Bernie Sanders - Broadband is a ‘price-gouging profit machine,’ plans to fix it - Android - Canadian apps and news

Bernie Sanders - Broadband is a ‘price-gouging profit machine,’ plans to fix it - Android

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This is one of the first plans announced to break up big ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T.

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Today, Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced a new plan focused on broadband internet in the United States (via CNBC). The Bernie Sanders internet plan accuses large ISPs of using the internet as a “price-gouging profit machine.”

Sanders’ plan pledges to provide government funding to create publicly owned broadband internet services throughout the US. The plan also lays out Sanders’ commitment to treating internet access in the same fashion as public utilities, otherwise known as Net Neutrality.

Additionally, Bernie Sanders’ internet plan would work to break up what the campaign calls “cable monopolies” and end what it calls “anti-competitive mergers.” It would also prevent major providers from also offering streaming content.

Finally, the plan would require all internet service providers to offer a “basic” broadband plan at an “affordable price.”

Sanders promises that, should he become president, “every American household will have affordable, high-speed internet by the end of his first term.”

Related: The best internet service providers in the US

Other Democratic presidential candidates, such as Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, have announced their own plans to expand broadband internet access to rural parts of the US. However, none of those plans go quite as far as this Bernie Sanders internet plan.

The candidates are all working hard to win over Iowa, one of the most important states when it comes to the Democratic Primaries. Iowa is a very rural area where ultra-fast broadband internet is a rarity. The government has granted large subsidies to major ISPs for years to help offset the costs of expanding network access in places such as Iowa, but the ISPs have made little progress.

Bernie Sanders’ internet pledge is titled “High-Speed Internet for All.” You can read it in full here.