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FCC Maps the 3G Wasteland Of the Western US

Posted by timothy on from the desires-infinite-resources-scarce dept.

alphadogg writes "The Federal Communications Commission has released a map showing which counties across the U.S. lacked coverage from either 3G or 4G networks and found that wide swaths of the western half of the country were 3G wastelands, particularly in mountainous states such as Idaho and Nevada. This isn't particularly surprising since it's much more difficult for carriers to afford building out mobile data networks in sparsely populated mountainous regions, but it does underscore how large stretches of the United States lack access to mobile data services that people in the Northeast, South and Midwest now take for granted."

44 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. If you compare maps.... by Moryath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    from 10 years ago, the same areas look like wastelands for net access in general.

    Telecommunications companies simply don't want to build out. Either the government makes them do it, or they drag their feet on it. The more they drag their feet, the more isolated the communities out there become. Some communities out there - like the FLDS compounds - actually thrive on that level of isolation.

    It's not a matter of carriers not being able to "afford" building out - previous telecommunications acts requiring them to build out telephone infrastructure proved that not to be the case. They just don't "want" to.

    "Free Market" at work, apparently. It doesn't fix shit.

    1. Re:If you compare maps.... by thomasw_lrd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.

      But should we classify 3G or 4G service as a utility? That's the real question.

      --
      21st Century Renaissance Man
    2. Re:If you compare maps.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Free Market" at work, apparently. It doesn't fix shit.

      You're assuming something's broken.

      The badlands and ranges and ranches and deserts and endless waves of what North-easterners call flyover country have gotten along without cell phones for centuries, and they've done just fine. Urbanites need their cell phones; ranch-hands don't. Bringing multiplayer Angry Birds to the back woods of Idaho is not profitable because it doesn't fill a need. There is no shit to fix here. Move along, lil' doggies.

    3. Re:If you compare maps.... by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was just wondering why the FCC has to subsidize these a-holes that are using public spectrum free of charge when they are turning multi-billion dollar profits. Maybe the FCC should just say "build it by this time next year or hand over your spectrum rights to someone who will"

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    4. Re:If you compare maps.... by macraig · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.

      There might not be enough people to justify it for the profit motives of those companies, but those motives are by nature selfish and don't give a damn about the larger socioeconomic picture. What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?

      Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.

    5. Re:If you compare maps.... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      The billions of dollars paid in frequency licenses by these companies insinuate that they are most certainly not using the public spectrum free of charge.

    6. Re:If you compare maps.... by BurfCurse · · Score: 2

      Why do people still think that those who work in agriculture don't have the same needs and wants that everyone else in America does?

    7. Re:If you compare maps.... by trout007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The benefit of a free market is that it does the best job at allocating limited resources. Right now 3G and 4G technology is expensive to implement. So it makes sense that it would be put to first use in a place where there is the fastest payback. All during the roll out of these technologies the prices become better known and cheaper. That allows the technology to spread. Think of it this way. Part of your carrier bill helps to pay for all of those towers you pass as you go about your daily life. The more people using that tower the cheaper it is to use it. Now if you live somewhere so remote that you and 5 families you know are the only ones using the tower you would either have to pay more for modern technology or wait until the tech gets cheaper. This is a perfect example of a free market working to allocate limited resources.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    8. Re:If you compare maps.... by Adriax · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can!
      Instantaneous access to current market prices. Farmers who have this access have reported much better returns on their harvests.
      Access to emergency services incase of an accident. Some ranches around here don't have even basic cell access.
      Instant access to veterinary, horticultural, ect... resources. "Never seen this bug before, is it good or bad for my crops? If I don't squish now will I have to napalm my field later?"
      Sound and image recognition programs. Not many people can tell the different between a crow's mating call and their "Holyshit it's a bear!" call.
      Maps.
      Repair resources. Not everyone knows their quad bolt by bolt, knowing your kawasaki has a loose clutch linkage can save a lot of walking.
      Entertainment. Not all cowboys find the great outdoors so incredibly breathtaking that they never get bored, and a horse can navigate by itself better than any californian driver.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    9. Re:If you compare maps.... by HapSlappy_2222 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People always talk about the free market, but one thing they miss is that the free market requires rational actors. Expanding the companies' infrastructures may or may not be rational, but this depends on whether the rational acting consumers demand and will pay for it if they do.

