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FCC Maps the 3G Wasteland Of the Western US
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."
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
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
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.
"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.
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."