{"id":3548,"date":"2010-04-30T06:22:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T10:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3548"},"modified":"2025-10-14T12:31:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T16:31:27","slug":"does-geography-determine-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3548","title":{"rendered":"Does geography determine needs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my <a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3540\" target=\"_blank\">post on Wednesday<\/a>, I raised the question of whether it is appropriate to continue the system of subsidizing telecommunications services based on the cost of providing service to certain geographies.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>rural and remote does not equate to low-income; often, there are substantial savings in housing costs that can offset higher prices for other services. Similarly, lower cost areas may still have prices for services that exceed the affordability level for some households.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When telecom services are usually a fraction of housing costs, why are we so focussed on subsidizing everyone in a certain geographic area to offer discounts of a few dollars per month. If we are so concerned with broadband affordability, shouldn&#8217;t the subsidy be needs based independent of where the person lives? Shouldn&#8217;t low income families in an urban setting be more deserving of help paying the bill than someone who can afford the upkeep on an estate in the country?<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, in <a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=526\" target=\"_blank\">our opening remarks<\/a> at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, we called for a needs based subsidy program to enable affordability, regardless of where people live. Such a system would be competitively neutral and would focus on demand, rather than supply.<\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t it time to try a new approach?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my post on Wednesday, I raised the question of whether it is appropriate to continue the system of subsidizing telecommunications services based on the cost of providing service to certain geographies. rural and remote does not equate to low-income; often, there are substantial savings in housing costs that can offset higher prices for other &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=3548\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Does geography determine needs?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Does geography determine needs? 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