19 Million Americans Cannot Get Broadband Access

First time accepted submitter paullopez writes "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced during its eighth annual broadband progress report on the state of broadband/Internet access in America, that 19 million Americans still do not have access to high-speed broadband above the 3Mbps threshold. However, the report also detailed the advances the progress that is being made, including 'LTE deployment by mobile networks.'" Also at SlashCloud.

Comments

LTE

[Anonymous Coward]

LTE isn't exactly what most would consider "broadband" due to the incredibly low caps and high price. If you only get 5 GB per month (or less) you aren't going to be using it for streaming movies or anything.

Re:LTE

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

But it is a relatively cheap way to 'fulfill' any rural telco obligations you happened to pick up from the FCC in exchange for lucrative spectrum concessions or whatever else it is you actually wanted...

Re:LTE

[frovingslosh]

Absolutely. They should (also) be reporting on the number of Americans without access to affordable high speed access. And breaking down what all of the caps are both wireless caps and also caps that have been imposed on previously uncapped "land line" services. It is absurd how, while other countries continue to move forward, the US grants monopolies or near monopolies to Internet providers yet lets them chip away at the "service" imposing restrictions designed only to aid their business model and keep them from building out their equipment.

I was also surprised to see the standard stated as above 3Mbs. By that standard I don't even have the Internet, nor do some of my friends who live in very well served cities (although we might both be considered to have access to LTE). Actually AT&T does offer me a higher priced 6Mbs service where I live, but I stopped buying that when it was determined that they were not really providing more than I am getting with the 3Mbs service and they just laughed and said the service never promised 6Mps, only "up to" 6Mbs.

Re:LTE

[h4rr4r]

Why not just run cable the 200 yards?

You can rent a ditchwitch and have it done in short order.

Re:LTE

[HaZardman27]

Perhaps it has something to do with Iceland's ~100km^2 land area as opposed to the US's ~10m km^2 land area...

Re:LTE

[DJRumpy]

It's not only the density issue, but the lack of competition. The government is fully to blame here. They gave monopolies to a single provider for various counties, and now those same companies have little reason to improve service. I've lived in a major metropolitan area for 20+ years. Initially I had a simple modem connection, did a small stint with an ISDN line, and then went to cable right around 2000. At that time, it was a 7Mb/s line. 12 years later, it is still the basic offering with incremental improvement on uplink speed and down speed (10 mb/s down and 128 up), or a hefty price increase to get the 'new' 20 Mb/s speed.

The US has fallen so far behind other developed countries due to the lack of competition it's just not funny anymore. Even the density problem would be resolved with more competition. By it's very nature, more competition brings advances far faster, cheaper production of the necessary materials, and a general lowering trend in price. We see this in almost every electronics industry, but in telecom, the price remains static, or has exploded instead with little actual improvement offered.

Look to any overseas country to see what true competition produces.

Re:LTE

[ducomputergeek]

We were also early adopters and one of the first to really connect people in our country with electricity and phone lines. Also we weren't bombed out twice last century and as such we have a lot of legacy infrastructure at this point. My grandmother didn't have a private line until the early 1990's. It was still party lines and rotary phones in that part of the country.

Re:LTE

[Stiletto]

The tired "population density" argument always comes up, and can be easily invalidated. If it was just population density, New Jersey would be a Mecca of ultra-high-speed Internet.

The USA's lack of broadband penetration compared to Europe and east Asia has very little to do with population density.

Re:LTE

[cpu6502]

19 million w/o broadband. That's fewer than the "50 million without healthcare" the Democrats were quoting during the Obamacare debates. Do we really think that broadband is more important initiative than people having health insurance/coverage?

ALSO: I find it odd the FCC defines broadband as 3 Mbit/s. That means I don't have broadband in my home even though what I do have (1 Mbit/s) is enough to watch videos on the internet. Hmmm. I consider it broadband (100 megahertz wide)..... certainly better than the narrowband (3 megahertz-wide) dialup I used to have.

