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4Mbps Still The Standard For One Govt Broadband Grant Program (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader cites an Ars Technica report: Four U.S. senators say that the Internet speed standard for a government grant program shouldn't be stuck at 4Mbps. The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities, but it uses a speed standard of just 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Even that speed is an increase over the 3Mbps (download and upload combined) standard the program used until just a few weeks ago. US Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) say that the USDA didn't raise the standard high enough. In a letter last week to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the senators questioned the decision to set the grant program's speed threshold below the 10Mbps/1Mbps standard used by a separate USDA loan program. "Earlier this month, USDA upped broadband speed requirements for the Broadband Access Loan Program to 10Mbps, while Community Connect was only upped to 4Mbps," the senators noted. "In order to maintain the programs' relevance in an age of rapidly increasing demand for bandwidth, we strongly urge you to consider updating their broadband speed definitions, particularly the Community Connect Program's Minimum Broadband Service benchmark."
Yeah, because 4Mbps just is not enough for the "working poor" to work on their resumes and send them to would-be employers...
Your anti-indigent bigotry is so strong that you're blinded to the fact that the f-ing article is not about grant programs that target poverty. This is about USDA run programs that push for broadband deployment in rural communities. It is not about paying for poor people's broadband. It's about getting broadband infrastructure deployed into places that are too remote for the free market to find profit in building out broadband infrastructure. Places such as farming communities, which serve a vital role in this country.
It's incredibly narrow-minded for one to think that:
(1) This grant program is exclusively for "working poor" (or poor people, period) to get Internet access; and
(2) All a poor person would/should/could want to do with the Internet is upload resumes so they can stop being poor / living in rural areas.
This post displays a stunning lack of empathy for people who have made a choice to live in a less densely populated area. First of all, not everyone who lives in a rural area is poor. There are plenty of middle-class and upper-middle-class people who have larger land holdings or have fewer neighbors than the ISPs would ideally prefer for instant ROI. Some of these are technologists, or potential customers of technology companies. They might be gamers, media consumers, software developers, architects, or any number of other professions where access to serious Internet connectivity can be a huge boon.
Not only that, but if their employer is amenable to the arrangement, having access to a modern Internet connection might even allow these people to work from home. This saves them thousands of dollars in fuel per year vs. having to drive many miles into the office, and also prevents the vehicle emissions that would have been necessary for them to get there.
Having access to a very fast Internet pipe can change someone's life in a revolutionary way. It can enable people to embark upon careers that are not possible without a fast Internet connection. To name a few:
- Youtube/Twitch/etc. streamer (gamer, political, scientific/educational, or other content) - not possible without fast upstream because otherwise video upload times make it impractical
- Podcaster - same as video above, but requires less upstream because it's just audio
- Pro gamer - without a fast connection for rapid access to new games and patches, and low latency, one cannot reach the pinnacle of pro gaming, no matter how hard they try (unless you intend to become a pro at a turn-based game where latency is relatively unimportant)
- Remote knowledge worker / engineer - A lot of the top tech companies are hiring talent remotely without regard for where they live. It's only "old world" businesses, and those with extreme security requirements like working for contractors or government touching classified data, that have hard requirements for working on-site. Almost any job in IT, plus many jobs in management, finance and administration, can be done remotely just as well as face to face... but only with good Internet connectivity. If your work output primarily involves taking information in one form (instructions, requirements, source data, whatever) and transforming it into another form (source code, metrics, stats, equations, papers, emails, whatever), you can work remotely if you have a good computer and a fast Internet connection. The remote work movement is helping to conserve a ridiculous amount of transportation fuel, but it can get even better in the future, and fast Internet is a critical first step.
The Internet is not only used for uploading resumes. Stop thinking like someone stuck in 1996, and recognize that this program is intended to open up possibilities for the rural population (about 15% of the US population, over 42 million people per the latest census) that crosses economic class boundaries and would not be possible otherwise. As someone else said, these ISPs simply would never, ever bring service to these remote areas if not for government subsidy, because these areas don't otherwise meet the company's ROI goals. These people should not be penalized for living in rural areas. And by the way, they're paying taxes, too, so it's part of their own tax money that goes to fund these programs.