4Mbps Still The Standard For One Govt Broadband Grant Program (arstechnica.com)

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4Mbps Still The Standard For One Govt Broadband Grant Program (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday May 9, 2016 @06:53AM from the affinity-for-fast-internet-broadband dept.

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."

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4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 06:56 · Score: -1, Troll

Four U.S. senators say that the Internet speed standard for a government grant program shouldn't be stuck at 4Mbps.
Why should there be a "government grant program" for this at all?

we strongly urge you to consider updating their broadband speed definitions
Yeah, because 4Mbps just is not enough for the "working poor" to work on their resumes and send them to would-be employers...

--
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  Because ISPs are capitalist companies who only focus on profit. They would not, without government's assistance' expand into low population density areas. The government's grants help to encourage building by offsetting some of the costs and/or maintenance necessary to provide critical infrastructure. If the government just did it itself and push companies out of the market you'd have morons complaining about 'DURR NO NOICE FOR PROPHETS". It's helping utility companies do the job they're supposed to - provide infrastructure.
2. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:10 · Score: 0
  
  The original bill was the 9-1-1 bill that required that most people have landline access for emergency calls. BO admin expanded this bill to include broadband internet. So one more thing I have subsidize people (and the telecoms) for...but to your point - 4 mbps seems like plenty for subsidized service. I don't want to be subsidizing people's xbox or netflix addictions...
3. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:14 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  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.
4. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Why should there be a "government grant program" for this at all?
  Because if you consider having Internet access in rural areas a worthwhile goal, the market is failing.
5. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 07:17 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Except that multiple satellite and fixed cellular providers have done exactly that. I typing this from my home network bridged to my Verizaon CANTENNA right now.
  I get about 4/4MBps in most conditions, severe storms slow things down. Latency is pretty low most of the time around 90-100ms to most well connected sites like google.com.
  Most people have exactly ZERO need for more than that. Sure I might enjoy that 75mbit comcast service I keep reading about for streaming netflix 24-7 but that is about the only thing I can't do with my rural internet service. I work from home in doing "IT work". So I am hardly being cut off from any economic opportunities because better connectivity isn't available.
  The USDA absolutely should not be subsidizing broadband! Holy scope creep batman! This is why the federal government costs so damn much. We already have other federal agencies who likely have the talent in house to mange such a program, FCC, and Commerce spring to mind. How many people are duplicated so the department of Agriculture can run a digital broadband program?
  The biggest problem with budget sequestration is it did not go nearly far enough. The biggest problem with this program is not how it defines broadband but that it exists!
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
6. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  I get about 4/4MBps in most conditions, severe storms slow things down. Latency is pretty low most of the time around 90-100ms to most well connected sites like google.com.
  You call that low latency? I routinely get 32ms (round trip ping) from google.com. Yours is about three times higher. Not 20% or 30% higher, but 300% higher. In what way is that low? Mine is a regular residential grade cable ISP connection, what they call their standard package, nothing fancy or exotic about it.
  Sure if to you "the internet" is http over tcp port 80 then that's not bad. But to call it low comes across as either ignorant or dishonest.
7. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:27 · Score: 0
  
  4MBps down is faster than about 90% of broadband deployed in the US. 4MBps up is faster than about 99.9% of all broadband deployed in the US. You are sittin' pretty.
8. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by allquixotic · 2016-05-09 07:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
9. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  TFW GP is trying to lecture others on network speeds and doesn't understand what a megabit is...
10. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Sure if to you "the internet" is http over tcp port 80 then that's not bad.
  100ms is fine for voip and even most twitch type games. Back on the subject of doing actual work, SSH at 100ms is fine, I can't tell the difference between a shell on a remote box and a local machine here. Please enlighten me what is it that I could better at 32ms than I can at 100ms, HFT stock trading?
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
11. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  By "most people" you mean people that don't download porn? I've got news for you... downloading any kind of HQ video is undoable at that speed.
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
12. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  They would not, without government's assistance' expand into low population density areas.
  Why would not they — as long as there is profit to be made?
  
  The government's grants help to encourage building by offsetting some of the costs
  "Offsetting" where? To people living in other areas. Why are they forced to subsidise Internet-access in low population density areas?
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
13. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:39 · Score: 0
  
  This is why the federal government costs so damn much
  Actually, if you look at it, about $22B went to "Agriculture" last year (USDA), and $620B (that's 28 times more) went to defense, $519B to Medicare, and $151B to veterans service.
  Cut all those in half, and you save $645B for one year.
14. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by epine · 2016-05-09 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. 4 Mbps that fully delivers qualifies as broadband for everything short of multiparty cable cutting. (Sure, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe wouldn't willingly settle for less than 40 Mbps, but at this point if she can't afford an urban shoe maybe she needs to go back and rethink her family planning).
15. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by JustAnotherOldGuy · 2016-05-09 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  You call that low latency? I routinely get 32ms (round trip ping) from google.com.
  
  FWIW, I have Frontier Fiber and I routinely get ~6 or 7ms pings.
  I suppose if I was a gamer that would be great, but I'm not. The porn gets here ASAP, though.
  
