It's free! Free! Free! Except for the overburdened American taxpayer.
If you liked the government’s “free Safelink cell phones for the poor scam,” you’re going to love the new “free high-speed internet access for the poor” program. Or as we like to call it, the precursor to free internet radio, free internet TV, and free internet movies for all.
Unfortunately, that free internet service isn’t coming from companies like NetZero.com or Google TiSP. It’s coming from the government. Which means you, the American taxpayer, will be paying for someone else’s free internet.
Arstechnica.com tells the tale of our new free broadband Big Brother:
Former FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate is back with a vague plan to get Big Government away from “dictating what Americans ‘should’ get or what is ‘best for them’” when it comes to broadband. Forget setting mediocre targets, like the “4Mbps for all Americans by 2010″ goal of the National Broadband Plan. Instead, just give people vouchers for really crappy broadband service and the problem will take care of itself.”
Tate actually thinks it’s good sales technique to describe the program as food stamps for broadband or “broadband stamps.” Great.
Tate wants to give low-income Americans a broadband voucher with which they could pay for a “minimum broadband package.” In case you’re wondering, Tate’s definition of “minimum” is “enough bytes to surf the web and send e-mails to family members.”
Of course, Tate claims she doesn’t want to make this one of those government giveaways. No, a thousand times no. Her plan will assure that this “circumscribed” broadband offers only basic internet access. So if you want to surf porn all day, well, damn it, you’ll just have to pay for it yourself. (At least that’s the theory).
Why settle for a rich woman when you can have a rich Uncle Sam?
We’ll just see how long that part of the program survives. Because if there’s one thing that leftists and big government advocates cannot abide, it is the thought of an entitlement program that actually requires the recipients to use “their own money.” They have no qualms, however, about using yours.
Tate thinks that by providing vouchers for minimal services, ISPs would see a massive influx of new customers and be prompted to make additional offerings available in urban and rural areas. We used to call this free enterprise, but now it is commonly referred to as an evil capitalist plot.
Arstechnica.com says, “This, to put it mildly, is dubious. People too poor to afford broadband in the first place are unlikely to sign up to the lucrative ‘triple plays’ that every cable and telco is desperate to offer.”
If you’re saying to yourself, this sounds remarkably similar to the free government phone scam, you are very perceptive. A current FCC plan called Recommendation 9:1 authorizes the SafeLink Wireless program and Tate’s “free internet for the poor” scam builds on that concept, which already supplies the free phone service to approximately 7 million households.
Recommendation 9:1 also says “The FCC and states should require eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) to permit Lifeline customers to apply Lifeline discounts to any service or package that includes basic voice service. By clarifying that Lifeline consumers can apply the current Lifeline discount to any offering that includes voice and data service, the FCC and states can help low-income consumers benefit from the same discounts provided through bundled service offerings that are affordable to wealthier households in the United States. Many of these bundled offerings include broadband services. Letting consumers apply their Lifeline discounts to bundled offerings will help make broadband more affordable.”
The recommendation also states that “Forty percent of adults with household incomes less than $20,000 have broadband at home, compared to 93% with household incomes greater than $75,000. Many people with low incomes simply cannot afford the costs associated with having a broadband connection at home. To make broadband more affordable and overcome some of the barriers that have kept the penetration rate for these households low, the FCC should extend low-income universal service support to broadband.”
Today, free broadband. Tomorrow, free internet radio. Free internet TV. Hell, everything’s free, free, free. Except to the taxpayer.
Unfortunately, it’s not difficult to see where this one’s going. Free internet access is just as worthless without a computer as free cell phone minutes are without a cell phone.
So just as SafeLink Wireless offers free cell phones with free monthly minutes, it won’t be long until a government program is proposed to offer the poor free computers on which to use their free internet access.
Source: Arstechnica.com
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Rated Awesome! What do you think?
