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Trump's FCC Chairman Pick Ajit Pai Vows To Close Broadband 'Digital Divide' (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On his first full day as Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Republican Ajit Pai yesterday spoke to FCC staff and said one of his top priorities will be bringing broadband to all Americans. "One of the most significant things that I've seen during my time here is that there is a digital divide in this country -- between those who can use cutting-edge communications services and those who do not," Pai said (transcript). "I believe one of our core priorities going forward should be to close that divide -- to do what's necessary to help the private sector build networks, send signals, and distribute information to American consumers, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else. We must work to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans." Pai promised to "hear all points of view -- to approach every issue with a literal open door and a figurative open mind," as the FCC "confronts this and many other challenges." Pai didn't offer any specific initiatives for closing the digital divide yesterday, but in September 2016 he outlined a "digital empowerment agenda." The plan included "remov[ing] regulatory barriers to broadband deployment," changes to pole attachment rules, and "dig once" policies that install broadband conduit when roads are dug up during any road and highway construction project. He also proposed setting aside 10 percent of spectrum auction proceeds for deployment of mobile broadband in rural areas. Pai suggested requiring mobile carriers to build out service to 95 percent of the population in areas where they have spectrum licenses; he noted that some licenses only required service for 66 percent or 75 percent of residents, a problem in sparsely populated rural areas. At the same time, he proposed extending initial spectrum license terms from 10 years to 15 years to give the carriers more time to complete the construction. Pai also proposed creating "gigabit opportunity zones" in areas where average household income is below 75 percent of the national median. In these areas, state and local lawmakers would have to "adopt streamlined, broadband deployment-friendly policies," and there would be tax incentives and tax credits for companies building high-speed networks.
Yes, we want to bring broadband to all Americans... so my ex-clients can gouge the shit out of them with rent-seeking behavior, unneeded service caps and fees, and charging content providers that aren't directly owned by the ISP access fees after we shitcan Net Neutrality!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
So, it will be available in more areas, at greater costs and in more limited uses.
First, I reject the assumption it will cost a lot more.
Secondly, so what if it does cost more? Is it still not better to have the AVAILABILITY of real high speed internet be much more widespread? My mother lives in a rural area, and on average from her DSL line she was getting 128kb/s. No I am not joking. Do you know how much of the modern internet is really usable at those speeds? Not much, and Netflix was a pretty low quality affair.
Recently T-Mobile expanded cell service enough in the area that I was able to get her a wireless hotspot. Now she has about 8MB/s down, and everything is useable... she has more of a cap than before but then again she probably couldn't have downloaded even a GB in the course of a month before had she tried.
Making something available is a huge boon. Even if it is expensive that simply means you can subsidize the payments for those that could not afford it otherwise - either the government or private groups. But there's no reason to believe once something is available and widely used that prices will not come down.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Isn't anything better than dial-up, satellite or low-end DSL better when that's the only option you have?
I've been living with only 5Mbps for over six years now and it's plenty enough to not feel "left behind".
#DeleteFacebook
Is there anything in there statements that re-defines that down from what the previous administration defined it by moving the numbers up?
Pai was appointed to the commission by Obama in 2012, so we can answer that based on what he's supported and opposed over the last five years.
In his dissents, Pai has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the commission setting minimums with no reference to changing technology and consumer expectations. He supports looking at the speeds actually ordered by consumers who *do* have the choice, and setting new rules based on that, rather than picking a number out of a bureaucrat's ass - and using completely different numbers from month to month.
Available speeds have increased in the last couple of years, so by the chairman's preferred methodology standards should be higher now than in 2015, but in 2015 he said the commission's standard of 10 Mbps in rural areas was too slow, arguing that 25 Mbps would be better:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub...
Before that, he reasoned that since Netflix customers stream at 3.2 Mbps on average, a true 10 Mbps connection would allow 3 concurrent streams - so here we see his idea of "broadband" gets faster over time.
The new chairman argued strenuously that the FCC should not adopt regulations that discouraged gigabit - the rule enacted by the Democrat majority encouraged 10Mbps and 25Mbps connections in lieu of gigabit, he argued.