  --
  Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
16. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional goal of universal service to include increased access to both telecommunications and advanced services – such as high-speed Internet – for all consumers at just, reasonable and affordable rates. The Act established principles for universal service that specifically focused on increasing access to evolving services for consumers living in rural and insular areas, and for consumers with low-incomes. Additional principles called for increased access to high-speed Internet in the nation’s schools, libraries and rural health care facilities. The FCC established four programs within the Universal Service Fund to implement the statute. The four programs are:
  Connect America Fund (formally known as High-Cost Support) for rural areas
  Lifeline (for low-income consumers), including initiatives to expand phone service for residents of Tribal lands
  Schools and Libraries (E-rate)
  Rural Health Care
  Tomato-Tomato kid. The reclassification of the speed would apply to all of these. oh and kiss my ass for calling me a bigot, moron.
17. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by allquixotic · 2016-05-09 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  The only part of your post that I agree with is the assertion that the USDA should not be running this. Agriculture and Internet service are completely orthogonal aspects of living. Just because the USDA has traditionally done things that benefit farmers (which represent a percentage of the rural population) doesn't mean that they should be levied with sticking up for every possible interest that the rural community could have in any government activity whatsoever.
  The FCC should be doing this. It's pretty obvious.
  So, Mr. "IT Worker", how do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 20 seconds (assuming 100% utilization, no other data flows competing for throughput, no congestion or signal degradation, and zero protocol overhead) to save a 10 MB Excel file to a SMB shared drive?
  How do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 350 seconds (again, assuming no overhead, etc.) to download a 175 MB Eclipse installation?
  How is it waiting a day or more to download a major update package for Windows or Office or a distribution upgrade for your GNU/Linux distro (depending on what you use)?
  At 4 Mbps, I can't imagine you get very much work done, unless your job is primarily involving files on your local system with very little connectivity or data exchange with your company's servers.
  The connection provided by my company at my work site (in a corporate office building) caps out around 20 Mbps, with congestion during peak hours pushing it down around 8 to 10 Mbps down, 2 to 4 Mbps up. Everyone complains that we can barely get any work done.
  We have another network in the building specifically for the purpose of interacting with one of our customers; it's a direct fiber link to their headquarters' gateway. Their network has something like 100 Gbps of available bandwidth, with individual clients able to effectively max out the gigabit ethernet port, even during peak hours. We *love* working for this customer because we're so much more productive than when we're forced to use our company's internal network.
  So, at this point, we have: myself, for whose job a 10 Mbps connection is grossly inadequate; and *you*, for whose job a 4 Mbps connection is apparently adequate or even good. That's a small enough sample as to call either one of our accounts anecdotal.
  The problem is that you can't really look at a population of people overall and just pull a number out of your ass and say "that number is enough for anyone!". When you do that, you are effectively limiting the professions and the types of work that person can pursue from that location. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose job requires a bit more than 4 Mbps, and I'm sure you're not the only one whose job could be accomplished with a 2800 baud modem. There has to be a balance somewhere, but I think it lies a good ways north of 4 Mbps.
18. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by jratcliffe · 2016-05-09 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  These people should not be penalized for living in rural areas.
  Not massively subsidizing a choice isn't the same as penalizing that choice.
  By your argument, people who live in Manhattan should receive huge federal subsidies to cover the high cost of parking a car in a very densely-packed area.
  Live in a rural area? Space is cheap, broadband is expensive. Live in an urban area? Space is expensive, broadband is (relatively) cheap. No reason to help the first group but not the second.
19. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:52 · Score: 0
  
  100 is pretty high for games that don't grant latency induced advantages, but not bad if that's the limit. The problem with most high latency connections is that they're also low reliability meaning the UDP packets get dropped altogether and an action taken doesn't happen at all, or has to get resent by the client application. Often times resending is worse than ignoring as instead of not firing you fire a miss. Even if we're comparing 32 to 100ms you're talking almost a full 10th of a second additional latency which means the player at 100 is almost always going to lose the first strike advantage.
  Latency whether human or network induced is a huge factor to ranking in competitive games...
  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?download&size=original&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0094215.g003
  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094215#pone-0094215-g003
20. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  (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.
  Aha, so here we have an "Insightful" justification for a mission creep . Let's see...
  
  Having access to a very fast Internet pipe can change someone's life in a revolutionary way.
  Is such a possibility a right the government must ensure?
  
  - 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)
  This one is an awesome example. Just wonderful. So, to allow people — no matter how remote their dwellings — to become pro gamers, a federal subsidy must be established and maintained. With a multitude of Federal employees and US Senators (of whom there are only 100 in the whole world, BTW) busying themselves with it?
  With the rest of us hoping, they'll do it better than they did with public schools or VA Hospitals, for just two examples?
  
  These people should not be penalized for living in rural areas.
  I know, I know — I should be penalized for living in an urban area instead, right?
  
  And by the way, they're paying taxes, too
  Why can't they simply pay ISPs directly — bypassing the government middlemen and without my contribution to their becoming "pro gamers" and "podcasters"?
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
21. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  Why should there be a "government grant program" for this at all?
  You know, it's necessary for internet cover non profitable areas: the market (with this invisible hand) not work very well in this cases...
22. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  I will admit saving large files up the file sever over VPN sometimes is slow. I *usually* can make most of edits, save, and continue working on something else for the 5min or so that can take.
  Yes updating something like Visual Studio or RubyMine (don't eclipse sorry), let alone MS Office does take many hours. Which is why you start those updates when you are done for the day. They are ready and waiting in the morning that way. No problem.
  If I *need* to update some other large framework or rsync a huge repo mid day I'll do it around lunch time, so again it can transfer while I am taking a break anyway. Its really not a problem.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
23. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  I get about 4/4MBps in most conditions, severe storms slow things down. Latency is pretty low most of the time around 90-100ms to most well connected sites like google.com.
  
  Most people have exactly ZERO need for more than that.
  
  I second this
  
  * the Brazilian National Broadband Plan (in pt_BR Plano Nacional de Banda Larga) used a 1mbps connection speed, and it was sufficient for almost all needs... I don't know which is the speed used nowadays, I think is a regional thing now...
24. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  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.
  We don't need to subsidize them though! My cellular connection is expensive for the amount of transfer I need to use most months. So expensive I do keep a lid on most personal internet use (other than a little slashdot, I never youtube etc, unless its work related). I am not complaining, this is a real cost of living where I wanted to live, its a choice I made.
  I would also say we should stop subsidizing public housing in the cities. Those people should move out to where land is cheap and rents are low, if they don't have the earning power to support life in the city. Which by the way would push wages up, you think wealthy people would want to live in NYC if there was nobody to make their coffee? I doubt it, Starbucks would start paying $15+ if that is what it took for employees to live nearby enough to get to work in the morning. Subsides screw up the economy and produce all kinds of inefficiency in allocations.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
25. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Etcetera · 2016-05-09 08:15 · Score: 2
  
  So, Mr. "IT Worker", how do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 20 seconds (assuming 100% utilization, no other data flows competing for throughput, no congestion or signal degradation, and zero protocol overhead) to save a 10 MB Excel file to a SMB shared drive?
  That was fairly common for remote access situations 5 years ago, and depending on where you lived, DSL even in major urban areas 10 years ago. I survived. Rural is always going to require higher investment for infrastructure. News flash: Road costs scale with length of the road that needs to be built.
  