      Generally, we as consumers put up with waaay too much shit, and continue to buy products anyway, allowing the companies to whatever they want.

      It seems to me like having nationwide 4G coverage would be a HUGE selling point for a telco, even in sparsely populated areas (we're everywhere, even while you're sleeping in the woods!!!), but they know they don't have to until forced.

      Also, as a former telco employee, classifying a service as a utility should not be done lightly. The portion of your bill that goes to taxes on utilities are fucking nuts (worse than what you see) and while it's harder to price gouge in the short run, there's a reason a land line costs $60 after taxes. Also, the intent of guidelines can be skirted pretty easily, which is why calling customer service results in a sales pitch, and why unless you specifically ask for a "1FR line" you get the package deal with long distance and call waiting blah blah.

    10. Re:If you compare maps.... by meerling · · Score: 2

      Don't know. I know some farmers that would make a hell of a lot more use in their job with more data and connectivity than most people do in their entire lives.
      The uses are apparently more than can be summed up in a 300 page article.

      And it's not just farmers that don't live in the cities. I know of a lot of towns and small cities that have connectivity that harkens back to the 1930s or 40s, except they don't have human switchboard operators or crank phones.

      It's already been shown that when the government gives the corporations tax breaks or incentives, and even grants, for the purpose of expanding the infrastructure, the corporations do everything in their power to reap the benefits and turn it into cash bonuses as they possibly can without actually doing what was intended or agreed upon. Then as deadlines approach, they whine about there being enough time and not enough money in their attempts to get a new deadline and more money for a job they don't intend to do unless forced to. Not to sound like I'm wearing a tin hat or anything, but they've done it before, and they'll do it again.

    11. Re:If you compare maps.... by Dave+Emami · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.

      There might not be enough people to justify it for the profit motives of those companies, but those motives are by nature selfish and don't give a damn about the larger socioeconomic picture. What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?

      And how much money might be sunk into providing higher-capacity connectivity to those people, only to find that that they don't contribute anything, tovarisch?

      Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.

      Rather, it doesn't make the decisions you want it to make. The people living there choose to do so, knowing the various trade-offs that come with that. They have the pluses of better air quality and less noise, and the minuses of crappy connectivity and more-expensive groceries. I'm sure pizza delivery service sucks out there, too. Going to force Dominos to open stores out in those parts of Nevada where population density drops below half a person per square mile?

      --

      "The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
    12. Re:If you compare maps.... by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?

      What might our urban comrades contribute to society if they got off the damned internet once and a while?

    13. Re:If you compare maps.... by suprcvic · · Score: 2

      Corporate obligations are to their shareholders, not society. Sure we don't want them harming society, but if they're not harming society then they should have no concern for the "socioeconomic picture." If you care so much about it, invest in a company that does give a damn and quitcherbitchin. All that aside, if the people who don't have adequate access want to contribute something bad enough, they'll find a way. It's not anybodies responsibility but their own to get it done.

    14. Re:If you compare maps.... by toejam13 · · Score: 2

      You're assuming something's broken.

      Farmers and ranchers in remote areas have been using portable VHF radios for communications for a number of decades now. Last I checked, such radios were still available and offered superior reception and battery life when compared to UHF cellular phones.

      Furthermore, the dead zones in the western US states and Canadian provinces aren't solely the fault of private telecommunications companies. The last I checked, neither government has allocated a range in the lower UHF or upper VHF bands for cellular communication. Everything is in the middle to upper UHF band (the lowest we go is 700MHz). Recall that for any given power level, range decreases as frequency increases.

      This is in contrast to Nordic and eastern Europe, much of Latin America, Africa and Asia that has a range around 450MHz for GSM and CDMA cellular communication. In the US, that range is reserved for GMRS and FRS. If the federal government reallocated that range for mobile cellular communication, the costs to cover lightly populated areas would go down sharply. The free market would hotly fight for those bands as it would make rural coverage cheaper to deploy.

    15. Re:If you compare maps.... by onefriedrice · · Score: 3

      Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.

