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| Hey, hey, hey who really cares about faster internet anyway? |
In a rare senatorial act, full-time Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio joined with a handful of fellow legislators on Friday in an attempt to block local municipalities from undercutting big telecom companies by providing cheap, fast internet service.
Rubio, who is raising campaign cash from the telecom industry for his presidential campaign, fired off a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to allow states to block municipal broadband services.
The letter was the latest salvo in a long-running effort by the major telecom companies to outlaw municipal broadband programs that have taken off in cities such as Lafayette, Louisiana, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, because they pose a threat to a business model that calls for slow, expensive internet access without competition.
In Chattanooga, for instance, city officials set up a service known as “The Gig,” a municipal broadband network that provides data transfers at one gigabit per second for less than $70 a month — a rate that is 50 times faster than the average speed American customers have available through private broadband networks.
I would say that is a fairly ridiculous position to take for a Republican who espouses the virtue of capitalism and the free market.
And it is really going to cost him the support of every young gamer, constant internet user, and, let's face it, porn watcher in the country.
By the by my daughter has visited Chattanooga and goes on and on about their high speed internet. And because of that businesses are scrambling over themselves to build there.
Clearly Rubio is big telecom's bitch, and just because he looks young does not mean that he understands what it takes to attract the youth vote. Because this ain't it.
P.S. And if this were not enough Rubio also has a plan to make gay marriage illegal again.
Might be shallow of me, but the bottled water SOTU response sealed my opinion of this doof forever, much like the Couric interviews sunk doof-ess S'error. Dress it up all you want, but a turd is still a turd.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, a gop guy commits political suicide --subconsciously. Or, are they just that dumb?
ReplyDeleteIt's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action-- experiments show that the less competent a person actually is, the more competent they perceive themselves to be, because they're too dumb to know what they don't know.
ReplyDeleteJust another sad example of a bought-and-paid for American politician.
ReplyDeleteRather than looking at their voting records or watching their ads, look up the list of their corporate donors and you'll know who NOT to vote for.
Rubio is against marijuana legalization which also does not help with the youth vote. Hillary is more progressive on this issue than Rubio.
ReplyDeleteI can vouch for Chatatanooga's internet service. Went there with the husband on business and was blown away. Not only the speed but the quality of service was top notch, with few, if any, spots where it wasn't available.
ReplyDeleteNet Zero did an experiment years ago in Philadelphia, and it was an epic fail. Another company tried to take it over to no avail. So the city paid for tons of wifi routing equipment and those who can't afford it got screwed over.
Just another example of our public servants not serving the public but rather protecting their for profit corporate overlords/puppetmasters.
ReplyDelete