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FCC Leaders Say We Need a 'National Mission' To Fix Rural Broadband (cnet.com)
Democrats and Republicans in Washington can't agree on much of anything these days. One thing they do agree on: The digital divide undercutting rural America needs to be fixed. But figuring out the details of achieving this goal is where the two sides diverge. From a report: So how are policy makers working to solve this problem? I traveled to Washington last month to talk about this topic with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the only Democrat on the commission. Specifically, I wanted to know what they see as the cause of this divide and how they think it can be bridged. One thing they agreed on: Deploying broadband is expensive in many parts of the country, making it hard for traditional providers to run a business building and operating networks. "In big cities and urban areas where you have dense populations, the cost of deployment is lower," Rosenworcel said. "When you get to rural locations it's harder because financing those networks, deploying them and operating them is just more expensive." She added, "That's not a reason not to do it. We're just going to have to get creative and find ways to connect everyone everywhere."
It might even take what Pai called a "national mission" to get the job done. But before you can really get things going, you have to address one key issue, Rosenworcel said. "Our broadband maps are terrible," she said. "If we're going to solve this nation's broadband problems, then the first thing we have to do is fix those maps. We need to know where broadband is and is not in every corner of this country." You can't solve a problem you can't measure, she added. [...] Pai agrees that the inaccuracies of the FCC's maps are a major problem. And he acknowledges that relying solely on self-reported data from the carriers is an issue. But he blames the previous Democrat-led administration for creating the problem and says his administration has been left to clean up the mess. He said that when he became chairman in January 2017, the FCC had to sift through that self-reported data based on parameters that individual carriers defined, creating a mismatched data set. "So we didn't just have apples and oranges," he said. "We had apples, oranges, bananas and many other fruits." He said his administration has tried to streamline the process so the FCC is at least gathering the same self-reported information from each carrier. But he admits that the process is still flawed. To rectify that, the agency has developed a challenge process. "We've asked the American public, state and local officials, and carriers, consumer groups, farm groups in rural states to challenge those maps and tell us where they're inaccurate," he said.
It might even take what Pai called a "national mission" to get the job done. But before you can really get things going, you have to address one key issue, Rosenworcel said. "Our broadband maps are terrible," she said. "If we're going to solve this nation's broadband problems, then the first thing we have to do is fix those maps. We need to know where broadband is and is not in every corner of this country." You can't solve a problem you can't measure, she added. [...] Pai agrees that the inaccuracies of the FCC's maps are a major problem. And he acknowledges that relying solely on self-reported data from the carriers is an issue. But he blames the previous Democrat-led administration for creating the problem and says his administration has been left to clean up the mess. He said that when he became chairman in January 2017, the FCC had to sift through that self-reported data based on parameters that individual carriers defined, creating a mismatched data set. "So we didn't just have apples and oranges," he said. "We had apples, oranges, bananas and many other fruits." He said his administration has tried to streamline the process so the FCC is at least gathering the same self-reported information from each carrier. But he admits that the process is still flawed. To rectify that, the agency has developed a challenge process. "We've asked the American public, state and local officials, and carriers, consumer groups, farm groups in rural states to challenge those maps and tell us where they're inaccurate," he said.
the 'weather' & wmd on credit cabalism are in close pursuit.. when way too much (rockets red glare babys bursting in air, gives proof to our plight) is never nearly enough.. cease fire stand down,, beware falling gargoyles etc.. good sports with good spirits will prevail? if we give away even more than we keep there'd still be more than enough of everything left? in the moms we trust.. thank you very much in deed..
How about a "national mission" to get bigger yards for city dwellers who already have fast internet?
No sig today...
You can't massage fundamentally flawed data (1 serviced residence in zip code = served area) and turn it into precise useful data. You need to toss it and start over using fixed parameters that all data sources must adhere to.
Furthermore, the FCC already has the 'Connect America Fund' (part of the Universal Service Fund) program to increase rural broadband availability/speeds, $Billions are spent on that annually.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
How about a "national mission" to get bigger yards for city dwellers who already have fast internet?
The problem is political. Republicans believe free market fairy dust is always the answer, when it clearly has not been in this case.
The solution is simple.
1. Make any existing telecom's honour any past commitments, or make them pay for not doing so.
2. Create requirements and get bids with firm fixed price contracts. Make sure in the end taxpayers get a good deal.
The biggest issue is (1). Once you stop assuming free market economics is the solution here, when it hasn't worked for decades, it is simply a normal procurement process you have to make sure doesn't get corrupted.