  How do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 350 seconds (again, assuming no overhead, etc.) to download a 175 MB Eclipse installation?
  How is it waiting a day or more to download a major update package for Windows or Office or a distribution upgrade for your GNU/Linux distro (depending on what you use)?
  Maybe if idiots stopped with the size creep, he wouldn't *have* to download a 175 MB Eclipse installation? Again, patches have happened in the past and we all managed to survive. Stop building shit that takes up 500 MB when 50MB is fine. Stop creating games that ship on a blu-ray disk and then require a 35GB update file on install.
  
  So, at this point, we have: myself, for whose job a 10 Mbps connection is grossly inadequate; and *you*, for whose job a 4 Mbps connection is apparently adequate or even good. That's a small enough sample as to call either one of our accounts anecdotal.
  I've been lucky enough to work at ISPs with their office in space rented from the datacenter for about half of my career, meaning my desktop was basically on-net, a few firewalls away from our core routers. The first time I worked at a location where the office *wasn't* directly connected to the datacenter (20Mbps point-to-point link) was painful, but I survived. More to the point, there's relatively little sysadmin work that *requires* high local connectivity, because doing work on remote systems is an option. It's the spoiled folks that think that they need to download everything from github to their Mac, or don't know how to work over SSH, or think file transfers can't be performed directly, or don't use local http proxies, or local mirrors for ISOs for your org, etc, that don't get it.
  
  The problem is that you can't really look at a population of people overall and just pull a number out of your ass and say "that number is enough for anyone!". When you do that, you are effectively limiting the professions and the types of work that person can pursue from that location. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose job requires a bit more than 4 Mbps, and I'm sure you're not the only one whose job could be accomplished with a 2800 baud modem. There has to be a balance somewhere, but I think it lies a good ways north of 4 Mbps.
  Strongly disagree. Remember, you're talking about a *minimum* to qualify. 4Mbps is plenty for textual communication and sufficient for a lot more. This is supposed to be an analog (no pun intended) to the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service, which was about making sure that rural, poor, or remote locations were able to get working dialtone service at a minimum, not that everyone got all the fanciest features everyone could provide.
  4Mbps is sufficient "dialtone" broadband internet access. Not great, sufficient.
  
  --
  Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
26. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Please enlighten me what is it that I could better at 32ms than I can at 100ms
  play an FPS, maybe :P
27. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Why are they forced to subsidise Internet-access in low population density areas?
  People need internet access (it's an essential service now, like water or electricity) no matter the population density where they live
28. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 08:29 · Score: 0
  
  Except that multiple satellite and fixed cellular providers have done exactly that. I typing this from my home network bridged to my Verizaon CANTENNA right now.
  I get about 4/4MBps in most conditions, severe storms slow things down. Latency is pretty low most of the time around 90-100ms to most well connected sites like google.com.
  You mention satellite like it's a viable option, but then go on about your cellular internet quality only, completely leaving out the reality of how shit satellite internet is. Satellite isn't viable broadband in any sense and shouldn't be counted as such.
  4Mbps and 90-100ms latency is a goddamn luxury compared to satellite. I have family that lives in a location unable to get anything but dial-up or satellite, and it's horrible regardless of the provider. The dial-up quality isn't even 33.6 speed (it's closer to 28.8) and there's no cellular service, so satellite's the only "real" option. Which means they pay something like $70/mo for 1.5mbit, a ~7GB monthly cap, and latency of 1000ms-1250ms minimum, with it frequently going even higher than that. Latency goes up and bandwidth goes down when it's overcast, and completely dies in a storm. Unless it's a clear day packet loss can be anything from 30% to 80%.
  Of course, there's no hope of them ever getting anything else because no broadband provider will run lines anywhere near them because it's not a profitable enough area, and getting a cell signal seems to be out of the question due to the lay of the land. So, barring some kind of subsidy "encouraging" broadband expansion their way, those relatives will forever be stuck in a communications black hole with no chance of anything but terrible satellite internet.
29. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  ping affects pr0n usage? Oh, I see now: think the little children! (it's not a pedophile joke, but it seems it :/)
30. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by jellomizer · 2016-05-09 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  That is so 2008.
  For finding work it isn't too hard to expect to have interviews via Skype (or other video services). Also it is cheaper to have VoIP phones than a LAN Line or a Cell Phone.
  However the real issue comes down to the fact that we Want a Government controlled infrastructure of the internet as our current providers are expensive and often have bad habits. But we need to be trusted that the Government will not spy on us, and keep up with technology.
  4mbs back 10 years ago, would be plenty, Today it is actually good enough for one person, for basic tasks, but shortly it would be too slow.
  Being that today our average web page size is the same as downling DOOM which if any of you remember the 2400 bps days, such a download took 3 hours.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
31. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 08:39 · Score: 0
  
  People need internet access
  What makes you say this? I understand, why people want Internet access, but nobody needs it. Not for things other than a) work — which better be sufficiently gainful to allow them to pay for it; b) entertainment — which should not be subsidised at all.
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
32. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  The FCC should be doing this.
  Interestingly, according to FCC, only the poor need Internet-subsidy — the view you yourself denounced as "incredibly narrow-minded" only a short while ago.
  
