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El Reg reports
The US state of Oregon says it will charge Comcast tens of millions of dollars in taxes after revoking a tax break the cable giant had claimed on its broadband service.
The state's Department of Revenue (DOR) has denied a request by Comcast that it be granted an exemption reserved for companies that offer gigabit internet service in the state.
Written to lure Google's Fiber service to Portland after years of courtship, the tax break would give exemptions to reward the installation of high-speed fiber broadband.
Comcast [claimed] its "Gigabit Pro" service tops out at 2Gbit/s and thus made the cable giant eligible to claim the same breaks as Google.
The DOR, however, did not agree, and it ruled earlier this week that Comcast will have to pay the taxes.
[...] Critics of Comcast have previously argued that the Gigabit Pro service is prohibitively expensive (up to $4,600 a year) and only reaches a small number of Oregon residents.
[...] Both Google and Frontier also had their applications denied because neither has an active gigabit service in the state.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:49PM
How many years has it been since the feds gave away billions of dollars to encourage that "last mile" development of broadband internet? And, what happened to all that money? I'll tell you what happened to that money - it was pissed away in the major markets, and all those "last miles" out in the boondocks were forgotten. Worse, a lot of people in densely populated areas seem to suggest that their service hasn't improved any.
It is at least a decade late in coming, but SOMEONE needs to hold the telcos accountable.
In 2016, there should be just about nowhere in the US where people can't get reliable cell phone coverage, AND "high speed" internet. By "high speed" I mean at least 10 MB service. My own provider is a joke. Recently, our internet offering has been increased to 4 Mb for $90/month. 4 freaking Mb - just barely adequate for a single user to stream movies. If two or more people want to watch movies at the same time, a second DSL line is necessary. That doesn't even account for the fact that distance from the server degrades service, so most people can't even stream movies adequately.
There are third world countries with better internet than we have in the United States. We need to hit the providers where it hurts - in their wallets.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by patella.whack on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:21AM
" We need to hit the providers where it hurts"
yep.
I'm not well informed on this issue, but I applaud any slap-to-the-face of oligopoly or regulatory-captured business 'interests.'
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:43AM
You mean they gave away money without timescale and measurable results... and they gave it away before the job was done? I'm somewhat reminded of the old adage about fool and his money...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:01AM
Yup. It should have been like, "We want you to provide high speed access to Americans who don't have high speed access. We will pay xx% of the costs, when you provide us with completed project documentation. We expect to see thousands of miles of trenching operations for fiber, and/or a few thousand new cell towers. Satellites don't count because latency. Get cracking - the sooner the tasks(s) are completed, the sooner you'll see some money!"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:41AM
There are third world countries with better internet than we have in the United States. We need to hit the providers where it hurts - in their wallets.
Because the nation in question perhaps is a third world country in practical means for many people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:42PM
A lack of data caps should also be considered as well. What's the point of having a gigabit connection when all you can download is 100 gigabytes per month which has a maximum average of (100 gigabytes / (2,592,000 seconds per month)) = 0.03858 MB / second = 0.3086 Mb/sec. The data cap essentially negates much of the purpose of having high speed because your maximum average speed per second is the data cap divided by the number of seconds per month.