A lot of problems are like this. Once you stop assuming the solution is what you have been doing for decades without success, you can actually begin to solve a problem.
This is great. They can add a small fee to our bills and use that money to improve access to service for everyone, everywhere, universally. It so obvious an idea that I'm surprised there isn't already home sort of universal surcharge already...
Sure it will suck at first, but after a couple years, maybe five, the problem will be solved. If not it would obviously be a sham giveaway to large telecom interests and people would vote in someone to dewater the marshland... And whoever promised to do that would never lie to us...
You can call up an ISP today and get a firm fixed price.
They know how much it cost them to install fiber per mile in a given area. The problem is, in some areas a mile of fiber will serve 5,000 households, in some areas it'll serve one.
In the areas we're talking about, that price is $10,000 / house or more because installing fiber is expensive.
Wireless is a half solution (probably the best we have) because of a fundamental physics problem. High frequency signals don't penetrate walls (or rain or fog), low frequency signals have low data rates.
Pfft the left doesn't like the free market because it produces the best allocations of resources not the ones they want.
If you are going to live a couple miles away from your nearest neighbor don't expect anyone to fall all over themselves building out broadband for you.
It depends if you think the Rural Electrification Act had a net positive or negative on industry and commerce in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And he acknowledges that relying solely on self-reported data from the carriers is an issue. But he blames the previous Democrat-led administration for creating the problem and says his administration has been left to clean up the mess.
The self reporting has been happening since the first form 477 was filled out... in 2000. Every adjustment made since inception has tried to minimize the burden on industry, just like Ajit Shithead prefers.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
The excerpt quoted in the original post hints at but doesn't state the one glaringly obvious point: the fact that the technical requirements to offer broadband to rural communities are no different from those required for urban areas. The only variable is the perceived "return on investment" that the providers might receive in return for their capital outlay.
In a nutshell, this encapsulates the key weakness of competitive markets and capitalism - it breaks down when something we need is not economically viable to those able to provide it - without an economic incentive, why would they bother?
Whilst the political aspects of this debate could keep us in debate for hours, I think the potential solutions boil down to just two:-
1. Have rural municipalities provide the service, funded out of general taxation.
2. Write the contracts offered to providers in the urban areas so that the grant of each "urban area license" *also* requires the provider to offer their services to a rural area, such that the sum total of all urban contracts at the national level also includes a requirement to provide rural services so that the whole country is covered.
Want the contract for cable in Manhattan? Great - but you get to do the *whole* of New York State, including all rural areas, or you pay penalties.
Now, if those contracts were written such that in return for the award, the companies were accepting a legal liability for non-performance such that if they failed to provide services to the rural areas, they would have to pay fines and penalties, then they will be incentivized to provide a complete service. Then, all we'd need would be an independent (i.e. government operated) monitoring function (say the FCC) with a clear, documented and unambiguous set of tests that will be covered. Live in rural New York State and can't get broadband? Report your issue with the monitoring function and encourage your neighbours to do the same, and the NY State provider (or county provider, or whatever) has to pay fines until they fix the issue.
It's really important to make this model one in which the incumbent is hit with financial penalties if they fail to meet the agreed targets, or they would simply walk away from the contract.
Let's be honest, many of these companies have dedicated internet cables across the Atlantic which run at Gigabit+ speeds. Over thousands of miles. Any they claim they can't offer say 200Mb/s to every address in the country? Come on, who are they trying to kid.
The issue here is economic, plain and simple. The providers want all of the most lucrative areas [where densities are maximized and their profits will be fat] and they're not interested in locations with poor likely return. So the ONLY ways to address this are to either cover those locations with a national non-profit (i.e. government funded) provider, paid for out of federal taxes, or to write the contracts for existing commercial operators to give them a legal obligation to provide full, national coverage.
Will that hurt their profits? Yes. But nobody is sticking a gun to their heads and telling them that they *have* to bid for the lucrative franchises.
Oh, and write the franchises so that they run for fixed terms, with explicitly documented investment requirements and objective measures [i.e. so much fiber laid, so many homes connected, fix times at measurable values, etc. If the company doesn't meet their contract, they are out after 5 years.
If Pai gave these whiny excuses to his boss in any industry, they'd throw their coffee in his face and boot him out the door.