  So, Mr. "IT Worker", how do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 20 seconds
  An IT worker can afford a faster Internet without government's help. He can not be the poster child for you to use to justify increased taxation and government control.
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
33. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  internet access provides various rights (like the most basic free speech) and public services (opt-in in various e-gov programs, for example) : therefore, it's a need nowadays
34. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 08:52 · Score: 1
  
  we Want a Government controlled infrastructure of the internet as our current providers are expensive and often have bad habits
  You have Government-controlled infrastructure already and that is why it sucks. Government can not get public schools right for decades and continues to mismanage even the high-profile things. You want them to take over the Internet service-provision too?
  You are a fool, which would've been fine with me, except you want them to further take over my Internet-access too — not just yours...
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
35. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  Why do I give a shit about what YOU consider to be "enough" for most people? You just said you can't stream Netflix 24/7 -- well maybe I want/need that. Maybe I want to play FPSes online without people wondering what in the hell is wrong with my connection. Maybe I want to download unlimited amounts of porn while streaming a song while my wife watches a movie. All while my NEST, security system, and anything else is connected.
  
  As for your USDA opinion - you live in a rural area and you have no idea what the USDA does? It's more than just rubber stamping meat and looking at crops. It also helps to ensure the growth of rural areas...to ensure maximum productivity. To that end farming, like any other business, has a need for the internet. And what kind of "expertise" do they need? It's not the USDA laying the fiber or building the COs - they're providing funding. They have administrators who review the proposals that go "Okay, so Company XYZ wants to lay down fiber and provide service for the 300 homes in this area and they've estimated the cost is $X and submitted quotes from the companies they'll be working with...does this make sense?"
  
  The talent is understanding if the impact of the development HELPS rural households/farmers/etc. They're not the ISP and never claimed to be - you just don't know what the program is, read a half assed summary, and said "DUHHH BLURB GOBERMENT DUN TOO BIG." What a lazy approach.
36. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 09:04 · Score: 1
  
  We live in a hyper-connected age. Perhaps I can get better deals than my local stores have on products/items that I use. Maybe my employment could be down from home - thus saving me the time/expense of going to/from work. Perhaps I have a security system that offers better features such as off-site storage of my security feed. Based on your signature, however, I suspect no answer will ever be "good enough" because I believe you're one of those anti-government people and, honestly, debating ideology isn't the point of this post.
37. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mlw4428 · 2016-05-09 09:08 · Score: 1
  
  > Why would not they — as long as there is profit to be made?
  
  You should ask the ISPs who didn't do it before this program came into existence.
  
  "Offsetting" where? To people living in other areas. Why are they forced to subsidise Internet-access in low population density areas?
  
  Because in a society, I know this is a difficult concept for people like you, people work together to benefit all of society. Sometimes the net "benefit" is just a shared cost, but society deems it reasonable. This is a basic concept of living in any society. Why couldn't you look this up?
38. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 09:12 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps I can get better deals than my local stores have on products/items that I use. Maybe my employment could be down from home - thus saving me the time/expense of going to/from work. Perhaps I have a security system
  This may all be true — no disagreement here. What I do not understand, is why do you feel justified using the money, that government takes from others at gun-point, to help you with these things?
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
39. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 09:19 · Score: 0
  
  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.
  So it is for the poor people who live in the country where the majority of poor people live. This is exactly about taxing people in the cities to pay for poor people's internet in the country. Why should my 6 Mbps connection get taxed to get someone up to 10 Mbps? How is that even slightly fair.
40. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by mi · 2016-05-09 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  You should ask the ISPs who didn't do it before this program came into existence.
  I'd like to read your opinion — why?
  
  people work together to benefit all of society
  How does all of society benefit in this particular example? Do try to stick to arguments, that would not also apply to providing everybody with a nice car and a dishwasher...
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
41. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 09:23 · Score: 0
  
  We can't pay ISPs directly because THEY DON'T PROVIDE SERVICE. None, nada, zilch.
42. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 09:33 · Score: 0
  
  Official Adult (TM) Rules designate specific methods of entertainment such as building ships in bottles or reading War and Peace (in paper, the way God wrote it) or engaging in manly pugilism to entertain yourself. Use of any unapproved entertainment whatsoever (such as video games or movies excepting Schindler's List and Christmas Story, A) brands you forever a child and therefore unworthy of the respect of other Official Adults (TM) and your opinions void.
  If you are unwilling or unable to obtain Official Adult (TM) Entertainment, then you are required to spend all of your waking hours in pursuit of financial gain. Again, deviation from Official Adult (TM) Rules results in permanent revocation of your Adult Card, without appeal.
43. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by sims+2 · 2016-05-09 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  It must have been a while since you last used a sat con.
  $60/mo gets you 10GB at 10/1Mbps on huges or for the same price 12/3Mbps on excede.
  Last time I had a sat con was around 2009 wild blue $80/mo 1.5/.256 split rolling cap 17/5GB iirc average ping was about 570ms.
  But as for speed and reliability it was absolute crap.
  If it rained here I would loose connection if it rained in Syracuse, NY where my gateway was I would loose connection.
  Speeds and caps are better than they were several years ago. But afaik nothing has been done to improve its reliability.
  Mine was replaced with a 3g cellular connection a few years ago but i've since moved to 4g.
  If you know someone still one one of those overpriced high latency old systems have them switch to a modern plan at the very least. From experience I can tell you its better than dailup at least 3/4 of the time.
  
