It's true that Police, and usually Fire, services are included in your tax bill (directly or perhaps indirectly if you're a renter for example). However, these are not easily "metered" utility services. And, at least on some areas, you will get a bill from the City if you call the Paramedics come to your house unless you pay an annual subscription fee. These services are also for the common good (the person who calls the police is not the one that necessarily benefits from getting the murderer off the street for example or if your neighbor's house is on fire even if it's a complete loss by the time the Fire Department gets there, it's in your interest tha they attack the fire before it spreads and burns down the entire block). These services realistically can't be "metered". Also, it was once fairly common in some areas to subscribe to a fire service -- if you didn't subscribe, and your neighbor did, the service they subscribed to would protect your neighbor's house and not lift a finger to put your house fire out unless doing so would help save your neighbor's house.

Internet service is really much more similar to a utility - in fact it IS a utility. Few cities provide free utilities. Sometimes they offer subsidies for low income residents (life-line rates for example). Private companies often provide the service instead of the city (where I live, all these utilities are provided by a private company -- the resident pays the private company, not the government, for the services - just as they pay Comcast or AT&T for their internet service).

There are some services like education, medical care and child care that are cheaper and more efficient for the government to deliver

Is this why there are relatively few areas in the US where people with money send their kids to public schools? Is it likely that these people prefer an inferior education for their kids and are willing to shell out a lot of money for that while still paying taxes for superior educational services they have chosen not to use? Hmm... Sounds unlikely to me. My, admittedly limited, sample set of people I know who do choose to pay to send their kids to private school certainly don't do it because they are seeking an inferior education for their spawn.

2, how about free internet access for all?

Because this is impossible.

Someone has to pay for purchasing, installing, and maintaining cables in the ground/undersea, switches, routers, head ends, etc. (And, being government provided, likely means the associated labor would have to be Union in many areas which will increase the costs).

I assume you are you offering to pick up the cost. (You must be very wealthy although I don't recall seeing drinkypoo on Forbes 100 list, but I assume you're Bill Gates or someone similar using a alias). Or, perhaps you think I should pay for it? Who? If everybody pays for it, then it isn't free for all and, in fact, is free for none (even those who don't use it).

The government doesn't provide electricity, water, food, sewers, phone service, bus service, or trash pickup "free for all". Why should they do so for internet access?

The amount seems to vary by store -- perhaps based on their chargeback history or willingness to accept some of the risk?

ARGH... I meant to post the above response to the previous comment.

There's quite a bit of inefficiency with this system at my (very large) local Fry's when it was very busy. Although with NewEgg et al, I rarely go into a Frys now - I used to go in once every week or two now maybe only go once every few months and rarely when they are busy so my experiences may not reflect current practice well. In this case, they have many registers open and it's quite far from the head of the queue to the registers at the extreme reaches of the large register farm. As a result, when a checker is assigned a register a long way from the head of the queue, they end up waiting several seconds for their next customer to arrive and begin their transaction and that waiting time is wasted labor. Those checkers who are assigned registers closer to the head of the queue keep busier -- I don't know if they rotate to compensate for this or the best checkers are put at registers near the head of the queue or there is some other way to help compensate for this phenomena.

Also, without a "line coordinator" (who usually stands on a platform so they can see over the heads of customers), there can be several "green lights" on registers and as people self dispatch to these lights, it's often unclear to the next person in line if all the registers with green lights have been "claimed" by customers ahead of them who are walking towards registers and it's also hard to notice when a register light has just changed from red to green. This results in two people arriving at the same register or the person at the head of the line standing there thinking there's no available register when there is. Fortunately, when they are busy, the always seem to have a line coordinator to keep track of all this.

However, it occurred to me immediately that technology could pretty much solve this problem and eliminate the line dispatcher. At the head of the line, there could be a button (perhaps along with some motion/proximity sensors) which the customer at the head of the line holds down. A screen would display a register number as it becomes available and, perhaps, that register's light could then flash orange or something to make it stand out. When the button is released (and perhaps when sensors note the person at the head of the line has passed beyond the button), the displayed register is considered assigned and the next customer presses the button to get their next assignment. It's a bit complicated, but the average Fry's customer (at least in this area) is probably a little smarter and able to understand such a system than the average Walmart customer.

There, actually, would probably be no reason for the lights anymore on the registers with this system since each customer is told which register to go to.

As well, the system could track how long, on the average, it takes between a transaction finishing and the next one starting (presumably longer for those far from the head of the queue) and as hints of transaction completion are evident (payment in full for example) and item count/size are analyzed (for estimating bagging time), the next customer could be dispatched to the register before the prior transaction was actually complete - sometimes this would result in double stacking but the checker could delay the dispatch if they knew there was some reason the current transaction would take longer to complete "post payment" and if double stacking occurred the checker could notice it and with a single button push put the "stacked" customer at the head of the electronic queue and they would get redispatched to the next available nearby register (perhaps only "downstream" if possible to reduce two way traffic). Redispatches would be indicated on a small screen at each register and would only be done once a target register is immediately available (i.e., no speculative dispatch so customer doesn't get pissed at being "stacked" multiple times).

