OK, I should not have said “no rural telco”. But do you think CenturyLink, Frontier, Fairpoint, Windstream, etc. will spend their own money when they can smell other peoples money that might pay for it? What about that French company that is supposed to be eyeing Verizon’s landline assets.
We keep bemoaning the lack of investment in broadband infrastructure (other than mobile) in this country, but then we provide disincentives to put private money into FTTH on a large scale. Investments like that need a long payback period, which only makes sense if you have regulatory certainty. You’re not going to pay a million dollars for a taxi medallion if you think Uber is going to unleash the “sharing economy” on you next week. From: Chuck McCown Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 10:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 1G fiber for $60 ... if you get $85M govt grant I am doing it every day of the week. From: Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 9:11 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 1G fiber for $60 ... if you get $85M govt grant . . . And if telcos can get RUS grants or CAF subsidies to build fiber, no rural telco is going to build fiber until it gets its grant or subsidy. . .
