With the 2020 Democratic primaries right around the corner,?? ?? Bernie Sanders released his plan to bring high-speed internet to all corners of the United States.
Dubbed "High-Speed Internet For All," Sanders' plan calls for high-speed internet to be considered "a public utility that everyone deserves as a basic human right." Citing successful programs in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Lafayette, Louisiana, Sanders heralds the idea of "municipality-owned, high-speed internet."
With municipality-run services, the city either partners with a provider like Google Fiber to distribute internet access through a city-owned system or the city owns its own network outright. In these cases, internet access is often cheaper and of a higher quality with more transparency (i.e. no nefarious, mysterious fees tacked on to your bill).
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And, this being Bernie Sanders, he had some strong words for some of the large internet service providers, who Sanders says, "exploit their dominant market power to gouge consumers and lobby government at all levels to keep out competition."
The Vermont senator called out Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon by name, citing their staggering profits and skyrocketing CEO salaries. AT&T, in particular, promised to hire new people if a tax cut was passed in 2017. Instead, the company fired people.
Much has been written about how these giant companies and their lobbyists have prevented municipality-run internet from spreading to major cities.
A recent episode of Hasan Minhaj's Netflix series, Patriot Act, focused on this very issue.
Sanders isn't the first 2020 Democrat to unveil a broadband plan. Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and even Joe Biden have either released internet-specific plans or included rural broadband as part of a larger economic development package.
But Sanders' plan appears to be the most detailed and comprehensive one from any candidate so far, surpassing even Warren's $85 billion proposal.
While other candidates' proposals seem to be primarily focused on rural expansion of broadband access, Sanders' plan includes both rural and urban expansion.
SEE ALSO: Yeah, about those Verizon and T-Mobile 4G coverage maps…Breaking up those telecom monopolies is also a major point of Sanders' agenda (echoing Warren's long-standing call to break up Big Tech). He also wants to invest in infrastructure that would ensure "broadband infrastructure is resilient to climate change."
While these issues haven't received as much time in the spotlight at recent debates, it's possible Sanders' plan could push his opponents to flesh out their own high-speed internet proposals.
Topics Verizon Bernie Sanders Politics