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*sigh* Great. first step in being able to control the internet is to take over the ISPs. Bill of Rights. What an inconvenient document. The Constitution. What an inconvenient document.
Welfare: Because everyone has the right to what you worked hard for.
Rated Awesome! What do you think?
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I’m reallly close to getting myself fired, letting the house go into foreclosure and going on public assistance.
Why work a 50 hour week for a company that only cares about it’s stockholders just to have the feds take 38% of it when I can just sit on my arse all day,watch free tv, browse free internet, and talk on a free cell phone eating free food.
Me thinks working America may have the wrong idea….Lets all just go home, sit on our collective arses and let someone else pay for it.
Rated Awesome! What do you think?
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Thumbs down ??
Come on folks, you recognize sarcasm when you read it. We use it here often enough.
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Can I be the first to contact IHTM about how I get my free government internet?
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Only if you take the screwing first.
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Sheesh !! Don’t start that rumor too. Poor David Collins went totally ballistic about the alleged IHTM free-phone giveaway.
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Funniest comment of the day.
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Just trying to save your keester from another tedious inquisition by another bi-polar manic-depressive with paranoid delusions – whatever the #*&%@ that means.
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You should know that as a liberal program IHTM will be on a list of banned sites for the free internet consumer
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Irony alert: the Google ad (F**K Google!) at the top of the page right now is advertising……
FREE GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED PHONES
250 FREE MONTHLY MINUTES
Click here
SafeLink.com
So now we have to pay to advertise them too? This is as bad as the WIC commercials I hear sometimes on the radio. Infuriating as hell. God how I detest leftists.
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I think THEY pay to advertise here.
Yes, no, anyone know? Admin?
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The ads come through Google Adsense, the most widely used Pay Per Click (PPC) service. The vast majority of all ads you see on small and medium size sites are Adsense. The advertisers pay Google, who in turn pays a portion of that to the website owner.
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USN-Retired—-
Q: Who pays them so they can advertise?
A: Taxpayers! aka You, me and everyone else.
Whatever government agency handing out WIC does this same crap on radio. They (the statists) advertise free welfare (be it phones or foodstamps) using our taxpayer money, in order to give to moochers and freeloaders. Get it?
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Thanx
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I can’t afford broadband, because I just spent all my money on a new computer.
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I can usually get 30 minutes to 1 hour of free internet access several times a day at the free to enter libraries of the US whenever I am not at home. They can try that. I don’t mind tax money to go to the libraries. This is disgusting.
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And did you know that the various library associations fight to keep the internet at the library uncensored, when it is so easy to install anti-pornography software? Your kids could be on their way to the children’s section and some scumbag could have hardcore on his monitor in full view as they walk by. That’s liberty, say the librarians.
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Yes I do know that and it pisses me off. I don’t know if it is them more than PRESSURE from the ACLU (and others) that makes them do that, but it could be if the association is mostly liberal. Any and all responsible libraries (be it city or community colleges, etc) self censor, but the reason they get away with it is because they tend to be small and /or in communities where that is wanted. I bet you anything it is in liberal communities where the libraries are pressured to not have anti pornography software.
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All in all, it’s a pretty sad statement about a persons life if they have to go to the public library to surf porn…
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It is true and it is pathetic.
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Homeless and very disabled- I would have been dead if not for internet access – but sadly these “lifeline services” were only available to people with housing in my state via land line. People get a free basic phone for sign up just like with other cell sign on pitches- and very few monthly minutes 250. They need to be aware the pitch also asks them to buy more . Lifeline in a home can have low cost unlimited local minutes. For those who need med care and help (with homes) the home based phone and an answer machine is best. Get a pre-paid cell for emergency only. For those who are homeless especially disabled and disabled veterans – the cell and finding internet access could be a life saver and help you get medical help and housing, if you are in the states who offer it.
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No One offers free or low-cost internet access to the poor or disabled at this time.
The same come on specials are open to every one- or show me who is doing it by income or other “test”.