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Rural Broadband to Replace POTS As Beneficiary of US Gov't Subsidies
IDG reports that "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to overhaul a decades-old system of telephone subsidies in rural areas, with the funding refocused on broadband deployment. The FCC's vote Thursday would transition the Universal Service Fund's (USF's) high-cost program, now subsidizing voice service, to a new Connect America Fund focused on broadband deployment to areas that don't yet have service. The FCC will cap the broadband fund at $4.5 billion a year, the current budget of the USF high-cost program, funded by a tax on telephone bills." That cap, says Reuters, is "the first budget constraint ever imposed on the program."
I have been trying to get broadband for my parents for years. They live a mile off the main road in a deep valley. Thus far...
* No ISDN. A year or two ago Tennessee decided it no longer had to be a tariffed service, and AT&T burned their ships behind them as rapidly as possible, because I was told our CO no longer has ISDN hardware (it did back in 2001-2002).
* No DSL. AT&T has a cluster of SAI cabinets 1 mile from their driveway, but no free ports on their DSLAM, and no intention of adding new ones. I've voluntered to *BUY* them a frickin' VDSL2 DSLAM and give it to them, but I've never heard back from them on that or any of several other offers. AT&T is a bigger information sink than /dev/null
* No Fiber. I have asked Charter if they could provision single-mode fiber if I pulled it to the road. I was agnostic about whether that's a pure FTTH setup, or just a cabinet by the road with a cable modem and a fiber converter. Nope. They cannot provision my fiber under either scenario, but they *can* provision fiber they lay themselves, which strangely costs roughly "one new car" more than doing it myself. Which is kind of hard on retired fixed-income folks.
* No cable. Their house doesn't have cable coax. See Charter's idea of fair price above.
* No cell. The valley effectively blocks all signals. I have maps of every cell tower in a 10 mile radius, and never found a useful signal on any of them.
* No satellite. They don't have line-of-sight with geosynchronous orbit, and even if they did, the satellite providers in our area aren't accepting new customers right now.
I mean, what can you do at this point? My next step is getting two 2 watt Wi-Fi routers and a couple of high-gain antennas, setting up a couple of passive repeaters between them and my house (very NoLOS), and hoping I can set up a wireless bridge. My next step past that is contacting CERN to see if they can beam internet over neutrinos.
The last time this issue came up on Slashdot, the (L)ibertarians came out of the woodwork, blaming my parents for building a house somewhere where there's no broadband, despite the fact that they built the house in 1985. Which is about as rational as blaming settlers in the 1700's for not building cities where the interstates were going to be.
They also pounced on me for wanting something subsidized. Except you're not subsidizing me one thin dime. The phone cable is already in the ground. All I need is a DSLAM in the local SAI cabinet, *which I volunteered to purchase myself*. No go. A free market only exists when the buyer actually has a choice (see "healthcare" for another example of your economic ideologies colliding with reality).
Freshman economics tells you that some business don't behave well under the usual free-market rules, and thus need to be heavily regulated. Those business are called "natural monopolies", which is why gas, electricity, sewage, roads, phone (hah!) are provided by either public utilities, or publicly-regulated private utilities. A utility only needs one set of physical plant, one set of staff, one set of senior management. Multiple companies waste megabucks on multiple plant/staff/management. They waste further megabucks on advertising, trying to steal profitable customers from each other in a zero-sum game. All that needless spending increases your costs, increases the necessary rate of return before they will provide internet, and ends up marooning a lot of marginal households on the wrong side of the digital divide.
In the middle 2000's several underserved TN cities and utilities got tired of being ignored by the AT&T and Comcast's of the world and were looking at getting into the game themselves. And then in 2008 our state politicians decided to actively hinder the formation of municipal internet and the entrance of local electric utilities (existing ones got grandfathered in), in the name of "encouraging compet
The changes will cost U.S. residents paying less than $30 a month for telephone service an additional $0.10 to $0.15 a month
This sounds great. Good for people without broadband, insignificantly more expensive for people who currently get a POTS subsidy from the program.
