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Gigabit Internet With No Data Caps May Be Coming To Rural America (arstechnica.com)
Jon Brodkin, writing for Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission is making another $2.15 billion available for rural broadband projects, and it's trying to direct at least some of that money toward building services with gigabit download speeds and unlimited data. The FCC voted for the funding Wednesday (PDF) and released the full details yesterday (PDF). The money, $215 million a year for 10 years, will be distributed to Internet providers through a reverse auction in which bidders will commit to providing specific performance levels. Bidders can obtain money by proposing projects meeting requirements in any of four performance tiers. There's a minimum performance tier that includes speeds of at least 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream, with at least 150GB of data provided each month. A "baseline" performance tier requires 25Mbps/3Mbps speeds and at least 150GB a month, though the data allotment minimum could rise based on an FCC metric that determines what typical broadband consumers use per month.
The ISPs shouldn't receive a penny until they do what they say they'll do. How much money are we going to give these guys for promises they never keep?
o Offer gigabit broadband with no data caps
o Allow a few years for Rural America to get used to having it
o Impose Shadow Datacaps on the biggest bandwidth users
o Complain about 'data hogs' and 'lost profits'
o Impose 'overage fees'
o Impose data caps for all subscribers
o Profit!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Sure, give the already obscenely greedy ISPs more money, surely that will get them to meet their prior commitments!
As long the providers don't get the money until after the project is completed. Have it held in escrow, even.
If they say they need the money for the build-out costs, I'm sure there are more than a couple banks that would make a loan on a business expansion where the repayment is guaranteed by the federal government.
They still haven't delivered what they promised when we, the people, gave them several hundred million in 1996.
lose != loose
I have a shocking idea! instead of giving all of this free money to the thieves and liars, the FCC should build the infrastructure themselves and rent it out to whomever wants to use it. Everybody wins. The FCC gets its rural broadband, the customers actually get the access, and the various service providers don't have to cough up and pay for any infrastructure they are not going to use. Once the initial investment is paid back, the FCC makes money on the deal.
Anything else is just another government boondoggle with all of us collectively footing the bill.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Alternative headline for the same story:
City-dwellers with 10 Mbps service by govt-enforced monopolies to buy gigabit for farmers
Last year, taxpayers paid the ISPs $9 billion for rural broadband, so that people who like owning horses can watch more Netflix movies simultaneously. Another couple billion this year, and $10 billion more planned. (About $82 per tax payer). Meanwhile, those of us paying for it get whatever Comcast or the local government franchise holder decides to give us, because the government has made if effectively illegal for a competitor to offer better service in our area.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help, they say. How about get the fuck out of the way and allow competition. There has been some of that in some states, and average speeds have gone up considerably in the last year.
In the 90's we gave the network providers billions to bring broadband to rural areas. They didn't do it then, what makes us think they will follow through this time?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
with that much government involvement you can bet more than a few congresspeople will want to show their pro-family credentials by mandating anti-pornography filtering on any government-funded network.
And don't forget abortions. There shall be no abortions on government funded Intertubes.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The Rural Electrification Act was a (relative) success. So let's try a similar scheme again. Let rural governments create cooperative ISPs, apply to the FCC for their share of the funding and put in broadband. I have the feeling that the incumbent telecoms are going to get their hands on the money and it's all going to disappear down the same rat-hole that the last subsidy did.
Have gnu, will travel.
I hope this time Congress attached some performance requirements so they don't just TAKE the money and do NOTHING like last time.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Don't know about your circumstances, but I'm happy to subsidize them because I like to eat what they grow and raise. Everybody can talk about competition and how eager companies should be to provide electricity or internet in this day to the rural sticks, but no company is going to do that on its own at a price any farmer or rancher is going to be able to pay. Maybe if they get gigabit to the rural sticks the prices will come down where I live.
That seems rather high for a 10/5 fiber. What part of the country is that? A business 10/10 fiber connection is $55/mo here. Alhough gigabit service is not available as the whole isp only has 2Gbps of backhaul.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
We never learn from our mistakes:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pu...
Our country and government should not give the telecoms a dime until they do what they say they will to the satisfaction of the auditors and regulators. Promises are worthless.
Ah, the usual false dichotomy troll. I know, it's just inconceivable to you that there's a distinction between "anti-government" and not wanting a bloated, wasteful, incompetent government. When the legislature and/or executive branches happen to be run by the people you hate so much, and they propose doing something you don't like, are you suddenly "anti-government?" No? I see.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
2. Throw a little money into astro turf organization to protest.
3. Astro turf will denounce it as Big Government, Obamanet, over reach and argue for the program to be axed.
4. Some law makers will be persuaded by the lobbyists to fake concern and axe the program.
5. The companies will blame the funding cut to renege on all promises
Lather, rinse and repeat.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
without some form of subsidy, the greedy private carriers will NEVER develop the tech, or expend the cost to wire/beam just a few locals in a small farm town in the middle of nowhere America. I agree we should just require cable/internet services to be open and do away with utility protections. I happen to live in an area that has a couple of cable options, as well as satellite services, and the cost/service benefit is HUGE. When Astound/Wave came to town Comcast/Xfinity cut their cost and upped their data caps within a month to compete because they HAD to.
http://www.wavebroadband.com/
http://www.xfinity.com/
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Funny you mention that as I'm only about 40 miles from Lavaca, AR in Sallisaw, OK. I think our biggest limiting factor here is back haul as 2Gbps costs the city 12K/mo.
The highest speed available here is just 50/50 for $157/mo
And I just noticed it shows that Lavaca was the first FTTP in Arkansas and sallisaw was the first FTTP in Oklahoma.
Funny how two states managed to both start their first fiber networks less than 50 miles apart and in roughly the same year.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
One operation based out of Oklahoma City deployed as far south as Corpus Christi. They showed great promise, but oversold their bandwidth and territory, winding up existing from check to check. Then they declared bankruptcy at year 3 when the Dept of Agriculture welshed on their next check, and had to go into bankruptcy. The liquidator's auction for the CDMA licenses looked like sharks in a feeding frenzy; with the telecoms outbidding each other until the licenses wound up selling around 15X-25X their face value.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.