The Inalienable Right to High-Speed Internet Access

August 5, 2010

The Inalienable Right to High-Speed Internet Access

The federal government will spend almost $82 million in Missouri to expand high-speed Internet access in rural areas. This is no doubt a boon to rural residents who want faster Internet access, but is this really a necessary function of the government? Most people in rural areas can already get high-speed Internet access through satellite connections — although they carry the same limitations as satellite television.

More to the point, if these people deeply desire faster Internet service, they have the option of moving into a decent-sized town and getting a cable or DSL connection. The fact that they don’t indicates that, for the vast majority of these people, living in a rural area is more important than having extremely fast Internet service. Choices involve trade-offs, and if a person chooses to live in a rural area, he should either be willing to forgo high-speed Internet access or pay the market rate for the service. Because I live in Saint Louis, it is easier for me to attend large, public events like Cardinals games and the upcoming Rush concert than it is for someone from Shannon County, but that does not mean the government should subsidize trips to Saint Louis for people from Shannon County. At the same time, I cannot enjoy Missouri’s outdoors as easily as someone from Shannon County, but the government shouldn’t pay for my float trips on Current River.

A person should be free to live where and however he pleases provided he does not interfere with the equal right of others to do the same. It is not the government’s role to subsidize one way of life over another.

Link via John Combest.

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23 Comments »

So rural Missouri agribusinesses dealing with multi-millions of dollars should move to a “decent-sized town”, or even a different state, to get the communications infrastructure they critically need to stay competitive?

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 5:32 p.m.
They could also pay for it without getting subsidized by the government. If that’s too expensive for them, and they can’t compete without it, then those jobs should be done somewhere that can do it more efficiently.

Comment by John Payne — August 5, 2010 @ 5:44 p.m.
The current satellite technology is not reliable for business internet purposes in rural areas. Too much interference…

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 7:27 p.m.
and upload speeds are terrible.

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 7:31 p.m.
If that’s the case, the farmers and any other interested parties can get high speed access the way those of us in towns and cities do–they will just have to pay for it and not look to the government to subsidize their businesses and residences.

Comment by John Payne — August 5, 2010 @ 8:39 p.m.
I would be more than happy to live in a rural area if the trade-off was that I would never have to attend a Rush concert. Hands down the worst band ever.

Comment by David Stokes — August 5, 2010 @ 10:25 p.m.
You’re just clearly wrong about that. I don’t know what else to say.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 12:50 a.m.
Agreed on Rush, Stokes!

@John: I wonder, would you support high-speed internet access subsidies under efficiency arguments? Let’s suppose that you had incredible, omniscient insight and were certain that a $10 million subsidy would increase total productivity and produce positive network externalities in excess of $10 million that would not have occurred in the absence of the subsidy…is it still an intolerable policy?

To be clear, it doesn’t seem likely that network externalities are in excess of the price tag in this case…I’m making the point more generally.

Comment by Abhi S — August 6, 2010 @ 9:18 a.m.
If the thinking expressed here was applied to Rural Electric – we would still have farms without electricity available to them. (In our area it was 1959 before the last farm had electricity)
Since I hooked our local school district up to the internet in the mid 1990’s (not sat. by the way) and we are rural and I mean rural – I would think that it is time for high speed to be available to all. We certainly have a generation capable of utilizing high speed. (I have it – of course I moved to town!)
Perhaps the problem here is that after years and years, the deregulation of public utilities have not produced the desired results.

Comment by T Hobbs — August 6, 2010 @ 9:26 a.m.
Abhi, granting your assumptions, I would still oppose the policy but not under economic grounds. I would still find it unjust to force other people to pay for the benefit of others–or even themselves.

However, your assumptions are completely unrealistic. No one has omniscient insight, and no one ever will, so it’s a moot point.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 9:28 a.m.
“…but that does not mean the government should subsidize trips to Saint Louis for people from Shannon County”

This is hilarious. Small towns have subsidized highway access and “regulated” utilities but internet should be at the whim of the free market? Have you used satellite internet? Have you lived in a rural area?

“..he should either be willing to forgo high-speed Internet access or pay the market rate for the service”

Hello? Internet access requires infrastructure and companies may not want to pay that cost due to low density. That, however, doesn’t mean they should be placed at an advantage due to where they live — if you believe in equity.

“It is not the government’s role to subsidize one way of life over another.”

While I agree that sprawl should not be as heavily subsidized as it is today, internet access isn’t “one persons way of life.” How do you expect someone to operate a small business without high speed internet? Fast internet is a basic human economic necessity and will be even more so in the coming decades. Without competitively fast internet we will lose out — and we’re already behind most of the planet in that regard.