      Your concern is wasted on the people who actually choose to live in those places. Those who really care so much about how connected they are to the rest of the world can just as easily choose to relocate nearer to a city. The rest will continue to live happy lives as they always have. The only ones who think these people's lack of fast internet or mobile data is such a travesty are people like you who already have a fast connection and think that everyone else should want the same thing.

      But don't worry. Our brilliant politicians in Washington agree with you, so they will spend millions of taxpayer dollars in order to bring 3G speeds to people that couldn't care less. Really smart. The only tunnel vision is that of those who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the free market is responsible for much of the good that they take for granted every day.

      --
      This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
    16. Re:If you compare maps.... by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Usually, rural types are extremely local-community driven, simply *because* there isn't a huge and diverse network of social services paid for by taxes.

      Water, electric, and basic telephone on wires that are literally 70 years old. That and having the roads grated 12 times a year (if you are lucky!) Is what their tax money buys them. (Compare to city people who get prompt emergency services, prompt police protection/assistance, paved roads, and a bunch of other nice things.)

      This community centric "we gotta help each other out!" Mentality is how they survive. Their crop catches fire? Who shows up first-- all the neighbors with sacks to BEAT it out, or the fire dept? Guess what? Its the former. Unless the fire is really, horribly, "omg! Its destroying the whole state!" Big, the county will only send a cop car to go acess the damages.

      Similarly, the "no rural internet" problem could be solved fairly easily, if two things were permitted.

      1) force the telecoms to offer a highspeed connection at radically reduced rates to farmers who then redistribute access to thir neighbors. (These are the ones right next to civic centers. You know, the ones that can get access to the main lines.)

      2) free up, and preserve a spectrum chunk for longer-range (say, 5 miles tops) node to node mesh networks intended for public use.

      Allow the farmers themselves to build out the network, and it will get where it needs to go.

      The carriers have said they can't make a profit from it and so they won't do it. Obviously they would have no problem with somebody else doing it, since clearly no profit can be lost.

      Or, is it really just a pac of lies, like most people know it to be?

      Hmm...

    17. Re:If you compare maps.... by Dave+Emami · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course. Because Internet Connectivity is the same thing has having a Domino's store nearby.

      They are both luxuries, yes. Hard as it is for those of us in the tech world to grasp, there are quite a few people who can get along just fine without a network connection. For that matter, we're not talking about connectivity vs. lack of it, we're talking about broadband vs. dialup/satellite. Actually, the original article was about a lack of 3G coverage. These aren't areas where you're isolated from the world because you can't use email or instant messaging, these are areas where you can't watch YouTube on your cell phone. Call me hard-hearted if you like, but that doesn't come close to justifying intervention in the market, by my standards.

      You are, of course, right when you say that the market doesn't make the decision I want it to make. Duh. It makes the decisions that the companies who make up the market want to make. Which, in turn, are predicated on the needs and desires of customers in said market.

      Now that we have the Captain Obvious commentary out of the way, why don't we focus on the actual problem?

      Your assertion was that the free market didn't "fix" the situation. My point was that just because you think something is a problem, doesn't mean that it is a problem that requires fixing.

      Namely, that Internet connectivity these days is a lot more like electricity and roads: a fundamental infrastructure whose cost is far outweighed by the network effect it promotes. At that point, the question of ROI trumps all, and arguing that the market knows best is a ridiculously short-sighted answer.

      That's your as-yet-unproven assertion. Failing to see the same things that you do does not qualify as "short-sighted" unless those things are actually there.

      Finally, your argument that people choose to live there means they ought to just suck it up... even ignoring the incredible amount of Not-My-Problem attitude that this displays,

      As I pointed out, everyone has costs that they have to "suck up", as well as benefits, based on where they live. Those people living someplace should bear those costs as well as reaping those benefits. There's already far too much subsidizing of some areas at the expense of others. We should be rolling such things back, not adding more.

      it also ignores the fact that moving has significant costs attached to it: emotional costs of rebuilding your social life, monetary costs of actually moving, and even the requirement of actually finding and having a job in the new area before moving. Those are all real costs that are easy to quantify for someone who is pondering moving.

