The way monopolies spread telephone (and electricity) to the rural area was with subsidies.
In those days, business customers paid higher rates to subsidize rural users. When business took their usage elsewhere and bypassed, the states just put a usage tax on everyone, including business. Burden of demonstrating extra cost to provide those services should be on Comcast, but if the State wants everyone treated equal, and the citizens agree, then the state should subsidize the rural users as part of the Comcast franchise. Most states already have usage taxes to pay for 911 and very low income users. They can also help the service provider by negotiating quicker depreciation on assets, that really does work.
The same subsidy goes to any service provider that will provide the rural service (e.g. 5G or 6G)
You really don't want Comcast to leave the state, Vermont knows nothing about maintaining or upgrading a distribution system, and those employees don;t want to become state employees.
Technically, those are the 'rack rate' for licensing.
I used to negotiate OS licensing for mobile companies. Motorola, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft, etc., all negotiate bulk license that are a fraction (maybe 20%-25%) of the amounts shown. Same thing for components... if you commit to five or ten million units there is a huge discount.
Otherwise companies like Motorola could never have gotten the price of a feature phone under $100 to the carrier.
The bad news is that these licenses are a barrier to entry for newer and smaller companies, but even then, if you are a friend of a big guy, you can tag on to their order. e.g. you are ex-employees spinning out, they throw you some help.
Old examples: (I don't want to get in trouble here) MicroSoft had Win CE license for $12, Palm OS $8, et cetera.) HP and Dell never paid a penny of royalty for the devices they shipped. Sony and Handspring negotiated much better deals than the smaller players. It was strategic to get those partners on board. Licensors also have to supply support and updates....
I'd rather the IRS didn't try to 'help.' A better solution is for the IRS to pay a small fee (e.g. $10) to each person who files for free using an approved service (Intuit, HR Block, Money, etc.) And make sure it works on Android and iOS (unlike the rest of the IRS site)
I doubt the 'best' product managers would be attracted to government jobs anyway.
Easy to press people's buttons here. Seems to be the standard for this paid 'journalist.'
Apparently, anybody who can tap two keys in a row can call it a blog and therefore has earned the title 'journalist' or 'press.' Since that is everybody, I'd say those words no longer have any meaning. I doubt that is how the founding fathers thought of 'Freedom of Press.'
Plenty of three word trolls to beat on Feinstein. Which commenter has actually proposed a better definition for 'journalist'? 27 comments - not one with a better proposal! Just everyone piling on the "I don't like her definition" stack - oh that helps the discussion.
So apparently you all qualify yourselves as press now.... head on down to Giant Stadium tomorrow and demand your press pass.
BTW: I'm a taxi-driver, I've never charged anybody though
I'm a lawyer, I don't get paid, I just ruminate
I'm a football star, just the Pro's don't recognize it.
I must be a journalist, never made a nickel though - but if you send me something on Paypal - Nancy F will recognize me :-)
Even if no editor, press, publication, on-line service, et cetera, has recognized/paid/published someone as a writer, investigator, or employee, you apparently are ready to recognize their self proclamation of journalist. If so what is the meaning of the word?
Any denial of service should be prosecuted and punished. If the attacker doesn't like a politician today he may not like a bank or your hospital or city mayor tomorrow.
DoA at a bank could prevent people from getting access to their money when they need to eat or pay a mortgage and avoid late fees/foreclosure. And certainly we can think of medical systems that supply life critical information OK for him to DoA? Is it OK if he attacks your town's traffic systems causing hours of delays, pollution and emergency access?
Punishment should be sever so that attackers won't say "It was just a harmless joke or a lark." Peoples lives, livelihoods, and safety are sometimes the unanticipated consequences of those DoA masking as pranks.
DoA is an intentional crime. The manslaughter mentioned above is sad, but mainly punishment for negligence (We don't know all the circumstances obviously - and there is unfairness in sentencing out there.)
If a DoA attack on a city or hospital causes people to die is that when you want to increase the penalty?
The article doesn't say whether the employees accepted a buyout package.
In the '90s I got 42 weeks of pay as a buyout for leaving Apple. The restriction, don't work for a competitor. Six years later I left Motorola, they were giving very good packages in 2001 also - same limitations.
Flack
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Flack.
Inane ... this was solved years ago, wake up VPUC
The way monopolies spread telephone (and electricity) to the rural area was with subsidies.
