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FCC Chairman: Americans Shouldn't Subsidize Internet Service Under 10Mbps
An anonymous reader writes On Wednesday at a hearing in front of the US House Committee on Small Business, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stated that for ISPs to be eligible for government broadband subsidies, they would have to deliver speeds of at least 10 Mbps. Said Wheeler: "What we are saying is we can't make the mistake of spending the people's money, which is what Universal Service is, to continue to subsidize something that's subpar." He further indicated that he would remedy the situation by the end of 2014. The broadband subsidies are collected through bill surcharges paid for by phone customers.
But for once, I like something said by the FCC. Granted, jury is still out if this will go through or not, but I'm loving this push.
Wasn't one way that Broadband penetration was improved previously just by lowering what the definition of broadband was?
Don't know why, but link provided isn't functional. This is a working link: http://arstechnica.com/busines..." - onproton (3434437)
in urban europe 24mbps is considered subpar; what you yanks have, is frightenly slow.
At this point, the various big ISPs have taken so much taxpayer money, and provided so little in return, that I'd say we should stop providing them with any subsidies, and still require the same level of buildout. They can take the balance out of their execs' bonuses from next quarter—which should be enough to cover a fair amount of infrastructure.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
...turn of events is that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler must have moved recently and big telecom didn't know where to send their "support" checks in time.
Why not put the bar at something a little more reasonable, like 25 Mbps..
... at all.
Your hard-earned money is confiscated then given to ISP's, and you still have to pay through the nose for a heaping, steaming pile of manure of throttled, fourth-world internet service? WTF?
All of Europe has internet and it's faster and cheaper even in the most remote areas. Actually, you should try building out the infrastructure of *our* size and then get back to us.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
So does this mean that I'll get faster, better service?
OR
Does this mean that I'll lose the service I now have?
OR
Will the price skyrocket?
One of those three. I live in a rural area, as does much of the country. We have a big country. This is not some piddling small urbanesque country like they have in Europe with short distances. The USA has vast distances between homes and businesses in the rural areas.
Basically what I hear him saying is he only wants to subsidize the urbanites and to hell with the rural folks. Typical bureaucrat. They are from the cities and don't understand the real world outside their borders.
The reality is I already pay $130/month for what costs about $20/month in the city but I only get 1.5Mbps rather than the 25Mbps they get in the urban areas. I suspect that rather than getting better service I'll simply lose what I have. When a piece of hardware goes down the phone company, the only ISP around, will just not replace it leaving a black hole in the telecommunications landscape. No cell. No landline. No internet.
So how is this going to effect rural Internet?
We do not get anywhere close to that, so are all of our substitutes going to disappear and half the country go dark?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
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I like this idea, but I'm going to assume that all that will happen is ISPs charging more for 10 Mbps service. I should think I'm lucky, with 3 choices for ISPs in my area (Charter, AT&T and TDS). I refuse to deal with Charter, and AT&T isn't much better. The problem is that TDS is running over AT&T's infrastructure, and are limited to 3 Mbps DSL.
If the carriers whine about it (and they will), someone should publicly ask them why their networks are so lousy that they can't offer 1/100th of the speed that municipal projects and Google Fiber are providing.
I have been reading that the new 4k video standard requires a 15Mbps stream. 4k TVs are on the marketplace and based on the shipping volumes and price drops will be the standard TV within 3-5 yrs. How will Broadband meet the huge demand for these video streams? Netflix is already providing a couple of shows in 4k, but I doubt many people can view them since it's apparently a huge burden on these ISPs to even provide 3Mbps streams. I think a lot more of the public will start to complain when they can't get the brilliant picture quality they saw in the store while they were buying their new TV.
Seriously, this will only help us maintain our current level of behind the rest of the world. 100mbps is a solid minimum link speed.
How about a really bold statement there FCC?
I had 10Mbps 15 fucking years ago.
can we address data caps too? Who cares if we have 100 MB access if we're capped a 1 GB?
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I'd be happy if those fuckers just stopped overselling their bandwidth. I pay for the bandwidth but many times I get squat because everyone else is on the neighborhood cable loop. If the sell it, they need to be able to support it 24/7. This airline approach is bullshit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I agree in general but I disagree in two key areas:
* Internet and telephone access to the poor should be subsidized for the same reason we subsidize food, housing, and medicine for the poor: Because in practical terms they are essential to function in American society. However, as a "necessity" the average person only need enough instantaneous bandwidth to talk, email, and browse the web. In most cases "slow DSL" speeds of 0.5Mbps is adequate, and in almost all cases 2-3Mbps is more than enough. If a poor person can pay $20 for subsidize 10Mbps service that would be more expensive without the subsidy, he can pay 100% of a $20 bill for unsubsidized "entry level" service from his local ISP or smartphone network provider.
* In lightly populated remote areas that are currently not serviced and where running new wires or fiber is impractical and radio or satellite is the only option that's remotely cost-effective, I'm fine using my tax dollars to provide 1Mbps service or even 0.5Mbps service if the alternative is either no service at all or spending significantly more for a legally-mandated 10Mbps service. However, this is contingent on either the recipient being a full-time resident (sorry, not for summer vacation homes) or some other public benefit, such as providing internet to a public park or roadside rest area.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, but those are restrictions imposed by nature, not a monopoly/duopoly. There's a big difference.
Take the subsidy money collected from the public and use to provide high-speed, high quality municipal internet services. It's the easiest, most doable, and cost-effective way to provide competition to the ISP monopolies, and to boot, if they start with impoverished neibourhoods, the corporate ISPs would look really bad if they opposed it. Sure some municipalities would resist at first but hopefully popularity and success in others would put them under overwhelming pressure to provide it.
Telephone service in the USA is granted monopoly service districts by the 50 state governments to one or more telephone companies within each state. This originally was to encourage the provision of local telephone service when telephony was relatively new (more than 100 years ago). Companies, such as AT&T, operated local districts and franchised technology to other local providers. AT&T began selling long distance (between local districts) in 1885 and coast to coast long distance in 1915. The Kingsbury Commitment (1912) provided for interoperability between telephone networks. Over time, holding companies (including AT&T) acquired local providers and created large multi-state networks. [End of the Line, by Leslie Cauley]. So while the federal government may talk of improving things, the fundamental problem is the 100+ year old state monopolies that inhibit competition in telephone service.
Cable television service (including internet) in the USA is regulated by the 50 state governments. However, the (federal) Cable Communications Act of 1984 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_Communications_Act_of_1984] has been both positively and negatively disruptive. The act was used by cable companies to force state and local government to provide right-of-way access to customers. Either by leasing government owned right-of-way or by forcing electric power companies to lease space on neighborhood overhead power poles. (Note: power companies also have state granted monopolies, which allowed the state governments to force compliance.) Initially there were many providers and a great deal of competition. The problem is the act allowed for Cable Television Franchise Fees [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_franchise_fee]. These fees are based on gross revenue collected by the cable company from customers within a local government (ie city, county, or parrish). The local governments discovered that competition drives down prices, which in turn reduces these franchise fees. Thus, local governments have been discouraging competition amongst cable companies.
This is why Americans pay too much money for too little bandwidth.
227-3517
I live in the exurbs of a major Metro Area (Minneapolis/St Paul).
The *best* I can get is 20mbs, at exorbitant prices. The best normal price option is 10mbps, which was the very best possible residential until about last March.
So you're saying we should "give" everyone 10mbps because that's so horrible?
That, simply, is nonsense.
-Styopa