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Obama Unveils Plan To Bring About Faster Internet In the US
An anonymous reader writes: President Obama is rolling out a new plan to boost the speed of internet connections throughout the U.S. For one, he'll be asking the FCC for assistance in neutralizing state laws (PDF) that prevent cities from building municipal broadband services. "At speeds of 4 Mbps or less, 75 percent of consumers have a choice between two or more fixed providers, and 15 percent can select among three or more ISPs. However, in the market for Internet service that can deliver 25 Mbps downstream—the speed increasingly recognized as a baseline to get the full benefits of Internet access—three out of four Americans do not have a choice between providers." The state laws laws restrict competition and give the major ISPs no incentive to invest and innovate.
Obama will also be directing other federal agencies to increase the amount of money they grant and loan to ISP-related projects. "Any effort by the FCC to preempt anti-muni-broadband laws will likely focus on a controversial part of the FCC's congressional charter known as "Section 706." That part of the law recognizes the FCC's authority to stimulate broadband deployment, which supporters of preemption argue the tactic would promote. If Section 706 sounds familiar, that's because it's also the legal tool some say should be used to promote net neutrality, or the principle that broadband companies shouldn't speed up or slow down some Web sites over others."
Obama will also be directing other federal agencies to increase the amount of money they grant and loan to ISP-related projects. "Any effort by the FCC to preempt anti-muni-broadband laws will likely focus on a controversial part of the FCC's congressional charter known as "Section 706." That part of the law recognizes the FCC's authority to stimulate broadband deployment, which supporters of preemption argue the tactic would promote. If Section 706 sounds familiar, that's because it's also the legal tool some say should be used to promote net neutrality, or the principle that broadband companies shouldn't speed up or slow down some Web sites over others."
I cannot get anything close to 4M. It is either dial up, ISDN or a T1. There are no other services. And frankly, I am not so far from a reasonably large town. There is some notion that service offerings are better than really exist.
As soon as he no longer had congress. It's as if it's all just political posturing or something...
the House of Representatives has been under GOP control since 2010, which is the last time he could get bills through a friendly Congress.
How did you somehow read the article and come to believe exactly the opposite of what it says? Like, really, the exact opposite: TFA clearly states he is trying to promote public broadband construction by striking down state laws that prevent municipalities from owning networks. There is nothing in there about giving ISPs anything.
It's both State created, and locally supported.
Take Texas for example. The State, many moons ago, put in place law against 'municipal' broadband creations: i.e., cities/neighborhoods/citizen groups can't form to create and implement infrastructure as an ISP. While private businesses can implement such, with pole tack and co-lo. barring agreements, you are at the resolve of local municipality, city public works, to get it installed since they're REQUIRED to do the work. Here's the kicker: there is no time frame required for them to get it done in, once you put a request in. Assuming you get the ok from the city officials, they schedule and complete the request, at their own time frame. You can't force their hand to get it done.
Source: tried to start an ISP with a friend, to provide DSL to under-utilized areas. Had capital, but after looking at the details, the city, and lawyers to try and force their hand, would have bled us dry before even getting a bucket truck next to a pole. Why? They're in bed with the well known phone monoply starting with the letter V.
For the area in question, there is no competition for DSL. It IS a monopoly. There is cable Internet, but on then it is 1 provider. There are a few WISPS. All in all, it's DSL, vs. Cable, vs. WISP, in that area. I guess you could call it competition...
Using teams, such as Obamacare, as part of a justification for an argument shows the way someone leans. Rather than use that, use the Actual name, it makes reading the statement a better view, than seeing it as nothing but a Flamebait comment. So regardless of his INTENT, he showed his disdain for Obama and the democratic party..... Just saying.
Or, maybe not.
It's about High Definition Video. It's about Video Conferencing. It's about VOIP. It's about Telecommuting for your employers. It's about being competitive on the global market. It's about consuming more information faster to better perform in the global workplace. Cat videos are tertiary to this as EVERYONE needs downtime as well to maintain maximum productivity over the longest course of time. As broadband speeds go, America as a whole is falling into quicksand and the Broadband monopolies have shown that they have no intention of letting America do anything but sink. The whole Land Mass excuse hasn't been viable for a long time and now it's just becoming a complete embarassment.
Both China and Russia have more landmass than the US and while we're JUST edging them out in overall average speed (32.1mbps US, 24.2 CN, 27 RU) our cost per Megabit per second is through the roof by comparison ($3.51 US, $1.76 CN, $0.69 RU (all values reflected in USD) [These values were aquired from netindex.com]. Seriously. Stop being a fucking apologist for these assholes!
Globally we're still on fair ground but we could be doing so much better, and we need to be. We used to be the bastion of technology not even very long ago. For the longest while we could truly say "We're Number 1!" but now it's beginning to ring out more like "We're Numb!" and we need to wake up as a country. The President's statement was a start, now we need to follow through.
Instead he is more interested in seeing government run broadband.
Considering how poorly private companies are doing in the broadband area, why not let the government take a swing at it? It can't get any worse.
Besides, as we've seen in those cities which have implemented broadband service through utilities (government regulated) or by themselves, the service is better and the price is lower. How is that a bad thing?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'm so tired of hearing the supermajority myth yet again. Here's the timeline:
July 8, 2009: Al Franken was sworn in as the 60th senator to caucus with the Democrats.
August 25, 2009: Ted Kennedy passes away, removing the supermajority (59 / 99 votes is less than 3 / 5)
September 25, 2009: Paul Kirk is appointed to temporarily fill Ted Kennedy's seat, returning the supermajority to the Democrats
February 4, 2010: Scott Brown is sworn in to Ted Kennedy's former seat, thus removing the supermajority for the Democrats for good
That adds up to about 6 months of a theoretical supermajority, and that includes part of a summer break and a long winter break when the Senate was not in session. A large number of Democratic Senators were also "Blue Dog" Democrats, meaning that they voted with Republicans quite a lot. But despite all of this and the Republican's use of every procedural delay and obstruction tactic in the book, this brief supermajority still managed to pass the most important health care legislation in the last 50 years.