Comment by Douglas Duckworth — August 6, 2010 @ 4:14 p.m.
I would apply the same standard to rural electrification, local utilities, and rural highways. If people want it, they should pay the cost; there is nothing unfair or inequitable about that. Perhaps a rural highway requires the government to construct it because of public good problems–I’m skeptical–but it could generate revenue through tolls and user fees paid by those that live along it.

Furthermore, the idea that we’re behind “most of the planet” in terms of high speed internet access is laughable. The billion some odd people living in rural China and India would probably be surprised to hear that.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 4:29 p.m.
A moment’s Googling confirmed the absurdity of saying we trail most of the world in broadband access. This has us pegged at 25th in the world as of 2006:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0704/

It also bears mentioning that many of those countries are very small and…urban. Four of the top five and five of the top ten are city states or close to it (Iceland). Also, though we rank 25th, it’s hardly like most of these other countries are blowing us out of the water. Japan beats us by just four percentage points in penetration and six tenths of a point in subscribers. Across the world, the fact remains, if you want high speed internet access, your best bet is finding a city.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 4:47 p.m.
I agree we shouldn’t subsidize rural high-speed internet. But didn’t the taxpayers subsidize the Cardinal stadium that you mention?

Comment by RonH — August 6, 2010 @ 8:49 p.m.
Yep, and they shouldn’t have. However, even the public funding came from Saint Louis County, so rural Missouri residents paid nothing for it. Similarly, if a county or several counties in rural Missouri want to tax their residents to pay for high speed internet access, I have less of a problem than if they try to force everyone in that state (or country) to foot the bill.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 10:53 p.m.
We certainly don’t want those hoosiers in the Ozarks to have access to the most important and versatile form of modern telecommunication since the radio was invented, now do we? Though most of our population is centered in cities, you can’t deny the millions that live in rural areas, the ones that feed us and work the jobs others won’t, the same access to information that the rest of Americans have.

My farming family lives just 30 minutes from downtown; we have a small cattle farm and sell our organic vegetables, fruits and wine to some of the finest restaurants in St. Louis and the largest farmers’ markets. We’re opening a restaurant/eco-tourism business in the spring in the old barn. But we live too far (2 miles too far, to be exact) to get anything but dial-up, and satellite/3G is prohibitively expensive. Marketing and running a business with 1980s-quality internet access is simply inefficient.

Our broadband infrastructure is embarrassingly inadequate and now we’re going to spend decades catching up and getting in stupid political fights like this one. Should we not subsidize highways because not everyone uses them equally? Why do we pay for two hugely expensive wars from which Americans have everything to lose and little to gain, when most Americans don’t support them?

Why can’t the free market solve this? Because the telecoms have a monopoly. Open up the broadband/wifi market, enforce net neutrality, and maybe then we wouldn’t have to subsidize the big telecoms, who don’t need our money anyway and are constantly opposing open access to the internet.

Comment by Charlie — August 8, 2010 @ 2:30 p.m.
I love how many of the comments imply that I’m some city slicker who has never set foot into the hinterlands of Missouri just because I oppose government subsidies for rural broadband access. For the record, I am originally from Poplar Bluff, much of my family lives in very rural areas in Southeast Missouri, and I used to teach high school in Carter County. Not that any of that matters to my point, but if people want to play identity politics about it, my rural bona fides are not bad.

That said, you are correct that we should end the local monopolies held by many of the telecom companies. Open the market up to some competition, and at least some of these problems would evaporate. (And for the record, I think highways should be paid for through user fees instead of taxes and the wars are both fiscal sinkholes.) The main point, however, remains: people are not entitled to broadband internet access wherever they live. If it costs more to give high speed internet access to those in rural areas, the people who want it and will receive the benefits should pay for the costs, not taxpayers in general.

Comment by John Payne — August 9, 2010 @ 1:11 a.m.
Why do we look at markets and feel so unempowered? If you live in a rural area, and want good quality high-speed internet, why not go ask start your own ISP or laid your own fiber to your house? oh, too expensive.
How about asking around for someone to provide it for cheaper than you could? Still way expensive.
How about you get together with a neighbor or two down the road, and you ask around together? oh, still too much. How about your get half the county to commit for x number of years, at a relatively “reasonable” rate, and offer to help with the up-front cost of laying the lines – a partnership, or whatever? well, then I bet providers would be coming to you.
This right to X and Y will never end I guess. I want a right to a nice restaurant by my house (in the country) open 24/7 and offering steak I want, and at $5 a plate. Well, old Milton Friedman said there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or even a below-market rate lunch, unless it’s cheap to you because somebody else is paying for it.
Margaret Thatcher said the Problem with Socialism is it always runs out of other people’s money. & America has no end of stimulus ideas but is running out of rich guys to soak.

