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[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

One of the ISP's that received billions of dollars was Frontier, not a cable company, but a regional phone company that promised to install fiber for rural business and farmers. Every year they told customers that it was still in the works, wait until next year. In the meantime they suffered with 1-mbs DSL, which often was much slower. What Frontier actually did was buy up a bunch of rickety copper lines from Verizon thinking they can continue gouge land line customers, in an age of cell service So, they lost money. Was there ever any punishment for their fraud? Hell, no. All they have to do is keep promising that "someday" it will happen. The FCC says "we're all good then", It's a shame the US is so damned corrupted from corporations paying elected officials through lobby and PAC money.

[–]FormosaOolong 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This happened in my state too. They were actually found guilty in court and were ordered to pay just a fraction of what they had stolen. Eventually the company changed its name, rolled out fiber along the highway for a few miles out of town, and then never connected it to anyone's house. Thanks, corrupt capitalism, way to go.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

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    [–]FormosaOolong 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Actually, it didn't come from the government. The companies collected "taxes" on their phone bills, which was earmarked by the government for the purpose of expanding internet to the appallingly underserved rural (and even suburban) americans. That appalling lack of service still exists, because those companies just kept using those funds they were permitted to collect (by the FCC or bureau of AG or whatever) for purposes other than rural expanasion. Like continually upgrading speed in areas where they had the population density to make it more profitable for themselves. I am not defending govt's here--but in this case it was the corporations defrauding the customers--albeit probably with the blessing, or a at least the willful ignorance--of the government agencies that permitted them to collect taxes from their customers.