Now how about an urban broadband fund, to replace the worthless service tens of millions of us still have, service so bad it isn't even legally 'broadband' in any other industrialized country, with something usable?
Why should I have to subsidize the internet cost of someone who chooses to live in the country?
Should country dwellers pay extra property tax to subsidize my mortgage?
I would say stop giving away tax payer money and let the people decide over these kind of funds! I'd rather see the regulatory commissions from each country not just advise but enforce net neutrality... because yes,... that 100MB is being throttled for sure! Try downloading from RS, FS, WU, ... without a socks and then add a socks on top :)
Non-socks = 100 Mbit = max 2MB/s
Scoks = 100 Mbit = 10 MB/s
This world urgently needs new net neutrality laws instead of POTS subsidization. Regulatory bodies: Please do your work and don't throw away taxpayer money
Adnan
The rules also reform a broken system of phone charges fraught with inefficiency and should result in $2.2 billion in savings passed down to consumers, the Federal Communications Commission estimates.
This program is horrible and just a way for phone companies to charge extra money. They largely get to chose how to spend it and own all the infrastructure purchased with it. Don't extend it's reach. End it. People who choose to live in less expensive places shouldn't be force to subsidize others. I don't see people in rural places paying me money to rent more open space.
Plural's do not get apo'strophe's.
When I drive around in the vicinity of the Mohave Desert I see houses scattered - a line of poles provides a telephone line may extend to 20 miles, or more to a lone dwelling. So to provided High Speed there will need to be either fibre or a series of amplifiers and power to them. Not something a phone company would enjoy doing, for one dwelling.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The internet may be important but the telephone remains more important, especially in remote areas where it is the norm for business and power distribution may be less than reliable (POTS usually has backup power supplies, which is useful in emergencies).
On the other hand, there are plenty of places where the telephone system is just fine and they are looking for broadband.
So shouldn't the region be deciding what's more important given their needs and level of development?
The last time this issue came up on Slashdot, the (L)ibertarians came out of the woodwork, blaming my parents for building a house somewhere where there's no broadband, despite the fact that they built the house in 1985. Which is about as rational as blaming settlers in the 1700's for not building cities where the interstates were going to be.
I think they were trying to suggest that your parents sell their house and buy another one.
Freshman economics tells you that some business don't behave well under the usual free-market rules, and thus need to be heavily regulated. Those business are called "natural monopolies", which is why gas, electricity, sewage, roads, phone (hah!) are provided by either public utilities, or publicly-regulated private utilities.
Other economists claim that natural monopoly is a myth, and effects attributed to natural monopoly are in fact caused by 1. local government ownership of roads and 2. local government's failure to efficiently value permits to tear up those roads to install pipes, conduits, etc.
Multiple companies waste megabucks on multiple plant/staff/management. They waste further megabucks on advertising, trying to steal profitable customers from each other in a zero-sum game.
So why doesn't Coke merge with Pepsi?
At least Judas had the sense to hold out for 30 pieces of silver.
Which are thought to be Tyrian shekels of 1.38 troy ounces each. At current price of 35 USD per troy ounce, Judas turned in Jesus for less than $1,500.
For laying fiber in rural areas, a quick search comes up with a cost of between $16,000 and $80,000 per mile. This appears to include digging a ditch, laying the cable, repeaters, etc. So, for $4.5 billion we should be able to lay about 90,000 miles of fiber. Of course, pretty much all of these rural places that need broadband should already have phone service (and power; internet is probably not terribly useful without it), so in theory we should be able to hang new fiber on the existing utility poles - that should bring the cost closer to the $16,000 figure, which would allow 280,000 miles of fiber to be strung up, ignoring all costs of "subsidizing" people who already have connections.
Oh, just noticed that only $300 million is earmarked for deployment, so I guess we're only looking at 6,000 - 18,000 miles of fiber next year.
Maybe it's time to move to the country - it seems I would be far more likely to get better internet there than waiting for AT&T or Comcast to ever actually upgrade their systems.
Why are we're supposed to provide your parents with broadband?
