Telecom Giants Head To Court To Kill NY State’s Demand They Give Poor People $15 Broadbandfrom the helping-people-is-simply-a-bridge-too-far deptRecently, New York State passed a new law (pdf) demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID.As the case heads to court, it could have broader implications for other state efforts to mandate lower costs for consumers (in times of crisis or not):“The industry fear is that other states might impose requirements far more onerous than what New York requires, such as by further lowering the price, raising the speed requirements, or expanding the eligibility pool to make broadband ‘affordable’ for middle-class customers,” added Levin.Entrenched telecom monopolies are busy trying to crush those efforts as well in a bid to maintain the very broken, but very profitable, status quo.If your business needs employees, then your business model and market analysis need to take into account what wage will support said employee(s) in the local area rather than expecting the government to subsidize your bad business model with all sorts of convoluted contortions of your free market model.Probably the incumbents would acquire some contracts to study it, maybe even wire up a few neighborhoods before the program imploded like New York City’s."