Extra credit for all the germs passed from customer to customer touching the button - although with some "gating" system sort of like freeway onramp metering and sensors, the button could probably be eliminated at the expense of a bit of floor space :)

Perhaps short sub-queues closer to the registers they service could be instituted (people are directed from the single long line to three or four short subqueues which service a subset of the registers, thereby reducing the time between register assignment and the customer appearing at the register. However, this would probably require more floor space, create more confusion, and, although more efficient at getting people to the front door more quickly on the average then the current system, may seem "unfair" to those who happen to get stuck in a slower subqueue than the customer behind them.

Largely, though, it's the clientele. Just look at the "People of Walmart" websites...

What, did Walmart breed or cloned these people? Did they raise their own food and make their own stuff before and stopped doing this when Walmart came to town? Surely these people were shopping somewhere before Walmart came to town. So, is your complaint is that "Before Walmart, these people stayed on their side of the tracks where I couldn't see them"?

It's kind of like watching a Hollywood hacking scene.

Speak for yourself. The password cracking programs I use display all the passwords as they are checked (unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful at cracking passwords in keyspaces exceeding 5 alpha numeric characters - I think I need a monitor with a faster response time).

OpenSignal isn't a very reliable source of information on coverage as it's based (at least in part) on crowd-sourced data. If people in an area are not using the app and contributing data, an area will show no coverage.

It's quite likely that the more rural an area is in India (or the United States), the less likely it is that someone will be using OpenSignal's app in a given location for several reasons. First, there are just less people per square km each day - so a 1% market penetration for the app is more likely to leave areas without data. Second, rural areas tend to be less affluent and therefore less likely to have phones that have room for lots of apps and/or subscribers who are willing to spend money for bandwidth for the app. Finally, I wager (admittedly based on my experience in the US) that urban areas have, on the average, a larger percentage of people who are techncally savvy and likely to have even heard of OpenSignal.

I live in one of the world's tech centers with very good cell coverage. However, the heat maps would lead you to believe in many areas that the only coverage is along freeways and arterial streets and there is none on secondary (typically residential) streets. I know this is completely untrue and I assume it reflects that thousands or tens of thousands of people a day use each freeway and arterial streets and drive a significant percentage of their miles on such streets so if a small percentage of the people run the app, one of them will end up using the major streets every so often and providing data. On the other hand, in a quiet residential neighborhood, that same penetration of users would likely show many/most blocks w/o coverage because these streets have so few "passenger miles" per year.

As well, there are large greenspace areas w/hiking trails around where I know there is coverage and there's absolutely NO hint of that shown via OpenSignal - again, low usage by people with their phones on and running the app probably is the cause.

Maybe you can trust OpenSignal where they claim there is coverage, but it's pretty unreliable for showing where there isn't coverage. (This gives me some ideas for a better app - but I won't share that here!)

All of GTAT's creditor's (like all creditors) presumably knew there was a risk that GTAT (like all companies) couldn't pay their bills. The creditors should have (and, probably did) factor that risk into either the loans they made to GTAT (such as via higher interest rates), the price of the products they sold GTAT (i.e., higher prices), or the terms on which they sold to GTAT (such as C.O.D. or net-10 vs. net-60).

It's a stretch to say that GTAT's losses are being "socialized" by the government onto their creditors. The creditors all decided to take a risk. Usually the creditors win, in this case they have probably lost - that's just business. These businesses that will likely absorb these losses could have protected themselves in a variety of ways but, likely, chose not to because they felt the risk adjusted cost of doing so exceeded the benefit.

All the government will be doing in this case is administering contracts between private parties which were entered into willingly. Federal bankruptcy law is implicitly part of every contract to loan money or sell or buy goods - the government will just assist in enforcing that portion of GTAT's contracts just as the government assists in enforcing a contract between you and a roofer when you sue the roofer in small claims court for the roofer's failure to deliver on the contract.

Ting resells Sprint service.

They roam to Verizon for Voice and Text if there's no Sprint service available (although, if you're in an area with marginal Sprint coverage, you may get stuck with a crappy Sprint connection while a Verizon user will get a great Verizon connection).

However, they do NOT roam to any other carrier for Data. In many sparsely populated areas outside where I live, Verizon has MUCH better data coverage than Sprint. It's not been much of a problem for me, but I don't use data much (and I make it a point to keep maps cached on my phone for simple map usage).

If this is really a crash risk, I'm not convinced relying on passengers not forgetting to turn their devices OFF (completely) or put them in Airplane Mode is a terribly comfortable solution.

Anyway, that may not be enough - from the article:

In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was concerned that the screens could be disrupted by mobile satellite communications, cellular signals from phones, and air surveillance and weather radar.

(Is it really a crash risk? That I don't know.)

In order to be certified as a Windows 10 system, keyboards, mice, monitors, and system enclosures will have to have shock sensors so MS can tell that users are throwing their mice at the wall, hitting their heads against the monitor, or kicking the system enclosure in frustration.

In Windows 11, users will be required to have shock sensors implanted in their foreheads and hands to detect when they hit their heads against the wall or beat their dog or spouse in frustration over dealing with Windows.

If enough people agree with you, they will vote for the Green Party candidate, the Socialist Party candidate, or the Libertarian Party candidate. However, it seems they don't. (I, personally, haven't voted for a "major party" candidate for President for decades and I've voted in every Presidential election since I was 18).

Rinse and repeat for your Senate and House candidate(s).

Did you vote for the right guy? Maybe not. But, that's on YOU. Remember, Obama was re-elected after it was clear that "hope and change" was just that - "unfulfilled hope for change". Representative democracy is messy and inefficient. The alternative, based on various experiments over the past couple hundred years, is worse.