Comment by Steve Spellman — August 16, 2010 @ 8:27 p.m.
No doubt you have brought up an interesting point, which seems, for the most part, to have been missed. Yes, everyone should have the same OPPORTUNITY for many things, life, liberty and the pursuit of high-speed internet. However, it is not the place of our governing body to ensure that all opportunities are met equally, that is the responsibility of the people, you and I.
To think that this great nation could expect a handicap to compensate for ANY difference in condition is not only exponentially depressing, but SHOULD BE laughed at by anyone with a patriotic bone in their body, or a brain in their head.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND DON’T EXPECT BIG GOVERNMENT TO DO IT FOR YOU!!

Comment by Also Ryan — August 17, 2010 @ 2:19 p.m.
I am assuming this is a libertarian/republican based website, and from what I have seen and know, the rural areas are a strong base in that area of politics. So how can rural areas in one sentence say they hate Obama, the stimulus bill, and universal healthcare and anything that works that way, but then say that they want to use some of that stimulus money to help make it possible to bring internet access to the rural areas?

That seems kind of hypocritical and inconsistent.

Comment by Adama — September 12, 2010 @ 12:42 p.m.
This is a free market site with many writers who identify as libertarian, but we are non-partisan, so this is not a Republican website. To address your point, spending this money is actually less popular in the rural areas (and even more specifically, among people in rural areas without internet access) than it is in urban areas, so a lot of these people are not being hypocrites. For documentation of that claim, see here, p. 18:

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2010/Home%20broadband%202010.pdf

Comment by John Payne — September 17, 2010 @ 3:33 p.m.
We have federal subsidies for all types of projects and activities (rural and urban) to promote general welfare. {What? You have a river running through your city? And you need a bridge built to cross it? Blah! You should move to where there are no rivers and then you wouldn’t need a bridge!} This is a free market site? Let me know when you find a free market. I think Somalia is about as close to a free market as we have in this world. Go reread Adam Smith.

Comment by iowactor — March 17, 2011 @ 4:00 p.m.
I live in a semi-rural area with a Fortune 500 business a mile down the road and DSL cables from a subdivision that stop a mere 150 yards from my house, yet I’m in a small triangle of nothingness where I can’t get cabled or even line-of-sight internet service. I agree…it is not the government’s responsibility to provide internet service to someone like me. That said…..in 2011, reliable internet with decent speed is not a luxury item for rural businesses, schools or hospitals, any more than electricity or phone service is a luxury. I would rather pay for rural people to have internet than to pay for groceries and healthcare for able-bodied, yet lazy, people.

Comment by ThereAreVariables — December 27, 2011 @ 11:47 a.m.

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So rural Missouri agribusinesses dealing with multi-millions of dollars should move to a “decent-sized town”, or even a different state, to get the communications infrastructure they critically need to stay competitive?

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 5:32 p.m.

They could also pay for it without getting subsidized by the government. If that’s too expensive for them, and they can’t compete without it, then those jobs should be done somewhere that can do it more efficiently.

Comment by John Payne — August 5, 2010 @ 5:44 p.m.

The current satellite technology is not reliable for business internet purposes in rural areas. Too much interference…

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 7:27 p.m.

and upload speeds are terrible.

Comment by DaveG — August 5, 2010 @ 7:31 p.m.

If that’s the case, the farmers and any other interested parties can get high speed access the way those of us in towns and cities do–they will just have to pay for it and not look to the government to subsidize their businesses and residences.

Comment by John Payne — August 5, 2010 @ 8:39 p.m.

I would be more than happy to live in a rural area if the trade-off was that I would never have to attend a Rush concert. Hands down the worst band ever.

Comment by David Stokes — August 5, 2010 @ 10:25 p.m.

You’re just clearly wrong about that. I don’t know what else to say.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 12:50 a.m.

Agreed on Rush, Stokes!

@John: I wonder, would you support high-speed internet access subsidies under efficiency arguments? Let’s suppose that you had incredible, omniscient insight and were certain that a $10 million subsidy would increase total productivity and produce positive network externalities in excess of $10 million that would not have occurred in the absence of the subsidy…is it still an intolerable policy?

To be clear, it doesn’t seem likely that network externalities are in excess of the price tag in this case…I’m making the point more generally.

Comment by Abhi S — August 6, 2010 @ 9:18 a.m.

