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."

Comments

The government should subsidize 100MBit connection

[Locke2005]

...because poor people deserve good porn too!

If you are going to force universal service, then 4Mbit should be good enough for anyone getting a subsidy. Anybody that wants better bandwidth should pay the difference in cost themselves! Or, here's an idea: don't let internet service providers charge $100/month for service? Stop internet service providers from bundling cable TV and phone with internet and forcing people to buy all three? Encourage competition instead of allowing mergers and consolidation so that most markets are served with only one or two providers?

Re:Great!

[tlhIngan]

Why should people who live in populated areas subsidize the quality of Netflix for people who live in one-horse towns? Should we pay for people who live in the middle of nowhere to have eight-lane freeways and decent Chinese takeout?

Because the internet is more than just Netflix?

You may not believe it, but having high-speed internet is a boon for farmers who not only can participate in the real-time commodities market (to which they're supplying), but also obtain weather forecasts and other detailed information in real time so they can adjust how they work their fields to avoid wasting product and even precious resources like water.

Then there's applications like real-time GPS tracking and all sorts of other sensors and monitors.

Then when it's all said and done and the sun goes down, they can Netflix and chill until sunup and it all starts over again.