He would in general rather promote competition and then gtf out of the way and let companies offer gigabit or whatever, rather than micro-managing, declaring that they must offer exactly this or that. In constrast, the rules enacted by his colleagues were much more along the lines of "Verizon must offer 10 Mbps DSL in these areas" kinds of rules. (Of course the rule is written as "an incumbent telco carrier operating blah blah blah", a description which describes only Verizon).
Anyway, to answer your question, his position is that 10 Mbps was too slow in 2015, it should have been 25 Mbps back then, and it should get faster with time based on what consumers who have the choice actually select.
I love it. It's keeping my sister alive (literally). Without it, due to her condition there's no way she could buy insurance other than work provided insurance, especially given that her medication that keeps her alive costs $5K/month, most of that being the medication (a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_globulin">gamma globulin). With her work insurance her co-pay for her medicine would be $500/month (she makes $11/hour as a teacher). Thanks to the ACA she was able to get a plan that covers her medication. I have a number of friends who also rely on it who would otherwise be without insurance which they need. While far from perfect, in most cases it's an improvement over what we had before. I had a friend who relied on it once he got cancer and could no longer work due to it. It kept him alive for a couple of years he otherwise wouldn't have had with his family. He eventually died from the cancer, but it didn't leave his family totally bankrupt from it either.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
So he'll be closing the divide. By slowing down Internet for ones who still have fast connections.
If Pai is truly a believer in free market and competition, then don't stop at just knocking down net neutrality. Remove the regional monopolies that restrict where existing ISP's can and cannot do business. Remove roadblocks to cities building municipal fiber, since this only creates more competition so long as they're on a level playing field with private ISP's. Lift restrictions on last mile unbundling so that more companies can enter the market and offer competing services.
The fact is net neutrality was such a necessity only because there are few players in the market and limited choice for consumers. Who cares if ISP's can create fast lanes and throttle non-partnered content if I have a list of 20 ISP's with broadband speeds to choose from, since there will always be those whose model is to offer a more open package, even if it is at a higher price. The ISP's are crying about regulation, but only when it's regulations on what they can do. Once you talk about remove regulations on what their competitors can do, suddenly these restrictions need to be upheld. Because if you gave the average Comcast customer the option to choose another ISP with better customer service, no data caps, and more transparent billing practices they'd take it in a heartbeat, even if meant an increase in monthly price.
If Pai truly walks his talk and heavily deregulates the industry by removing barriers to entry and regional monopolies in addition to net neutrality, he'll be a far better FCC Commissioner than Wheeler ever was. If however he's yet another industry talking head who's only interested in removing consumer protections while still leaving in place industry friendly regulation, then nothing good will come from his chairmanship.
in September 2016 he outlined a "digital empowerment agenda." The plan included "removing regulatory barriers to broadband deployment,"
The only "barriers" that exist are those created by Republican politicians. At least 20 states, all controlled by Republicans, have passed laws prohibiting cities from building their own broadband networks, even when the local cable and phone monopolies refuse to provide service at a reasonable price. Or at any price. And the reason is simple, It would create competition and that would force the broadband monopolies to increase speed, lower their prices and abandon bullshit practices like data caps.
These laws were written by lobbyists from all the big cable and phone monopolies, including Mr. Pai's former employer, Verizon.
If you think something is suddenly going to change, I've got a jar of magic beans I want to sell you.
...and there would be tax incentives and tax credits for companies building high-speed networks.
Translation: "Let's give billions more taxpayer dollars to the worthless telecoms/cable companies."
The problem Chairman Pai must now confront is not unlike what his fellow Republicans in Congress are facing with healthcare: the market does not always produce socially optimal results. There is no market solution in which insurance companies will look at 55-year old cancer patient with diabetes, kidney stones, two knees in need of replacement, and a raging case of herpes and think to themselves "Hmmm...I smell Profit!". From the insurance companies' perspective, the most profitable healthcare plan for that fellow involves a coffin.
Likewise, if it costs $20-50K in trenching and cabling to connect a single rural user at halfway decent broadband speeds, there's no way the ISPs are going to ever break even on that customer if he's paying $50-100 a month. Hence, the market completely ignores the poor and those living in the sticks.