Why are hospital emergency rooms supposed to provide everybody with care instead of turning away patients who cannot pay? Public investment in services that have become necessities helps reduce the demand for criminal services. Are you familiar with the plot of the film John Q, about someone who used crime to obtain health care?
I notice too that you have fiber (and probably DSL), but aren't willing to pay to have them installed yourself.
Grandparent is willing to pay for parts and labor to have them installed, but the carriers want to add a surcharge of tens of thousands of dollars (search post for "one new car").
t is subsidized because it has been determined to be beneficial to society as a whole, just like phone service and education.
I seem to recall hearing something about a few upset people staging sit-ins recently partly as an indirect result of states deciding to de-subsidize higher education.
nah, those chickens will never come home to roost, we've got "Survivor" and "Dancing with the Stars", gay marriage and abortion to worry about.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
the phone company wouldn't accept an outside sourced piece of hardware to be installed in their cabinets and connected to their networks?
Requiring the local phone monopoly to accept any conforming equipment wouldn't be much of a stretch from the Hush-A-Phone and Carterfone decisions.
If nobody lived in the country
Food prices would go up.
what would you eat?
Rising food prices would lead to a lot more tomatoes and strawberries raised in Topsy Turvy planters, along with other crops commonly found in 4x4 foot raised bed planters. Only government interference (such as the case of Julie Bass of Oak Park) prevents such victory gardens from becoming more widespread.
if broadband can be made as reliable as POTS, nobody will need POTS anymore when they can VoIP.
VOIP is available as well. Seriously, it makes good sense to convert POTS lines to DSL/VOIP systems. It might even make sense to run fiber in many areas.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The problem with that is that the provider will know you did it, because it's been done right.
If you do a half-assed looking job you can just call 'em up and when they say "we don't have a cable into your house" you can reply "yes you do, what are you talking about, I'm looking right at it!" and make them send a truck out to check. The guy on the truck will say "hmmm, looks just like one of ours" if you do the job badly enough, and you'll probably get hooked right in.
All the local phone companies where I live (Northern ND) have some sort of FTTH plan. I work for a contractor doing the work in people's homes after the fiber is buried, and the larger 'cities' (50 to 3000 people) all have fiber, now we're working on the tiny towns, then the farms, etc. Whatever stimulus money they're getting to do all this sure is working. I hope it works for you all in the future too (especially the gentleman in TN.)
LRN 2 SWM
Steve Jobs is dead. Please bury him. He is starting to stink. FTFA: "the era of Steve Jobs and the Internet future he imagined." That is not the future I want. No Usenet, 99 cents for each morsel of low quality iCrap, all my posts getting deleted, all my devices resembling a iDildo, and buying my groceries on iTunes. Why not just have Bono run for president?
I hate the FCC. They'll now have an extra 4.5 billion to give back to the major telcos, that already owe 300 billion in undelivered broadband. I harped on my local rep about this when he was head of the house subcommittee on telecommunications, but he was in the pocket of Telcos then. Since the telcos lobbied so hard to roll back the telco reform of '96, that ended up killing CLECs and ISPs, we know who will obviously win with a few billion more - the monopolies.
The libertarian answer would be to stop government mandated monopolies like we have. There used to be a few thousand ISPs and the local ones would bend over backwards to help people get online. Plenty of companies would be happy to hook you up, IF there was a fair playing ground. When the Telco reform was rolled back under Bush almost all those ISPs had to close because they couldn't compete against the monopolies again. So what should you do? Vote the bastards out of office who accept lobbying. Yeah that'd be most everyone but sooner or later we'd manage to get some good people in.
From a technical point of view, set up your own last mile. Meraki - now owned by Google - makes easy and good gear. A mile isn't that big of a deal for wireless and is rather cheap. Or your own cable.
There are many benefits of living away from civilization that your parents enjoy but urban residents don't. Consider the lack of broadband options one of the costs. It's up to them to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
Until you can prove that the benefit to the government of subsidizing broadband access for rural residents outweighs the costs, don't ask the government to intervene. It isn't the government's role to pick the winners and the losers.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
And yet they temporarily shut down the FAA because they quibbled over $200M for subsidizing airline service to rural airports?