If the thinking expressed here was applied to Rural Electric – we would still have farms without electricity available to them. (In our area it was 1959 before the last farm had electricity)
Since I hooked our local school district up to the internet in the mid 1990’s (not sat. by the way) and we are rural and I mean rural – I would think that it is time for high speed to be available to all. We certainly have a generation capable of utilizing high speed. (I have it – of course I moved to town!)
Perhaps the problem here is that after years and years, the deregulation of public utilities have not produced the desired results.

Comment by T Hobbs — August 6, 2010 @ 9:26 a.m.

Abhi, granting your assumptions, I would still oppose the policy but not under economic grounds. I would still find it unjust to force other people to pay for the benefit of others–or even themselves.

However, your assumptions are completely unrealistic. No one has omniscient insight, and no one ever will, so it’s a moot point.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 9:28 a.m.

“…but that does not mean the government should subsidize trips to Saint Louis for people from Shannon County”

This is hilarious. Small towns have subsidized highway access and “regulated” utilities but internet should be at the whim of the free market? Have you used satellite internet? Have you lived in a rural area?

“..he should either be willing to forgo high-speed Internet access or pay the market rate for the service”

Hello? Internet access requires infrastructure and companies may not want to pay that cost due to low density. That, however, doesn’t mean they should be placed at an advantage due to where they live — if you believe in equity.

“It is not the government’s role to subsidize one way of life over another.”

While I agree that sprawl should not be as heavily subsidized as it is today, internet access isn’t “one persons way of life.” How do you expect someone to operate a small business without high speed internet? Fast internet is a basic human economic necessity and will be even more so in the coming decades. Without competitively fast internet we will lose out — and we’re already behind most of the planet in that regard.

Comment by Douglas Duckworth — August 6, 2010 @ 4:14 p.m.

I would apply the same standard to rural electrification, local utilities, and rural highways. If people want it, they should pay the cost; there is nothing unfair or inequitable about that. Perhaps a rural highway requires the government to construct it because of public good problems–I’m skeptical–but it could generate revenue through tolls and user fees paid by those that live along it.

Furthermore, the idea that we’re behind “most of the planet” in terms of high speed internet access is laughable. The billion some odd people living in rural China and India would probably be surprised to hear that.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 4:29 p.m.

A moment’s Googling confirmed the absurdity of saying we trail most of the world in broadband access. This has us pegged at 25th in the world as of 2006:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0704/

It also bears mentioning that many of those countries are very small and…urban. Four of the top five and five of the top ten are city states or close to it (Iceland). Also, though we rank 25th, it’s hardly like most of these other countries are blowing us out of the water. Japan beats us by just four percentage points in penetration and six tenths of a point in subscribers. Across the world, the fact remains, if you want high speed internet access, your best bet is finding a city.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 4:47 p.m.

I agree we shouldn’t subsidize rural high-speed internet. But didn’t the taxpayers subsidize the Cardinal stadium that you mention?

Comment by RonH — August 6, 2010 @ 8:49 p.m.

Yep, and they shouldn’t have. However, even the public funding came from Saint Louis County, so rural Missouri residents paid nothing for it. Similarly, if a county or several counties in rural Missouri want to tax their residents to pay for high speed internet access, I have less of a problem than if they try to force everyone in that state (or country) to foot the bill.

Comment by John Payne — August 6, 2010 @ 10:53 p.m.

We certainly don’t want those hoosiers in the Ozarks to have access to the most important and versatile form of modern telecommunication since the radio was invented, now do we? Though most of our population is centered in cities, you can’t deny the millions that live in rural areas, the ones that feed us and work the jobs others won’t, the same access to information that the rest of Americans have.

My farming family lives just 30 minutes from downtown; we have a small cattle farm and sell our organic vegetables, fruits and wine to some of the finest restaurants in St. Louis and the largest farmers’ markets. We’re opening a restaurant/eco-tourism business in the spring in the old barn. But we live too far (2 miles too far, to be exact) to get anything but dial-up, and satellite/3G is prohibitively expensive. Marketing and running a business with 1980s-quality internet access is simply inefficient.

Our broadband infrastructure is embarrassingly inadequate and now we’re going to spend decades catching up and getting in stupid political fights like this one. Should we not subsidize highways because not everyone uses them equally? Why do we pay for two hugely expensive wars from which Americans have everything to lose and little to gain, when most Americans don’t support them?

Why can’t the free market solve this? Because the telecoms have a monopoly. Open up the broadband/wifi market, enforce net neutrality, and maybe then we wouldn’t have to subsidize the big telecoms, who don’t need our money anyway and are constantly opposing open access to the internet.