In those days, business customers paid higher rates to subsidize rural users. When business took their usage elsewhere and bypassed, the states just put a usage tax on everyone, including business. Burden of demonstrating extra cost to provide those services should be on Comcast, but if the State wants everyone treated equal, and the citizens agree, then the state should subsidize the rural users as part of the Comcast franchise. Most states already have usage taxes to pay for 911 and very low income users. They can also help the service provider by negotiating quicker depreciation on assets, that really does work.
The same subsidy goes to any service provider that will provide the rural service (e.g. 5G or 6G)
You really don't want Comcast to leave the state, Vermont knows nothing about maintaining or upgrading a distribution system, and those employees don;t want to become state employees.
Not really accurate
Technically, those are the 'rack rate' for licensing.
I used to negotiate OS licensing for mobile companies. Motorola, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft, etc., all negotiate bulk license that are a fraction (maybe 20%-25%) of the amounts shown. Same thing for components... if you commit to five or ten million units there is a huge discount.
Otherwise companies like Motorola could never have gotten the price of a feature phone under $100 to the carrier.
The bad news is that these licenses are a barrier to entry for newer and smaller companies, but even then, if you are a friend of a big guy, you can tag on to their order. e.g. you are ex-employees spinning out, they throw you some help.
Old examples: (I don't want to get in trouble here) MicroSoft had Win CE license for $12, Palm OS $8, et cetera.) HP and Dell never paid a penny of royalty for the devices they shipped. Sony and Handspring negotiated much better deals than the smaller players. It was strategic to get those partners on board. Licensors also have to supply support and updates....
Same today
JF
Right idea, wrong strategy
I'd rather the IRS didn't try to 'help.' A better solution is for the IRS to pay a small fee (e.g. $10) to each person who files for free using an approved service (Intuit, HR Block, Money, etc.) And make sure it works on Android and iOS (unlike the rest of the IRS site)
I doubt the 'best' product managers would be attracted to government jobs anyway.
Flame bait
Easy to press people's buttons here. Seems to be the standard for this paid 'journalist.'
Apparently, anybody who can tap two keys in a row can call it a blog and therefore has earned the title 'journalist' or 'press.' Since that is everybody, I'd say those words no longer have any meaning. I doubt that is how the founding fathers thought of 'Freedom of Press.'
Plenty of three word trolls to beat on Feinstein. Which commenter has actually proposed a better definition for 'journalist'? 27 comments - not one with a better proposal! Just everyone piling on the "I don't like her definition" stack - oh that helps the discussion.
So apparently you all qualify yourselves as press now.... head on down to Giant Stadium tomorrow and demand your press pass.
BTW: I'm a taxi-driver, I've never charged anybody though
I'm a lawyer, I don't get paid, I just ruminate
I'm a football star, just the Pro's don't recognize it.
I must be a journalist, never made a nickel though - but if you send me something on Paypal - Nancy F will recognize me :-)
Even if no editor, press, publication, on-line service, et cetera, has recognized/paid/published someone as a writer, investigator, or employee, you apparently are ready to recognize their self proclamation of journalist. If so what is the meaning of the word?
JF
You're missing the point
Any denial of service should be prosecuted and punished. If the attacker doesn't like a politician today he may not like a bank or your hospital or city mayor tomorrow.
DoA at a bank could prevent people from getting access to their money when they need to eat or pay a mortgage and avoid late fees/foreclosure. And certainly we can think of medical systems that supply life critical information OK for him to DoA? Is it OK if he attacks your town's traffic systems causing hours of delays, pollution and emergency access?
Punishment should be sever so that attackers won't say "It was just a harmless joke or a lark." Peoples lives, livelihoods, and safety are sometimes the unanticipated consequences of those DoA masking as pranks.
DoA is an intentional crime. The manslaughter mentioned above is sad, but mainly punishment for negligence (We don't know all the circumstances obviously - and there is unfairness in sentencing out there.)
If a DoA attack on a city or hospital causes people to die is that when you want to increase the penalty?
Flack
Buyout?
The article doesn't say whether the employees accepted a buyout package.
In the '90s I got 42 weeks of pay as a buyout for leaving Apple. The restriction, don't work for a competitor. Six years later I left Motorola, they were giving very good packages in 2001 also - same limitations.
Flack