      Putting aside the idea that people in urban areas should be subsidizing wireless broadband for people in rural (or in many cases, near-wilderness) areas in order to spare those folks the costs of moving out of such places, which i absolutely reject, I think you have a major misconception about who lives in these areas. Although I suppose it's theoretically possible, I highly doubt there is anyone living out in the middle of the Mojave, miles away from anybody else, due to being too poor to move to the city; anyone without the ability (and requisite income) to regularly visit a population center for supplies is going to die. Anyone else would save money by moving into town. In Nevada, at least (where I'm at, hence my example bias), the major source of rural employment is mining, whose average salary is almost double the overall average for the state. They don't need other people subsidizing them. Another reason people live in those regions is to get away from the city. Well, if the most important things to you are clean air, privacy, elbow room, being able to see the stars at night, and being able to fire off your guns without anyone caring, go for it. Just be prepared for poor wireless coverage, and don't ask other people to pay for it.

      --

      "The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
    18. Re:If you compare maps.... by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Insightful

      See my reply above.

      If the carriers can't be bothered to buld/can't make a profit from building the necessary infrastructure, then permit the farmers themselves to do it.

      Many farmers put up towers already for a wide variety of reasons, such as wind generators, and agricultural fuel pumps/water towers.

      Allowing them to put a simple mesh extender/repeater up there so that they can help service their neighbors, with the subsidy going to the telecom upstream to not throttle the exit pipes, and the money stays where you want it to stay, and the people impacted pay for the infrastructure themselves.

      Of course, that's awefully close to filthy communism..... once a functional mesh network servicing a large pool of users springs up, rest assured somebody would rush in to extract tolls on the thing.

      That's how shit like that works.

    19. Re:If you compare maps.... by tehdaemon · · Score: 2

      That spot happens to be an indian reservation - very poor people and possibly some weird legal reasons why they can't put coverage there. It is one of the few big black spots on the map that deserves coverage though.

      Take for example that small black spot just south of the wyoming border in Utah (bottom of the 'notch' in the state map) That is the High Unitas Wildernes area. Backpackers and forest rangers only. - there are few roads, and no houses or farms, let alone cell phone towers.

      How about that black spot just west of the great salt lake? Salt flats Those poor poor tourists and travelers that have to wait a few hours for their high-speed wireless internet access as they gawk at the barren desert, get back in their cars and drive on. (nobody lives there)

      That map actually does a pretty good job of showing the most worthless parts of the US. (Oh, and national forests! places people aren't allowed to go live.)

      T

      --
      Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
    20. Re:If you compare maps.... by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      The farmers are unlikely to be the tollbooth operators. Again, farmers don't charge each other for emergency services, like fire prevention. They do it because they expect to get service in return if they need it. Its an implied community ethic.

      The tollboth operators will be the equipment OEMs, and the upstream ISPs maintaining a few miles of dedicated fiber to a few "yokels", complaining about people using their equipment without any licensing, or about them saturating said pipes that they would be subsidised to keep open.

    21. Re:If you compare maps.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Forcing anything on the telecoms that they are not already doing today out of their own free market motives means they are either incurring an expense they would otherwise not incur or they are missing out on income they would not otherwise get, and that means that their customers, shareholders, or employees not on the 'winning' side of such a forced big communist government thing are going to end up paying the 'fucking dimes' to make up for the balance. There is no magic money tree that makes up the difference from somewhere else.

      "Boom. No spoiled, bratty city people have to pay a fucking dime."

      Unless that 'mesh network' (which btw in practice never works as good as the implementers thought it would) runs right up to where that single mile of fiber with broadband dedicated internet access already exists right now, somebody has to go and pay the fucking dime to route it all the way there.

      Just go ahead and run that network into an office in the nearest town where you can get a decent business class internet connection (yep, those really are the prices us city folk pay for that kind of level of network load and reliability, it's quite a bit more than the 'single household broadband' pricing you are probably thinking of). Nobody is stopping you from doing that.

      Forcing the telecoms to do it doesn't mean that that network doesn't need to be built and paid for by somebody, and apparently you want big government to force the free market to do it.

      Just admit it, adjust your voting accordingly, and maybe you'll get a government to give you other people's hard earned money.

    22. Re:If you compare maps.... by wierd_w · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You aparently are not realizing the number of farmers being serviced, nor are you comprehending that large civic centers with the necessary trunk lines are fairly uniformly dotted inside such agrarian areas.

