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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."

25 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 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.
    6. 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!
    7. 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.

    8. 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."
    9. 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?

    10. 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.
    11. 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...

    12. 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."
    13. 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.

    14. 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.

    15. 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();
  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 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.

    2. 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. 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.