  --
  Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
44. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 10:23 · Score: 0
  
  Except that multiple satellite and fixed cellular providers have done exactly that. I typing this from my home network bridged to my Verizaon CANTENNA right now.
  I get about 4/4MBps in most conditions, severe storms slow things down.
  My mother's house is probably five thousand or so feet outside of DSL range, and has been that way for I guess a decade. AT&T has done nothing. Infrastructure is required, and a valid use for tax dollars, just as roads are. That doesn't mean you get the best if you live in nowhere land, but some level of effort is required. Basically try to reduce long term costs, while not completely being crap. 4Mbps imo, is fine. Sure you can't stream netflix on multiple tv's in hd, but, well, there has to be some tradeoffs.
  We used a WISP for awhile. It worked, then it got worse. They finally had it working so so, but it was probably on average really less than 1 Mbps and high latency with frequent retries required. Still, it was all that was realistic, since satellite was worse. Cricket wireless is what we are using now. Their plan seems decent. Of course it is a spawn of AT&T, so that could change, but who knows. Put your cell phone lines in the same plan and the discounts are decent. I think cricket is 8Mbps. I'd consider it for my own use, and ditch charter, but I'm half afraid I'd use enough that they would say unlimited really doesn't mean unlimited and since it is much better service at my mother's house, I'd rather not mess that up by adding a higher usage (30gb?) account to the bill.
45. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Kjella · 2016-05-09 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  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.
  Let's be honest here, this isn't business they're not taking because they don't get Apple-like margins. In most cases this is business operating at a dead loss that will never recover the investment/operating cost. Very often when you read about rural areas self-organizing to get decent broadband you have one or more enthusiasts that have spent countless hours working for free to make it happen, if they'd billed at market value the business would have gone under. It's not a penalty to expect users of a service to generally cover the cost of providing service.
  I mean, if you don't have to worry about operating on a commercial basis why stop at 10 Mbit/s? Google delivers gigabit fiber for $70/month, why penalize rural areas with less. It's not hard to turn this into absurdity. Yes, occasionally we invest in basic infrastructure the same way we invest in basic research even though there's no immediate ROI but because we expect that long term having public roads, mail service, electricity grids, phone service, public utilities etc. will help the community. Broadband is obviously such a thing, to some degree.
  I just checked here in Norway, under 4 Mbit/s would be ~9% of broadband connections - almost everyone can get some form of "broadband" (>128kbps here, but not used as cutoff) if they want - and under 10 Mbit/s ~27%, so tripling the number of people and presumably raising the bar to 10 Mbit/s would increase cost/head. If you got infinite budgets no problem, but if it's about getting the most value out of limited funds I'd rather concentrate on the few that don't even have 4 Mbit/s than raising up the rest to >10 Mbit/s. And maybe push fiber on the other end, instead of 10-50 Mbps solutions.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
46. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 12:02 · Score: 0
  
  Probably 3 years since I dealt with it personally, but the relatives I was talking about are still using it, and it's still shit. They're in western NY, and as far as I know they still have the same shit bandwidth and caps they had when I visited last. In fact it might even be worse...
  I just looked at the HughesNet site and it says you get 10GB/mo "anytime allowance" and 60GB/mo "total" cap. Looking at their FAQ, it clarifies that the 10GB is your actual monthly usage, and the extra 50GB is a cap on your off-peak (2am to 8am) data use. Back when I was there, there was no cap on the late-night use, and the monthly cap for the rest of the day was somewhere around 7-8GB like I mentioned in the other post. I guess they got tired of people actually using that "unlimited" late night bandwidth and decided to clamp down on it too.
  As for latency, I occasionally saw sub-1k pings, but they were definitely the exception. Doing anything even vaguely interactive was useless and I doubt that's improved any for them. I remember having to use ssh like that before, it was a nightmare. (Luckily I learned about mosh later, it's a godsend)
  I'll have to check the next time I go visit but I don't think the ISP situation is going to get much better for them, satellite ISPs have a captive consumer base around there so they can do basically anything they want. Heh.
47. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 13:28 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, but we're not talking about playing games, here.
48. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 23:01 · Score: 0
  
  By your argument, people who live in Manhattan should receive huge federal subsidies to cover the high cost of parking a car in a very densely-packed area.
  They probably get huge (federal?) subsidies for the public transportation system.
49. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-10 01:39 · Score: 0
  
  640k ought to be enough for anyone.
50. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Coren22 · 2016-05-12 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Cool, I never wanted to be an adult anyways. I will remain a kid for life, and get highly paid like a professional adult!
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
51. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Coren22 · 2016-05-12 04:13 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm, that is interesting. Can any farmer really be called poor? A successful harvest year can bring in millions of dollars in a single year, do we really need to subsidise their internet connection when they make more in a year than most "small businesses"?
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
52. Re:4Mbps just is not enough! by Coren22 · 2016-05-12 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  If it rained here I would loose connection if it rained in Syracuse, NY where my gateway was I would loose connection.
  You really should tighten that loose connection, a loose coax connection can play havoc with satellite or cable internet connections.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Should be 4 APPS per app, not LUDDITE Mbps! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 06:57 · Score: -1

Modern app appers know that ONLY apps can app apps, so these LUDDITES should stop using LUDDITE Mbps and start using appy APPS per app!
Apps!
I would love 4Mbps... by snowsmann · 2016-05-09 06:59 · Score: 1

I would love it if AT&T would consider giving me 4Mbps, been stuck with 768kbps for a long time now with no hope from AT&T whatsoever, and no other options out there other than expensive high latency satellite.

--
timeo Danaos, et dona ferentis
1. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by Tablizer · 2016-05-09 07:16 · Score: 2
  
  Our choices indeed stink, and I live in a well-populated area.
  4Mbps is just fine as long as it's reliable, not throttled, and doesn't cost a fortune to get these features.
  In short, other issues eclipse max speed in the current market.
  Let's make a deal with the telecoms: you can keep 4Mbps as the standard as long as you do 4Mbps right.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
2. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  Talk to verizon wireless, their CANTENNA services are great! If they have the capacity in your area to give you one its excellent!
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
3. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:34 · Score: 1
  
  Cost?
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
4. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by DarkOx · 2016-05-09 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  about $180/mo to start with around 30gigs. They won't offer more until you prove you use that much. So you will be stuck with a months worth of overages.
  After that will offer 60 or (more depending on how far over you went) at more reasonable prices. I am paying about $240 right now for 100gigs.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
5. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by gmack · 2016-05-09 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  Wow that's expensive. Meanwhile in Montreal Canada I pay $150 CAD for 120 down 20 up with unlimited transfer (currently topping 800 Gig a month).
6. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 12:44 · Score: 0
  
