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FCC Dodges Pointed Questions On US Broadband Plan
Ars covers a series of questions that US senators put to the FCC chairman following up on his appearance before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in April. The headline question was a blunt one asked by octogenarian Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI): "The National Broadband Plan (NBP) proposes a goal of having 100 million homes subscribed at 100Mbps by 2020, while the leading nations already have 100Mbps fiber-based services at costs of $30 to $40 per month and beginning rollout of 1Gbps residential services, which the FCC suggests is required only for a single anchor institution in each community by 2020. This appears to suggest that the US should accept a 10- to 12-year lag behind the leading nations. What is the FCC's rationale for a vision that appears to be firmly rooted in the second tier of countries?" In the FCC's formal response (PDF), Chairman Genachowski doesn't rise to the "second tier" bait, and in fact talks about "ensuring that America remains a broadband world leader," as if he believes we currently are. A blogger over at Balloon Juice is a little more forthright on the "What is the FCC's rationale" question: "The rationale is that this is the best they can do with a legislative branch in the pocket of telecom providers."
Faste8 than this market. T4erefore, theorists -
Because people who live in cities where utilities are available should have to subsidize running high speed lines out to every house in the middle of nowhere. If someone is living 50+ miles from a town why should I have to subsidize that high cost? Shouldn't they weight the costs? If we are going to put money into this why not do it more efficiently by garunteeing lesser services (e.g. the 4mb) to rural areas via wireless or w/e means is cheaper... it is not realistic to acquire throughways to run underground cables in many places... the terran makes it unreasonable in many places. The article makes it seem like we should be required to run internet to someone who decides to live on a mountain in the middle of nowhere Alaska... and we should garuntee him a high speed line with constant service and run people out to the arctic wilderness to maintain his line. We can't reasonable garuntee everyone 1GB/sec or w/e crazy standard you want, we have a budget deficit about $12 trillion and a debt this year alone of $1.5 trillion (thanks Obama!)... it is more reasonable to think that we can provide some minimal service to rural areas while providing an infrustructure that private interests can utilize... and it comes at a much cheaper cost then your "Right to Internet" mentality would yield.