And finally a lot of those 19 million live in remote areas like Wyoming, Idaho, Dakota, Arizona. They *choose* to live far away from conveniences. Not only do these 19 million lack broadband but also public water & sewer. Many can't even get TV reception since they are so far out. This is a LIFESTYLE CHOICE and we should respect it, rather than demand conformity. (And if these people don't like living in isolation, they can move closer to the nearest city.)

there's always a bottom 5%

[Jerry Smith]

Especially the rural area are a bit difficult to service (yes I read part of the article). On the other hand: people that choose to live there, do they nééd fixed-line access?

Re:there's always a bottom 5%

[h4rr4r]

A massive political shift to the right is what happened.
Just 20 some years ago conservatives were the ones who were pushing for everyone to be required to be insured for their health as they were for their cars. Today that is seen as almost socialism.

Re:Rural folk

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr...no.

Speaking as one who just moved away from a rural area, a decent broadband connection would have been highly desirable for both work and personal reasons, and I would have (and could've afforded to have) paid out the nose for it.

The lack of broadband access in rural areas has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the rural community wants / needs / can afford access; rather, it is a function of whether the telecoms can be bothered (they cannot.)

Re:Only 19 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a high school diploma, no college experience, make 14.65 an hour, a wife and two kids, one car, no cable TV service, one cell phone, no landline, 12mbps net connection. But I do elect for the insurance and we are covered. So find a way to do it, stop bitching about whats fair and what's not, and just do the best you can.

Those stuck with a farmer head of household

[tepples]

There are those who are stuck on a reservation, and those who chose to live where they do. The first group has a legitimate beef. Why should I have to pay to support the second group's lifestyle choice.

For one thing, not everybody who lives in a rural area chooses to live in a rural area. Some of them might be members of a household whose head has chosen to live in a rural area. Why must, for example, the daughter of a farmer miss out on being able to participate in online communication with her peers?

For another, why must someone's participation in mainstream culture be incompatible with growing the food that you will end up eating?

Re:Those stuck with a farmer head of household

[h4rr4r]

Because for some strange reason Americans no longer see any value in enriching the lives of anyone but themselves. We no longer value having an educated society, nor a a well connected one.

Enlightened self interest is dead. The "I got mine, fuck you" mentality killed it.

This is what happens when you have the kind of political shift to the right we had over the last 20 years.

Re:Those stuck with a farmer head of household

[__aaeihw9960]

That's exactly right. Every argument that is in the news right now, whether it's related to right to life/right to choose, gay marriage, the 1%, whatever it is. It's all related to "Fuck you people." I don't know when, or where that attitude came from, but it is e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.

I think, quite honestly, that what we're going through now is because heavy investors got a small taste of victory in privatizing Russia, South America, Poland, the various middle eastern countries that got shafted, and Greece and other parts of Europe starting in the 70's and 80's, and moving in steadily stronger steps to today. I think that these heavy investors are hungry for the next cash cow - they tried Asia, and the Asian tigers shut their asses down, so who's next? USA, USA, USA. We're fat and happy, so why not break us for a profit? Why not 'shock' our economy back to health so they can win some more? ('They' doesn't equal some tin-foil hat amorphous blob, it equals heavy hitters in the telecommunications, chemical, food and plastics industry, along with institutions like the IMF and World Bank)

I genuinely believe that in the next 10 years or so, this talk of 'austerity measures' are going to revert back to what they used to be called 'shocks to the government to stimulate private economic growth'. I also believe that in the next 10 years, we're going to see this attitude that was developed in the US turn its teeth inward and start taking bites out of our country. I firmly believe that we will have more rampant unemployment for young folks - fuck them, right? - and the money will funnel faster to a few people. I don't believe that we're headed for a collapse, because if we fall, so do most others (or at least it won't help), but I do believe that we're headed for a lost generation of workers.

WOW, that got off topic. Sorry.