      Also, I am not suggesting that the mesh network supply a t1 speed connection for all users either. It only needs to provide better than 28.8kbps dialup. (Bcause that is all you can squeeze out of the horrifically neglected lines that were only installed because of a 1950s federal law requiring them.)

      Latency would be bad. Yes. It has to hop through tree clutter between god knows how many repeaters to get to the trunk. But if it is 1) faster than 28.8kbps, and 2)costs approx 10$/mo or less, aggregated between subsribers, it will be a hit. That is how fucking badly people demand internet out there.

      The problem with the forcing, is the latter option you mention. The telecoms are focusing on local maxima, and the initial costs of implementing a suitable level of service does not have a comparable RoI when viewed against a high density city.

      Many major metro areas in the intended coverage zones are completely surrounded by agrarian farmers. Take for instance, oklahoma city OK, wichita KS, Topeka KS, Hutchinson KS, etc.

      Said dedicated fiber trunks would at most 5 to 10 miles to the city edge, where they interface with the mesh network.

      The cost for those pipes will indeed be quite sizable, and out of the reach of the farmers. However, here is how it SHOULD be viewed:

      Either they open and maintain those short trunks, well inside the urban coverage areas, *OR* they can expect another 1950s telephone access bill to pass, and they can expect to lay thousands of miles of cable instead.

      There are litterally thousands of farmers in the mesh network area. Aggregated over that pool, the 250k/yr cost of a trunk line can easily come into the 10-15$/mo range, especially since you are not paying to service the mesh.

      The real problem will be keeping the local state and city governments (especially city!) From trying to treat the license fees from the mesh's operation as a fungible income source.

    23. Re:If you compare maps.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My father in law actually owns a large farm in Iowa, about 2 hours outside of Des Moines. His closest neighbor, 5 miles distant, is his brother, who farms a large tract alongside his. His next closest neighbor, about 7 miles in the other direction, is his father.

      They have radios when they're out in the fields. They have broadband in their homes. I've actually seen the commodity pricing terminals that farmers use, and yes, as you say, "Farmers who have this access have reported much better returns on their harvests" - he makes a fair amount more money by having up to date financial information with which to trade.

      He does not need this information when he's planting a field.

      As far as "access to emergency services" - cell phone or radio, doesn't matter. He has this access already, and doesn't have to pay a monthly fee for it. He talks regularly to his wife back at the house while he's out in the fields. This radio also does quite nicely handling "mesh" needs, because it's a fucking citizen's band radio with multiple channels, some of which are emergency services. He doesn't pay $100 a month for it, either.

      Instant access to veterinary etc. resources - any farmer who doesn't know the common pests and problems his livestock will develop will not remain a viable farmer for long. Anything that's so unheard of that he'd need a cell phone to identify it is going to be so rare it's not worth worrying about.

      "Sound and image recognition programs" - are you fucking serious? You think they're going to hear a "crow's call" while they're driving a giant combine around their field? Good lord, you've never once set foot on an actual farm, have you? The machines are noisy. And there's precious little wildlife hanging around, including bears, once that machinery starts running.

      This list, after the "instant access to current market prices" is such a fatuous list of non-issues that it's comical. There is just about zero need for high speed data connections while you're actually out working on a farm. There simply is nothing that critical/unheard of/unknown/urgent that you need a 3G connection - anything urgent can be gotten over the radio easily. Anything else can damn sure wait until you finish the day's work in whatever field you're working.

    24. Re:If you compare maps.... by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Informative

      You would be surprised to find that many of the areas that the telecoms claim to service with dsl, are not in fact, actually servicable by dsl.

      Take for instace: a quaint little town just outside wichita. "Peck Ks".

      Recently pushed into prominence by being about 10 miles from a newly built casino. (Northstar.) This town doesn't even have a gas station. It has crappy 1950s federally mandated telephone and powerlines that are unreliable. Residents have to use on-air televison, or satelite.

      Internet is either horrible dialup at 28.8 speeds on a good day, with continual disconnects from the shitty lines, or, 50$/mo (w/o bundling) satelite, with data caps, or 2g verizon coverage.

      I know, because my mother lives there.

      Oh, ATT claims that dsl is available... until you actually call
      and ask.

      It is that way over most of the state, in fact.