It's admirable that Chairman Pai recognizes that universal Internet access is central to economic prosperity, and I wish him the best of luck despite the source of his nomination, but achieving universal broadband will not happen unless there is a mandate from the government that it happen, as well as considerable funding in the form of tax credits or direct expenditures. Waving around hands and solemnly intoning "The Market knows all! The Market solves all!" will not make those realities go away any more than it would in the healthcare debate.
I am unaware of anyone ever being denied internet access because of gender, religion, or sexual orientation. However, there are racial disparities in internet access owing to our history of segregation. Many of the high-poverty neighborhoods bypassed by ISPs are, not surprisingly, places that fell victim to redlining and the urban blight that followed it.
Except that's not what happened. No lives were saved. Nobody is better off.
People are currently forced to buy insurance, or else pay a penalty to the IRS on their taxes. But people can't afford the monthly premiums and even if they somehow come up with enough money to pay the premiums, the deductible is so high that they end up having to pay for everything themselves anyway. Because of the additional burden of paying hundreds of dollars a month for insurance, that they can't use, they are actually worse off than they were when they had no insurance. At least no insurance was free.
That's what I noticed as conspicuously absent. Not only that he specifically mentioned paying the 'private sector' to do it.
If he really cared about Americans, then it wouldn't matter who was building this out...just that it was getting built out. If the municipality can beat the private sector to market...then they win, and the 'Americans' win.
People don't vote to fund 'public broadband' initiatives if they feel they are being fairly and adequately served by the private Telcos.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
like Electricity, Gas or water, only with actual competition, no more being monopolized by the cable company and/or phone company then when city, county and/or state gov can sell fiber to the door at a nominal fee
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If he also scraps the regulations that forbid communities from running their own co-op ISP I'll believe it.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Wow. I've got to say, this is the first time I'm actually impressed by a Trump appointment.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
---Fewer regulations mean more freedom for companies to try different approaches to providing network services. That in turn, obviously means more jobs... and is better for consumers.---
You SERIOUSLY don't believe that? Not ONCE as that happened. Fewer regulations means static progression and price gouging.
Net neutrality, is the ONLY thing that has stopped VZ and Comshit from completely shutting down your internet access EXCEPT to "their" sites.
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it-
Read up on the railroad barons of the early 1900's, that exactly where the removal of "net neutrality" will get you.
The good news is that everyone will have access to broadband. The bad news is that the only content will be a single Twitter account.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Translation: "We will be giving out another run of YUUUUGE chunks of money to telcos to roll out rural broadband, which they again will choose not to do. We will never demand our billions of dollars back for the service they contracted to do but refused to provide. Just like last time"
Unless this guy supports getting rid of laws banning municipal broadband, he's just another full-of-shit talker. In most areas there is almost no real competition among broadband providers. You have one cable company that can provide fast broadband, one phone company that can provide slow broadband, and a few satellite companies that can provide VERY slow broadband. Aside from that, you have the vague dream that Google might one day bring fiber optic to your neighborhood (which, at the rate Google is deploying fiber, is about as likely as the tooth fairy showing up).
The only cities where there is real competition are cities like Chattanooga, with real municipal broadband. Unfortunately, corporate-whore politicians have passed laws that make it almost impossible to deploy municipal broadband in most states. Even in Tennessee, it's illegal to deploy (Chattanooga only has it because they built it early-on and got grandfathered in). And these laws are holding the U.S. back as we go from being the one-time internet pioneer to the worldwide internet also-ran.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Right. Especially since he was originally an Obama appointee--which you'd expect would have gotten him fired, not promoted.
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Besides the commerce clause that seems to give the federal government reason to do anything, there is also a clause relating to postal roads, which would be easy to stretch into meaning communication or email considering some of the other ways the courts have interpreted the Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
squid is worthless nowadays as everything is https, unless you are intercepting and decrypting the traffic using squid's SSLbump.
zero competition from the socialists
Or from capitalists. Or from anyone...
That is not capitalism, and the companies that have unnatural monopolies grated by the state or feds have acted just as you would expect a lazy large company with competition eliminated by law to act. That is to say, not at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Given how well his actions recently have matched his promises (to a shocking degree, really), I disagree with that. Right now at least, he wants a second term. The GOP is still shaken up by how he beat all of their traditionally more appealing candidates (to their base, at least) and Congress, despite appearances, is somewhat divided. Pence appeals to the GOP base, but isn't attractive to most of the country, and almost certainly wouldn't win a second term if Trump is impeached. I think they'll wait until midterm elections at least, unless he does something obviously terrible - which could be tomorrow for all we know.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
No, you misunderstand. They want to "help private businesses build the networks". Translation: They want to bribe the cable companies and phone companies who refused to build out the network to serve the poor, putting money into their pockets in exchange for a promise of a buildout that will never actually happen except on paper, same as always happens when the Republicans are in control.