  So what you really meant to say was it's terrible, unless you heat your home by burning benjamins.
  At that price you would probably be able to afford to make your own connectivity arrangements anyway.
7. Re:I would love 4Mbps... by tendrousbeastie · 2016-05-10 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  In south east England, I pay at home around £40 per month (approx. $55 USD) for a 12mbps DSL line (this includes the phone line).
  At work I pay around £60 (~$85 USD) for a 80mbps fibre optic line (not available at home, even though I live in a city centre and work is in the suburbs).
  (both lines are uncapped, and no ports are filtered - I can and do run my own servers on them)
  The USA internet market sound terrible. But then I suppose the US is quite big compared to Britain, and the investment costs are not comparable. I know that were you in northern Scotland you might have reason to complain.
Better than dialup? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:03 · Score: 0

4mbits is pretty anemic by todays standards but in a lot of rural areas where wireless is pretty much your only option.
And most wireless schemes are pretty slow and plagued by latency. And then there's fucking satellite. God damn is satellite annoying.
(Yeah point-to-point wireless can be faster/less latent than copper or fiber due to the laws of physics but thats expensive dedicated point-to-point gear in ideal line-of-site conditions. Shared access of spectrum is inherently latent when you get a lot of users going.)
For that matter, 4mbits is shit. The standard really should be revised upward ever few years.. And while we're at it add stipulations for latency, because latency has a serious effect on interactive mediums.
The who is doing what? by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2016-05-09 07:07 · Score: 1

>> The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities,

And you wonder why our government is neck-dept in debt.
1. Re:The who is doing what? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:19 · Score: 0
  
  I don't wonder at all, and it has nothing to do with investing in getting services to citizens. We're in debt because there are boat loads of suckers who buy the "if we just cut taxes on the wealthy they'll give us jobs" mantra. Thus, the wealthy have some of the lowest tax rates they've had in decades and the rest of us get to pick up the tab for the infrastructure that makes their wealth possible.
2. Re:The who is doing what? by zlives · 2016-05-09 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  4 is enough number of Mb's to connect all the cows.
  now if only there was program for the citizenry run by lets say FCC or FTC or some semi tech related agency heck NSA may need more BW to collect all our stuff so maybe thats a better way to skin it.
3. Re:The who is doing what? by zlives · 2016-05-09 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  Trump 2016 is going to raise taxes on those bastards
Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:09 · Score: 0

why not work on getting faster connections in cities that were early adopters and have slower connections than that. That's better than giving even faster connections to people that already have fast connections.
1. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:14 · Score: 0
  
  This. I'm sick of my 160 Kbps DSL in downtown Seattle. CenteryLink is upgrading a couple of streets to the far north from 12.5 Mbps to gigabit rather than upgrading their slowest connections.
2. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:25 · Score: 0
  
  It's cheaper to dig up streets on a neighborhood than in a city so I don't blame them. It's the same reason the Comcast doesn't offer service to their entire monopoly area on Seattle.
3. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  Follow the money. New construction and the places they can get the greatest return on their investment get upgraded first. Don't live around internet-illiterate cheapskates if you want good service! (Actually, I'm surprised you can't get better service in downtown Seattle. You anywhere near Amazon? Tried getting a point-to-point connection? The only problem we had in downtown Seattle is the 100-year old buildings are wired for data OR power; we were constantly popping breakers with just a few dozen computer users.
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
4. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by hawguy · 2016-05-09 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  It's cheaper to dig up streets on a neighborhood than in a city so I don't blame them. It's the same reason the Comcast doesn't offer service to their entire monopoly area on Seattle.
  Is it really cheaper?
  Adding infrastructure to one block of a city street can access to hundreds of customers - adding infrastructure to the same distance in a suburban neighborhood may only give access to 10 customers.
5. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by danbob999 · 2016-05-09 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  Kind of worthless isn't it? I'd just use my cell phone instead. Or most probably move.
6. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 08:11 · Score: 0
  
  I live on Dexter not far from Amazon's new location. We don't have cable available in our building and CenturyLink DSL is very far subMbps and unreliable. Sucks paying $573k for a one bedroom place without decent Internet access. The building was built in 1950 so I understand why the phone wiring is so bad and why cable would be expensive to install, but it's still frustrating.
7. Re: Until most people have 4 Mbps availabile... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 11:39 · Score: 0
  
  Sounds like you rent.
  Move if you don't like it.
  You may pay more because renters want decent internet access and buildings without it will be less popular.
  Problem solved.
Why is the government even involved in this? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:15 · Score: 0

Why on earth is the government even involved in this? I currently live in the middle of nowhere (~15 miles from the closest "town"). I chose to live where I live. I knew that one of the things I would be giving up was decent Internet access (also cable TV). I got several things in exchange: no city noise, no pollution, no ridiculous municipal ordinance/zoning nonsense, dirt cheap property taxes, no time wasted on frivolous television crap, etc.
Granted, in the last ten years the gap between what I have and was able to get back then (T1) and what is common now has widened. That said, I made a conscious decision to live in a location which had that limitation. Today, if I wanted, I have more choices than ever. Before it was dialup, T1, or satellite. Now, in addition to those choices I can get 3G/4G and where I live there are point-to-point microwave services available. A friend of mine is also working with a local company to bring a fibre run up along a local highway, where anyone within a few miles would be able to tie in, but that is still some time off.
There are really two salient points here: 1) if super fast Internet is really that important to me, I'll move some place that has it; 2) I'm a consultant and work remotely with nearly all my clients and the T1 has been more than adequate for that for over a decade.
Seriously, I'd much rather have a level 1 trauma center in the nearest "town" instead of two or three towns over (30+ miles). That would be much more worthwhile. Here again, though, if it is important to me to live close to that level of healthcare, I'll move. Taxing everyone to compensate for the informed choices (where live was an informed choice, right?) that they make is precisely why for almost my entire life our government hasn't been able to spend less money than it has taken in.
1. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  I'd suggest bringing in that point-to-point connection, then having all your close neighbors subsidize it by providing drops to them, essentially running your own micro-ISP, but off the books. My parents have satellite (apparently every company uses the same satellites as HughesNet) and it sucks, plus if you exceed the monthly bandwidth cap, it throttles back to 2400 baud modem speed.
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
2. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by Calydor · 2016-05-09 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  This sounds a bit like a false dichotomy.
  You did not choose to live where there was bad internet access. You chose to live where you could get a (for the time) very decent connection. T1 was great in its time, when most of the world still connected by dialup and the internet was geared towards that.
  Now? Download a game from Steam on that connection, it'll take you a week or so. Forget watching Youtube, forget streaming music (which has become the default means of listening to music in modern society) and so on.
  You CHOSE to live where the net access was good - it just didn't get upgraded in those ten years. Meanwhile all of modern society has moved online, and websites have grown far heavier than they were in the early 2000s. Personally I WISH I could get a T1 line instead of my 448/96 kbps connection, but no dice so far.
  
