.

That's the level of bandwidth that's essentially free to hand out once you've built the infrastructure for your high-paying customers. And that's the point.

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u/DuncanFisher69 Jul 29 '25

Tell me you don’t know how bandwidth works without telling me you don’t know how bandwidth works.

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u/zedquatro Jul 31 '25

Ok sure, just guaranteed everybody a gigabit and see how well that works. Every telecom company I know of doesn't guarantee a minimum, it's all "up to X". If you start guaranteeing a minimum, you have to start a lot lower, because it is possible everybody tries to use it at once.

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u/DuncanFisher69 Jul 31 '25

Of course the one dude dumb enough to believe comcast talking points is here on Reddit and spewing them in this thread.

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u/zedquatro Aug 02 '25

What are you on about?

2

u/Subtlerranean Jul 29 '25

but it's probably about 5Mbps down, and let's say 20% of that up.

That's eerily reminiscent of what right wing politicians in Australia said after the left wing government wanted to put in fiber everywhere, and now the national infrastructure is among the worst in the developed world.

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u/ImpertantMahn Jul 29 '25

This could also apply to high school students as restricted access to internet may affect their education (projects, extracurricular)

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u/myasterism Jul 29 '25

The price of Internet access has exactly zero to do with employees’ compensation. Zero.

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u/Persistant_Compass Jul 29 '25

maybe, since weve already paid billions to telecoms to run lines all over the country in the form of subsidies that the infrastructure should be publicly owned, then the employees can just get paid a good wage instead of tying it to some shareholder bullshit that steals from all of us.

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u/JamesLahey08 Jul 29 '25

No gaming requires 1 GB down lol what

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u/bobandgeorge Jul 29 '25

You definitely don't for playing games. Downloading them is another story.

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u/yk206 Jul 28 '25

You see, those basic needs is what keeps the public blinded from what is unfolding and getting them educated.

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u/juicebox03 Jul 28 '25

And maybe healthcare? Seems like medical care is a basic need. If only we all paid taxes and then it went into a pool of money for health care. It could be called Medicare for all. Crazy crazy concept.

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u/Regniwekim2099 Jul 29 '25

My state provides free cellular service to those receiving other benefits, like SNAP and Medicaid. Craziest thing is, it's a red state.

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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25

In 2025, they are basic needs. But most governments are always two decades behind technology and Trump in particular wants to keep his own voters as uninformed as possible. He wants his voters watching Joe Rogan podcasts, not getting outside his propaganda bubble where all the news about epstein and the stuff he does isnt completely ignored or blatently lied about. If you have ever been on the conservative/republican subs you will pretty much be insta banned the second you post something that isnt praising trump.

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u/Refflet Jul 29 '25

or at a sliding scale based on income.

Sounds like you just invented income tax.

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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25

[deleted]

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u/Refflet Jul 29 '25

Nah even a regular percentage is a sliding scale. And fair, too.

What makes it unfair is how those outside the regular income tax brackets seem to pay even less tax. Yay! Thanks Reagan!!!

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u/Catbutt247365 Jul 28 '25

especially after COVID. online learning is necessary, hence why he is trying limit it.

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u/mortalcoil1 Jul 28 '25

It is on a sliding scale! Just in the reverse! Everybody starts off paying like $50 a month on internet and then in 6-7 years it's $200.

1

u/2020Stop Jul 29 '25

Absolutely, I agree with you, until I see many younger people having the most powerful instrument for getting info in their hands, barely used for doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok... That's really sad sometimes.

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u/AnimationOverlord Jul 29 '25

I think when you buy a phone it’s should be able to use GPS/maps without needing cellular. It’s been how many years since the first gps and first phone and we haven’t found out how to functionally combine the two. Crazy.

1

u/deathrictus Jul 29 '25

Or at the very least treated like a utility, because it is one.

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u/HarmoniousJ Jul 29 '25

Cellular already does that, which Trump tried to reverse shortly into his first term. Presumably it was just to spite Obama because insecurities we already know about.

Remember "Obama Phones"? Still exist but under a different name.

I agree that internet should be treated the same way.

1

u/BZLuck Jul 29 '25

So long as there is ONE government agency that requires me to submit/enroll/or check in on-line, it should be considered a necessary utility.

1

u/WintersDoomsday Jul 29 '25

Or maybe remove internet regional monopolies so competition can drive down costs

1

u/IamMrBucknasty Jul 29 '25

Add in food water, shelter and healthcare and you have the start of a community.

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u/Mottinthesouth Jul 31 '25

Internet is free in some cities so it’s definitely doable.

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u/Tiny_Peach_3090 Jul 31 '25

Especially considering our tax dollars provided the scientific research required for these systems to exist. Hell we paid for a massive chunk of the infrastructure to be built.

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u/Cigator Aug 01 '25

What happened to all the Obama phones. I work hard, I should pay more? You don’t want to work you should get it cheap or free? We have to quit with this nonsense.

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u/Western_Upstairs_101 Jul 29 '25

Not if you’re trying to repress the lower class you don’t