There is, as you rightfully point out, exactly one way to build infrastructure that is truly universal, and that's for local governments to foot the bill for construction and then lease access to companies that provide service. That way, the government can bring in multiple providers with minimal up-front costs per provider, thus allowing real, honest-to-goodness competition in broadband service, without the giant noose of the infrastructure construction hanging around the ISPs necks.
What we need right now is a Roosevelt, not a Reagan—a builder, not a financier.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
All FCC commissioners are presidential appointees, but only three of those are allowed to be from the president's party. You might think that the president would seek out sympathetic members of the opposing party, but since they're in a minority, and so don't have a lot of power, and since all of the commissioners need to be approved by the senate (and to maintain the appearance of bipartisanship), the two minority commissioners are typically opposition party mainliners.
In other words, the fact that Obama appointed this guy means nothing. Also, all this nice talk about closing the "digital divide" is just a prelude to saying that regulations are what are really holding us back from a digital utopia and that gutting net neutrality is the only real answer. Ajit Pai has been consistently against net neutrality and against reclassifying ISPs as Title II Common Carriers.
Sir, we are glad to let you know from today on, the 10Mbps switch currently installed in your area which is also happily serving the other 20k people in your neighbourhood is finally connected to this amazing multi-Gbps broadband line your Government generously offered to eliminate digital divide. Enjoy your super high speed internet access!
Has anybody else noticed the same people complaining about the government collecting data on them want the government to setup broadband internet for them? I personally don't want the government to be able to siphon everything easier than they already can. But don't you think if they provide the service their not going to log all activity from day one?
Again look to history.
No, the robber baron's did no such thing, they hindered and stifled competition every where they went. You want a new pick axe? Sorry the general store can't get any because the robber barron keeps "losing" his shipment. BUT you can but this pick axe from the Robber Barron's store for only FIVE TIMES the cost!!!
(if you think they got that filthy rich through "competition" you're mistaken.)
Read what Comshit did to Netfilx, and that's recent history...
I'm not against free markets and capitalism, but they only work where true competition is available. That's not the case, with "utilities" where barrier to entry is astronomical.
First, I'm not a "leftie" so suck it. You know nothing about me. I didn't vote for Hillary, and insinuating that you have to be all-in for one candidate or another is asinine.
Second, when in history have telecommunications providers not abused their monopoly positions? When have these organizations not taken every single resource afforded to them and done the bare minimum with them? What about the $300B and counting that was charged as excise taxes under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, handed directly to the telcos in exchange for exactly what is being proposed now, which we already paid for and should have had 10 years ago? Without the FCC rules that say that ISPs must not block, throttle, or prioritize-by-pay any legal traffic, what is to prevent them from not only charging you for the bandwidth you are using, but also charging the content provider for those same bits that you already paid for? Gee, that's a nice video streaming service you've got there, it would be a shame if anything happened to it...
Third, this particular subject, the new FCC Chairman, voted against those rules, at the time saying it was a non-issue. Even though in the run-up to creating these rules, the FCC had actual copies of Netflix's paid peering agreements with Verizon and Comcast, which amount to exactly what I said in the previous paragraph. Why would he keep in place rules that he doesn't think are needed, when this administration is constantly talking about rolling back regulations made by the previous one?
So take this at face value: I'm allowed to disagree with individual actions of the administration, and agree with others (such as putting a stake through the heart of TPP). Just because I disagree with this one doesn't mean you get to paint me with some kind of 'leftie' brush, and it makes you look pretty god damn ignorant.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Odd wording. Broadband is not denied to people on those grounds, it's because they reside in an area where the infrastructure just isn't in place yet (generally for financial, ROI reasons - poor neighborhoods are poor). This reads like I've had broadband but my next door neighbor was denied it because she's a woman; or Brazilian, or gay, or Buddhist, or some combination thereof.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.