    25. Re:If you compare maps.... by rtfa-troll · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Some of what you say is true and country folks can't expect the same services as in the city. That's why people moved to the cities in the first place. However:

      Nobody is stopping you from doing that.

      Oh yes they are. The first fundamental blockage is that the teleco companies own the most interesting parts of the radio spectrum and buy it up everywhere. Secondly, whenever a town starts to build a network of their own they come in and try to get legislation blocking it.

      This blocking of competition also generalises to private initiatives in many places; when someone starts to build a competing network they will come in exactly there, and nowhere else, and make sure they kill off the competition.

      Finally, the telecos got ownership of a whole bunch of infrastructure that was state built almost everywhere. The value of that is obvious, but most important is the blocking power; there's no way to rebuild the whole thing all at once and the person who has it already is always able to block competition wherever they choose.

      This just is an area where the companies ensure that pure free market fails and so there needs to be intervention.

      --
      =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    26. Re:If you compare maps.... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2

      And how much money might be sunk into providing higher-capacity connectivity to those people, only to find that that they don't contribute anything, tovarisch?

      Red Godwin.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    27. Re:If you compare maps.... by pclminion · · Score: 2

      I don't want to live anywhere without 3G or broadband. Few people do. It's like having a city without electricity or running water these days.

      Being someone who lives near some of these "wastelands" I can assure you there's nothing there and anything qualifying as a "city" is going to have both 3G and broadband. You're worried that the lack of 3G access in the middle of a cattle rancher's mountainous 100,000 acre property is causing "unnecessary strife" and some kind of disconnect within the United States? You're smoking something.

    28. Re:If you compare maps.... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      Again, at what point do you decide that some people aren't worth participating in the general Internet economy? Considering that the founding fathers wrote into the constitution the need for the postal service, I'm endlessly amused by argument that today's equivalent of the postal service should be left strictly to what passes for market forces in that area.

      Are we deciding, or are the people who VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE to live in a location with reduced wireless Internet access choosing to not be part of the general Internet economy? I know a programmer at Microsoft who specifically chooses to live near the top of Stevens Pass in WA - because he DOESN'T have Internet or cell phone access - when he goes home, he leaves his job behind him. That's his choice.

      As far as the postal service, it was guaranteed delivery to LOCAL post offices - not to your house. For the first 100+ years, that's how the majority got their mail - riding into town every other week to pick up supplies and the mail. How is that different than what is happening here?

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  2. Direct Map Link by Twintop · · Score: 5, Informative

    Link to the map, rather than using the tiny iframe in the article.

    http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v1/fcc.mobility-fund-phase-1-potentially-eligible-areas-oct-2011-data/mm/legend,zoompan,tooltips,zoomwheel,zoombox,attribution,bwdetect,share.html#0/0/0

  3. Gee... by cirby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Large areas where there's no advanced communications networks.

    Of course, nobody really LIVES in most of those huge data voids, which is why nobody puts billions of dollars into building cell towers in those areas, but...

    1. Re:Gee... by garyebickford · · Score: 2

      I used to live in central Oregon, back in the day when cell phones were bricks. We were up riding horses in the Cascade Mountains, and one of our party fell and might have a back problem, so I rode back to our vehicle and called 911. The parking lot was down in a canyon, so I had to stand on top of the car to get a signal. I did get connected - to a 911 center 100 miles away, skipping over the nearest one in Bend (only 30 miles away)! They were a little confused for a while, but it all worked out with a three-step patch to the nearest EMT folks. Somehow I doubt that would work any more - today's phones have about 1/20 the transmit power as the old analog phones. But in that area there are many more towers, and reception up in the mountains is pretty good.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    2. Re:Gee... by rhysweatherley · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Of course, nobody really LIVES in most of those huge data voids, ..."

      Yes, because farmers don't need to call 911 for help in an emergency, call the local food co-op to check this week's prices, order new seed from a supplier's web site, or e-mail the mechanic to get an ETA as to when the tractor will be fixed. And we certainly don't want the farmer's kids getting a decent education via distance learning web sites, or talking to their friends in nearby cities.

      Putting cell towers in those areas is not profitable, but it is necessary. I say this as an Australian - for over a decade the commercial carriers did squat to wire up the country-side. The Australian government had to create its own carrier from scratch because the free market just didn't care about the 95% of the country where "nobody really lives there". Oh, except for the people who do.