Comment by Charlie — August 8, 2010 @ 2:30 p.m.

I love how many of the comments imply that I’m some city slicker who has never set foot into the hinterlands of Missouri just because I oppose government subsidies for rural broadband access. For the record, I am originally from Poplar Bluff, much of my family lives in very rural areas in Southeast Missouri, and I used to teach high school in Carter County. Not that any of that matters to my point, but if people want to play identity politics about it, my rural bona fides are not bad.

That said, you are correct that we should end the local monopolies held by many of the telecom companies. Open the market up to some competition, and at least some of these problems would evaporate. (And for the record, I think highways should be paid for through user fees instead of taxes and the wars are both fiscal sinkholes.) The main point, however, remains: people are not entitled to broadband internet access wherever they live. If it costs more to give high speed internet access to those in rural areas, the people who want it and will receive the benefits should pay for the costs, not taxpayers in general.

Comment by John Payne — August 9, 2010 @ 1:11 a.m.

Why do we look at markets and feel so unempowered? If you live in a rural area, and want good quality high-speed internet, why not go ask start your own ISP or laid your own fiber to your house? oh, too expensive.
How about asking around for someone to provide it for cheaper than you could? Still way expensive.
How about you get together with a neighbor or two down the road, and you ask around together? oh, still too much. How about your get half the county to commit for x number of years, at a relatively “reasonable” rate, and offer to help with the up-front cost of laying the lines – a partnership, or whatever? well, then I bet providers would be coming to you.
This right to X and Y will never end I guess. I want a right to a nice restaurant by my house (in the country) open 24/7 and offering steak I want, and at $5 a plate. Well, old Milton Friedman said there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or even a below-market rate lunch, unless it’s cheap to you because somebody else is paying for it.
Margaret Thatcher said the Problem with Socialism is it always runs out of other people’s money. & America has no end of stimulus ideas but is running out of rich guys to soak.

Comment by Steve Spellman — August 16, 2010 @ 8:27 p.m.

No doubt you have brought up an interesting point, which seems, for the most part, to have been missed. Yes, everyone should have the same OPPORTUNITY for many things, life, liberty and the pursuit of high-speed internet. However, it is not the place of our governing body to ensure that all opportunities are met equally, that is the responsibility of the people, you and I.
To think that this great nation could expect a handicap to compensate for ANY difference in condition is not only exponentially depressing, but SHOULD BE laughed at by anyone with a patriotic bone in their body, or a brain in their head.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND DON’T EXPECT BIG GOVERNMENT TO DO IT FOR YOU!!

Comment by Also Ryan — August 17, 2010 @ 2:19 p.m.

I am assuming this is a libertarian/republican based website, and from what I have seen and know, the rural areas are a strong base in that area of politics. So how can rural areas in one sentence say they hate Obama, the stimulus bill, and universal healthcare and anything that works that way, but then say that they want to use some of that stimulus money to help make it possible to bring internet access to the rural areas?

That seems kind of hypocritical and inconsistent.

Comment by Adama — September 12, 2010 @ 12:42 p.m.

This is a free market site with many writers who identify as libertarian, but we are non-partisan, so this is not a Republican website. To address your point, spending this money is actually less popular in the rural areas (and even more specifically, among people in rural areas without internet access) than it is in urban areas, so a lot of these people are not being hypocrites. For documentation of that claim, see here, p. 18:

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2010/Home%20broadband%202010.pdf

Comment by John Payne — September 17, 2010 @ 3:33 p.m.

We have federal subsidies for all types of projects and activities (rural and urban) to promote general welfare. {What? You have a river running through your city? And you need a bridge built to cross it? Blah! You should move to where there are no rivers and then you wouldn’t need a bridge!} This is a free market site? Let me know when you find a free market. I think Somalia is about as close to a free market as we have in this world. Go reread Adam Smith.

Comment by iowactor — March 17, 2011 @ 4:00 p.m.

I live in a semi-rural area with a Fortune 500 business a mile down the road and DSL cables from a subdivision that stop a mere 150 yards from my house, yet I’m in a small triangle of nothingness where I can’t get cabled or even line-of-sight internet service. I agree…it is not the government’s responsibility to provide internet service to someone like me. That said…..in 2011, reliable internet with decent speed is not a luxury item for rural businesses, schools or hospitals, any more than electricity or phone service is a luxury. I would rather pay for rural people to have internet than to pay for groceries and healthcare for able-bodied, yet lazy, people.

Comment by ThereAreVariables — December 27, 2011 @ 11:47 a.m.

August 5, 2010