Do you like food? Fuel for your vehicle(s)? Biodegradable plastics? Farming requires space. Space that can't be used for condos and high-rises and other population-dense structures that are "profitable" for a cableco/telco to support (but only if those structures sign exclusive contracts paying for the highest level of service for decades).
My parents are in a similar situation, in that they live on a rural farm 5 miles from the nearest town, surrounded by farmland that they actually farm, but can't get broadband. Well, that's not 100% true. Where they live is extremely flat and treeless (see: farmland) so the wireless provider from the nearest town can service them. But the local cableco won't touch them when their nearest neighbor is a mile away. Signing up two contracts per mile is not profitable for them unless there's some sort of subsidy.
Or you could starve while living in your densely-populated urban environment. Your call.
I live in a rural area, about 11 miles outside of the city limits. Since 2002. I get mailers and see advertisements quite often around here for rural high speed internet. Turns out these companies get subsidized by the government to provide rural internet but their reach is never outside of the city limits. In a sense these are small towns, so they can get away with it. But, to reach the outskirts of these towns? I have lost my faith in these programs entirely.
Telephones have a great QoS requirement by law, a few minutes of downtime per year. So instead of pursuing quality, this is just reduction of costs labeled as a technological advance. The end effect is downtime like Comcast's or Time Warner's available everywhere. The added benefit is that it will be easier to turn off communications when there is civil unrest, which is currently more difficult.
> There are many benefits of living away from civilization that your
> parents enjoy but urban residents don't. Consider the lack of
> broadband options one of the costs. It's up to them to decide
> whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
They're not asking for free broadband. They're asking for the opportunity to PAY for broadband. Pay and pay and pay for the rest of their lives. Gladly. But they can't, because generally speaking the Telcos HAVE STOPPED BUILDING OUT. We're not talking about a couple of stubborn hippie valley dwellers, we're talking about MILLIONS of people who don't have broadband. Hmmm. How can I put this as simply as possible?
IF YOU TELL SOMEONE TO SELL THEIR HOME AND MOVE FOR INTERNET ACCESS, F*** YOU. That's as ridiculous as telling someone, "You want meat? Sell your condo and move to a farm!"
Yes, there is an issue. "The USA has a huge land mass!" Well yes, yes it does. But using horses we covered it with roads. With hammers we covered it with railroad tracks. We chopped down trees and covered it with electrical lines. We covered it with telephone lines. We dug trenches and covered it with water lines. With sewer lines. And then we invented one of greatest communication tools known to man and said, "Eh... We could never lay that much fiber. This is impossible."
What the hell has happened to us? And how do we fix it?
[Oh, the CAPTCHA is "prosper". Appropriate]
So if we don't subsidize broadband for farmers, we'll starve?
No, I don't think that's true. It's quite possible that a farm with broadband can produce food more cheaply than a farm without broadband, but are the benefits really worth the costs?
Remember that subsidies distort the market, and that prevents those farmers from making rational decisions that lower the cost of food production. That means we will all pay more in the end.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
There's a price for everything. These rural residents simply don't feel that the benefits are worth the costs, and want urban dwellers to help subsidize their lifestyles.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"Oh! Oh! I used the word "subsidize", that's worth triple legit points!"
Since I and all my neighbors have dropped our POTS. The State is no longer able to collect their tax on my POTS. So now they will tax my broad band instead.
what if they just got rid of the fees and subsidies all together? POTS must die, true. Just like the FCC and the USPS.
One day when you grow up, if you work hard you may have enough money to purchase an actual home.
Homes are very, very nice. If you don't believe me ask an adult friend who owns one. They will agree.
build a small shed by the road (lots of people up here [Canada] have a tiny one just big enough to stand in so the kids don't freeze in winter waiting for the school bus - something like that)
get them to hook up the shed (so your parents can walk up and check their email, just like with an old fashioned mailbox)
then, after they leave, run your own line out the other side of the shed and down to the house
Adjust for inflation relative to what? What does an ounce of silver buy now vs. the early 0030s CE?