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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!
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
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.
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
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 ?