  --
  -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
3. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by guruevi · 2016-05-09 07:48 · Score: 2
  
  The reasons are because farmers (you know the 'businesses' that do work around you) wanted to join the online revolution except no cable or phone company wanted to develop it out and neither did the (federal and state) governments (under pressure of the telco's) want to give any right of ways to communal Internet coops or local governments to do the same.
  So instead the federal government and state governments levied taxes on phone lines, cell phones and Internet services (somewhere in the 90's) to pay telco's and cable companies for the rural development of Internet over "their" (existing, previously government-owned and payed for by taxes in the previous decades) communication lines. The telco's and cable companies have since pocketed enough to develop low cost fiber-to-the-home country-wide 3 times over but continue to run "high speed" service over the same 1950's copper pair while they keep asking the government to redefine 'high speed'. Please note high-speed wouldve been defined at 10Mbps a decade ago and if they maintained the 'progress' originally demanded, they now should've been at least 100Mbps on average. Instead rural community Internet speeds in Africa rival the speeds of US'es.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
4. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by sims+2 · 2016-05-09 10:43 · Score: 1
  
  There are only two players in sattelite internet hughesnet (echostar) and excede (viasat)
  Excede is now offering plans in some areas with soft caps so the low speed is better after hitting your cap (like 1 to 5mbps)
  Plans are diffrent now than they were a few years ago it should be worth while to check.
  I would look in this order
  1. Wired
  2. Point to point wisp
  3. Cellular 4g lte
  4. Sattelite
  Wisps and wired broadband are typically unmetered.
  
  --
  Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
5. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by sims+2 · 2016-05-09 10:52 · Score: 1
  
  I've allways assumed you could get a t1 pretty much anywhere by paying a few grand for installaition. And then a several hundred a month for service.
  Out of curiosity what is the limitation preventing you from being able to spend ridiculous amounts of money for a reliable if rather slow connection?
  
  --
  Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
6. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by Calydor · 2016-05-09 11:13 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, my connection is solid - it's just not at a speed that makes the modern internet very useful.
  The limitation preventing me from being able to spend ridiculous amounts of money is quite simply not having ridiculous amounts of money. .
  
  --
  -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
7. Re:Why is the government even involved in this? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 12:40 · Score: 0
  
  I'm about ten miles or so further out than you. I bought this place specifically because it had gig connectivity. Only problem is that Centurylink fucking lied -- same thing they did to at least two of my neighbors that moved here around the same time I did. Shit like this is why the government needs to be involved.
10Mb eliminates nearly all ADSL by Overzeetop · 2016-05-09 07:16 · Score: 1

Most older copper systems top out at 7/768k, and long runs frequently result in speeds about half that. Moving the bar from 4Mb to 10Mb would make nearly every DSL cabinet obsolete and disqualify them.
OTOH, since Verizon has chosen not to upgrade my town to fiber, I say fuck 'em - raise it and kick their asses out of the program.

--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1. Re:10Mb eliminates nearly all ADSL by i.r.id10t · 2016-05-09 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  And if you are on the absolute edge of a run like I am, 1.5mb down works but 3mb down has too much noise and can't keep a connection for more than 10 minutes without resetting the "modem"
  
  --
  Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
2. Re:10Mb eliminates nearly all ADSL by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:27 · Score: 0
  
  ADSL2+ goes to 25Mbps.
  VDSL goes even higher. AT&T sells a 54Mbps tier under the U-Verse brand.
Great! by kamapuaa · 2016-05-09 07:19 · Score: 0

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?

--
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
1. Re:Great! by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  As a person that lives in Bumfuck Idaho, let me say... Yes, yes you should subside high-speed internet, high-speed highways, and good Chinese takeout for me! And while we're at it, can you have them fly in some fresh salmon? The sushi here sucks!
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
2. Re:Great! by tlhIngan · 2016-05-09 07:34 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
3. Re:Great! by 110010001000 · 2016-05-09 07:36 · Score: 0
  
  You don't need high speed internet to get weather forecasts or to get market data. Jesus Christ.
4. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 07:50 · Score: 0
  
  or ask your county to raise your property taxes and use the money to lay some fiber. tea baggers love to gloat about low taxes and then want someone to pay for it
5. Re:Great! by zlives · 2016-05-09 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  because the people that live in populated places voted to keep the phone monopolies in place instead of letting local municipalities provide said service to their residents.
6. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-09 12:19 · Score: 0
  
  or ask your county to raise your property taxes and use the money to lay some fiber. tea baggers love to gloat about low taxes and then want someone to pay for it
  I have no problem with that, well provided you don't then give those fibers to a megacorp. Run them all to a central office as usual. Let the city/county/etc contract out maintenance on the system, if you must, then the major internet providers can put their box there. The provider can direct the local office to put you in their vlan, and all is well.
  Also, while we are creating this dream system, include open access hotspots wherever it is easy to do so, and maybe some other places. Those could eventually replace, or at least reduce the need for cell towers. The hotspots will be unencrypted and open, but the only thing you can do is to download standard vpn software, be it via your phone or your laptop/etc. (well you could call 911, but that is it.) Basically you want the hotspots to be very simple and any security something you can update. Working with one of the ISPs collocated at the central office can get you a vpn link to their network, for whatever reason you need it. (phone/internet/etc).
  For that matter, nothing prevents you from being in more than one vlan, as long as the i's are dotted. Your set top box, via dhcp could route packets to and from the netflix vlan, and so on.
The government should subsidize 100MBit connection by Locke2005 · 2016-05-09 07:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

...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?

