This is simply not true. Federal money wasn't used to build broadband until Obama's second term, and that amounted to a couple of billion a year since 2012. (Of the tens of billions invested in broadband networks annually.)
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150126/04502529814/what-...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200127/09334443804/look-...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200414/07290544296/fcc-s...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-...
> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad....
This is a state-level tax-break from 1994 of about $2.1 billion. There's probably a few more like this scattered around, but I don't think there are many, because the Pennsylvania one is always the one that comes up.
> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150126/04502529814/what-....
This is referring to the Pennsylvania subsidies, above.
> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200127/09334443804/look-....
This is the CAF funding I'm referring to. The article also references the Pennsylvania subsidies, and the New York FiOS rollout, which didn't involve any subsidies at all.
> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200414/07290544296/fcc-s....
This is about future subsidies.
> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-want-to-be-....
Also about CAF, mentions $1.5 billion per year.
Obviously, billions of dollars of government funding that’s not delivered the desired results is a problem in its own right. I’m not well versed in rural issues so I don’t really know what the problems were there. My point simply is that the government never tried to build a “nationwide network” like OP suggested, not do these failed projects add up to even a year’s worth of the investment that would be required to actually do that.
How so? (eg https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3805..., there are lots of bills over the last decade, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, etc)
Unless you can go through each individual bill that was mandated to build infratructure, the history indicates that the OP statemnt is true. The money was pocketed and it wasn't done. Business as usual with govt contracts.
The ARRA appropriate a small amount of money for rural broadband, about $2.5 billion, much of which was never even spent: https://www.benton.org/blog/questioning-federal-broadband-sp.... That was 10 years ago. Then the Connect America Fund spent less than $10 billion over the last decade. These are the only major federal programs I'm aware of that spent any significant amount of money on broadband. Over that same decade, private companies invested over $70 billion per year: https://morningconsult.com/opinions/reversal-of-fortune-broa.... I don't have a recent breakdown, but in the 2007-2008 timeframe, it was $40 billion+ per year for wireline, and $20 billion+ for wireless: http://cpham.perso.univ-pau.fr/ENSEIGNEMENT/PAU-UPPA/RHD/PAP.... It might well be the reverse today, with most of the investment in wireless, but you're still talking $20-30 billion+ per year in wireline.
So over the past decade, it's maybe $10-15 billion in government funding, targeted at a few rural areas, compared with hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment. Whether or not the government money has been properly used is a fair discussion, but a separate one. It's just a tiny fraction of what you need to build and maintain a nationwide broadband network, which is what OP was talking about.
> It doesn't even appropriate any money.
So what? The entirety of the bill might be a good reference...like
an appropriate number of broadband conduits are installed along such highway to accommodate multiple broadband providers,
> Whether or not the government money has been properly used is a fair discussion, but a separate one.
That is the core of the discussion. Reread the thread.
If this isn't a reference to how the money has been spent, I'm not sure what you think is being argued. The downvotes are wrongheaded.