    3. Re:Gee... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Informative

      The article doesn't say cellular voice coverage isn't available there - it says cellular data coverage isn't there. The aren't the same thing, not even close. Not to mention, the lack of cellular data coverage isn't the same thing as lack of internet access.

    4. Re:Gee... by DarkMagician07 · · Score: 2

      The problem with that is where I am at, there's typically no voice coverage, either. There are huge areas in rural Western, WA that you can't get a cell signal because there's hills and mountains between you and any towers. What's even more funny is that when I'm at home, I get service from one tower that is 40 miles away. If the power goes out, there's no other tower nearby to take the calls, and there's no plan for any of the telco's to put one in. Heck, the one tower that feeds 4 towns (one having a population of 4 - 5000) is typically down for a total of about a month out of the year. Instead of putting a little money into upgrading it and it's capacity, they simply put money into fixing an EDGE tower, where a 3G or LTE tower would make more sense.

      The problem isn't that they can't upgrade the tower, it's that they don't want to because the other company that uses their bands would also reap the benefits of the newer tower and access due to sharing agreements. For them, keeping us on limited voice + EDGE is the best way to go, I guess.

    5. Re:Gee... by Kymermosst · · Score: 2

      I had a similar situation when I lived in central Oregon (specifically Redmond). I pulled out my trusty ham radio HT which was smaller and had better range than most cell phones at the time. Autopatched to emergency services via a repeater situated near Smith Rocks, which has way better coverage than any cell tower.

      Just because there isn't cell coverage doesn't mean there is no communications. Those who want communications ability have it.

      --
      "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  4. Link to the map by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://tiles.mapbox.com/fcc/map/mobility-fund-phase-1-potentially-eligible-areas

  5. Re:Where's the map? by owenferguson · · Score: 4, Informative

    The map is there, inline half way through the article, but it's stuck in a banner-ad sized box like 3/4" thick and across the whole page.

  6. No people = no cellphones by bragr · · Score: 3

    Seriously, have you ever been to those places that are all in black? The population density is less than 1 person per square mile in a lot of them. A lot less in most places. Large portions of Nevada have population densities of 0 people per square mile. There is just no reason to build towers in the middle of no where.

    1. Re:No people = no cellphones by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      What about Moose?

      Look at Alaska - all those blank spots. All those poor Mooses without 3G coverage. How are they ever going to get to watch Northern Exposure reruns? While it's common to denigrate them as just another ungulate, Moose are smarter than the average American voter, smell better than the average American voter and certainly are better behaved.

      Where's the love?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  7. Frist Ps0T from Envada by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry, took a while to get a signal.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  8. Re:...and nothing of value was lost by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    I've been to New York City. That's the worst wasteland I've ever seen. But then I've never been to LA.

  9. Tesla to the rescue! by macraig · · Score: 2

    What we need is one gigantic Tesla coil the size of Mons Olympus smack in the middle of the country. We can use it to beam wireless power to every phone and small gadget in the country and get rid of them nasty batteries and use the power feed as a carrier signal for everything else. (/sarcasm)

  10. Did they mark the areas where its impossible? by Liquid-Gecka · · Score: 2

    The map does not appear to actually mark the areas of the country where it is completely impossible to setup service. In Idaho, where I grew up, there are huge tracts of government property with restrictions and limitations that make it impossible to have cell service, let alone 3G.

    Craters of the Moon is one of the largest exposed lava rock flats in the world. If you go to Google maps and search for "idaho", you will see a huge black spot in the bottom right. The flow is actually much larger than that and its all one big preserve. Its impossible to run underground cables since its all basically solid rock, and running overhead wires is pretty damn challenging as well given the lack of roads.

    The Frank Church wilderness area which makes up a large chunk of the middle of the state specifically bans wires and electricity, cell towers, wheels, and pretty much any other modern technology. There is no way it will have 3G coverage any time soon.

    Montana has the Bob Marshal wilderness area, Wyoming has Yellowstone, California has Yosemite, etc.

    Hell, even the south western part of Idaho is just a big flat desert with virtually no farms, roads, or people. Why should we worry about its 3g coverage?