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I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What happened to the $ they chrage on phone bills? by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2016-05-09 07:38 · Score: 2

>> The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities,
And you wonder why our government is neck-dept in debt.
The phone companies have been charging me - and everybody else in the country - a rake-off to pay for deploying high speed internet in rural areas. (It used to be just for phone service but got bumped to cover high-speed internet long ago. I've been paying in for decades, and haven't seen the service yet.)
Is this that money? If not, where did THAT money go?
My retirement house, on the outskirts of a rural village in Nevada, currently has a choice of dialup (32ish KILObits on a good day), cellphone (we're on the LAST TOWER...) or satellite. Even the local WISP - at $80ish/month for their low end product last I looked - doesn't point antennas our way any more, as of last summer. I just did a web search and can't find them any more, so maybe they went belly-up. All I see now is AT&T & Verizon cellphone-based service ($45-$390/month), one cable company (that only covers half the town - and not me), and Dish and HughesNet satellite (with their horrid latency and caps).)

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Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
4 is better than nothing by avandesande · 2016-05-09 07:44 · Score: 1

If not getting the grant discourages companies from going the 4 mb route what is the alternative?

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love is just extroverted narcissism
Depends if you want to sell fleece or be fleeced. by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2016-05-09 07:47 · Score: 2

You don't need high speed internet to get weather forecasts or to get market data.
In this era of high-speed trading, a good, fast, internet connection can make the difference between selling fleece and being fleeced.
If a commodity firm is interested enough in your market to try to game it you MIGHT have a chance with a broadband ISP fed by fiber. But dialup speeds, satellite delays, and even cellphone modem links are right out.

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Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It is time for phone companies to retire copper by Sycraft-fu · 2016-05-09 07:51 · Score: 1

They need to admin that the low-grade twisted pair they've been using for over 100 years has run its course. It just can't handle the kind of bandwidth (in the analogue sense) we need these days. They need to start replacing it with something better, fibre being the obvious choice since it looks to have the longest lifetime. Ya, it is expensive to have to do a big infrastructure upgrade but them's the breaks.
Cable providers have a few more decades at least they can wait, as coax can handle much higher amounts of data. Eventually they'll have to change though, and the smart providers are already working on it in new developments.
Re:What happened to the $ they chrage on phone bil by zlives · 2016-05-09 08:22 · Score: 1

you moved out there to get away from the masses, mission accomplished :)
Wants vs. needs by mi · 2016-05-09 08:57 · Score: 1

internet access provides various rights (like the most basic free speech)
Come back to me with this argument, when you've provided everybody with their own a) bull horn; b) newspaper; c) radio station; d) TV-channel.
And, if it was not the government's responsibility to provide people with those things when they were the top technology, Internet is not now.

it's a need nowadays
Bullshit. Most of the elderly still do not use it — if they survive without it, then the younger generations certainly can too.
You want it, but you do not need it. And if you feel like you need it — buy it for yourself...

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. Re: Wants vs. needs by fbobraga · 2016-05-09 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  I think you misunderstood the point: internet is the communication used nowadays (ie, in most cities, you can't call to report a non working public light, but you fill a form in a website to make that report and ask public action...) - in that way, internet access infrastructure is a public need, like telephone lines in the past. And, because it's a way to get other rights (like in the example on last paragraph), IMHO, I would think in it BEFORE the other essential services
2. Re: Wants vs. needs by mi · 2016-05-09 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  like telephone lines in the past
  I was waiting for this, thank you! Granting AT&T its monopoly was such a staggering success, we certainly ought to keep doing things that way, right?
  
  --
  In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Re:What happened to the $ they chrage on phone bil by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2016-05-09 09:20 · Score: 1

you moved out there to get away from the masses, mission accomplished :)
No, I moved out there to get away from California laws.
I'm a target shooter and CA was banning and moving to confiscate all my pricey toys, and I had some stock options that CA wanted to tax at nasty rates after I retired. The NV site was about as close to Silicon Valley as I could get and not be in CA or the Pacific Ocean (about 250 miles by road). The rural location has its ups and downs
(Unfortunately the startup did a merger and the stock options got force-exercised before I could change my residence. So they got taxed anyhow. B-b )

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Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Re:Depends if you want to sell fleece or be fleece by jratcliffe · 2016-05-09 12:19 · Score: 1

If you're actually trying to run HFT from a farm, broadband availability is the least of your worries.
4mbps is better than 0mbps by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-10 00:24 · Score: 0

ISP side: As long as there are places where you can't even get 4mbps there should be a reward for ISPs to expand there. Otherwise wouldn't you just subsidize IPSs updating places that already have 4mbps to the new required speed?
User side: If people want to use netflix (just an example) then they can pay more. Otherwise 4mbps is totaly usable. Why should the state pay for luxus items?
Content provider side: If content providers want us to waste high bandwidth on them (e.g. so they make money on advertising) shouldn't they pay for providing the bandwidth too? Why should the state pay for them to make money?
Re:What happened to the $ they chrage on phone bil by zlives · 2016-05-10 05:01 · Score: 1

no worries i will probably be joining you in next 5 years for the same reasons, maybe we can dig us some fiber.
Token Ring by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-10 14:12 · Score: 0

If 4 mbps is good enough for token ring, it's good enough for some hick out in the middle of nowhere.