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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Years in the making, a proposal to mandate the installation of fiber conduits during federally funded highway projects might be gaining some new momentum.
If the US adopts a "dig once" policy, construction workers would install conduits just about any time they build new roads and sidewalks or upgrade existing ones. These conduits are plastic pipes that can house fiber cables. The conduits might be empty when installed, but their presence makes it a lot cheaper and easier to install fiber later, after the road construction is finished.
The idea is an old one. US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has been proposing dig once legislation since 2009, and it has widespread support from broadband-focused consumer advocacy groups. It has never made it all the way through Congress, but it has bipartisan backing from lawmakers who often disagree on the most controversial broadband policy questions, such as net neutrality and municipal broadband. It even got a boost from Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has frequently clashed with Democrats and consumer advocacy groups over broadband—her "Internet Freedom Act" would wipe out the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, and she supports state laws that restrict growth of municipal broadband.
Blackburn, chair of the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, put Eshoo's dig once legislation on the agenda for a hearing she held yesterday on broadband deployment and infrastructure. Blackburn's opening statement said that dig once is among the policies she's considering to "facilitate the deployment of communications infrastructure." But her statement did not specifically endorse Eshoo's dig once proposal, which was presented only as a discussion draft with no vote scheduled. The subcommittee also considered a discussion draft that would "creat[e] an inventory of federal assets that can be used to attach or install broadband infrastructure."
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:20AM (1 child)
Yeah I'm thinking you haven't run a company.
If you spend money and have nothing to show for it (salary, building rent, heating bill) that's an expense. If you purchase a tangible item (pipe, delivery truck, printer) that's an asset.
So accountants play all sorts of games trying to get expenses reclassified as assets, because assets add up on the balance sheet and make stockholders happy, while expenses are perceived as money gone and make stockholders unhappy. For example, you pay the developers salary to build that new website and then try to claim the website as an asset of some dollar value, thereby reclassifying the salary expense. This is easier if you can outsource the work: look, we bought these pipes-in-the-ground for $X million, already installed. Not only is it an asset we can hold or sell to someone else later (it will be worth $X+Y million next year), it has the potential of generating future revenue and that makes stockholders happy too.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:30AM
And I'm thinking you don't know how building a road, following a requirement list, works...
The gravel, rebar and concrete are not assets, nor are the drainage pipes.
A right-of-way (your conduit) is an asset, but the value is pretty dang hard to write down in a balance sheet, because its access depends on what's in the contract for building the road, and its value is highly volatile (demand) and depends on someone else having a similar right-of-way nearby (like the train tracks or the utility poles).