Some of these obvious rural areas would not attract traditional business model to support any sort of current delivery system of internet. Other than satellite or cellular where other customers support the technology. The lack of density of customers would mean a very unprofitable service for any ISP addressing just this type of customer. It does appear some of the potential solutions in other countries with rural areas might eventually spur on some interest in new technologies.
Likewise, if you're going to live miles from the nearest farm, don't expect anyone to fall over themselves bringing food to you.
But it is not as if this is much of a problem. In rural areas, use radio links to individual farms. In places too crowded for radio links, fiber is feasible. The cost may be much higher than in a city, but manageable. If they can afford paved roads, they can afford some kind of network.
We tried this once in the 90's.
400 BILLION was given to the ISP's to upgrade the US to fiber to the house. That money should have gone a lot further in the 90's than 400 billion would now, but the ISP's did basically nothing with it. They used loopholes to declare that because there was a fiber connection somewhere on the line, the plan for all houses to be fiber to the home was complete.
The telecoms pocketed all that money and declared it as quarterly profits. If this idea goes anywhere, Ajit Pai will laugh as another half trillion dollars goes up in smoke as government money goes up to the same companies and is just declared profits again when they declare "oops, we already completed the goal before the first check was ever cashed, but thanks for the money!"
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
who needs it?
Rural people.
and why?
They'd like to be internet connected.
and if they really need it, why are they not paying full cost?
Because bringing internet to rural locations is not massively profitable and disproportionately expensive which often leads to for-profit private enterprise passing them over and giving them piss poor service. This does not, however, mean that these communities would not benefit from better internet connectivity and that they would not increase their contribution to society at large if society bit the bullet and built them an internet access even if it is a bit more expensive. This basically boil down to what people in 'flyover country' are complaining about: 'nobody gives a shit about us' ... and they have a point.
why should rest of people subsidize them?
Why should we subsidise Oil companies? Coal companies? Arms companies? The Nuclear industry? Given the choice I'd rather subsidise farmers getting internet.
if there are benefits to the society at large from such subsidization, what are they?
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer, ... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
has such benefits manifested themselves in areas, like urban areas, where they already have this? are there costs and bad results from this? are they perhaps larger than benefits?
Yes, many examples from Europe and the US, a popular one to point out is, once again, tourism. In Scandinavia, Germany for example this has led to farmers and people in small villages begin able to rent out their empty rooms, apartments and houses to tourists on booking.com, airbnb.com, etc... which lowered accommodation prices which in turn led to something of an explosion in tourism and jobs growth in places nobody used to visit. In some places this has led to depopulation being halted or even reversed.
or are the real beneficiaries not rural folk but tech corps? why should society at large subsidize them?
does anyone expect out of touch, corp beholden, corrupt elitist bureaucrats to raise, weigh, and answer, these kinds of questions honestly?
Again, why should society pay for interstate highways when there are millions of people who hardly ever use interstate highways? Why should society pay for harbours when most people hardly ever travel by sea? Why should society pay for rail networks when millions of people never travel by rail? Why should society pay for airports when millions of Americans have never taken a commercial flight in their life? The answer is that your questions simplifies the issue far too much, you can't just reduce this to a subsidy and then rage against it. Even if you don't do any of the above things you still benefit indirectly from funding interstate highways, harbours, a rail network and airports. Then there is also that nice warm glow you get when you do like the Christians and their commandments would have you do, i.e. give a damn about somebody other than yourself, like the people in flyover country
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer, ... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
Nobody's debating that.
The problem is that the telcos were already handed hundreds of billions of $$$ to build a rural network.
They didn't deliver last time around, what's changed?
No sig today...
fuck em, if there is a problem then let the magic hand fix fix it.
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer, ... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
Nobody's debating that.
The problem is that the telcos were already handed hundreds of billions of $$$ to build a rural network.
They didn't deliver last time around, what's changed?
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like ... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
what about if an ISP site has your address has it but it turns that it really does then the ISP must pay the cost to built it out.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/...
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
https://consumerist.com/2015/0...
Most rural areas in the US are republican and GOP strongholds that strongly oppose government charity at tax payer expense. Make them pay for their broadband.
It seems like there is a solution to this problem that is already in the works - Low Earth Orbit based satellite internet. Several companies are working on this already - Starlink already has a couple test satellites in orbit. The best solution to this issue would be to just keep the government out of the way of these networks going up.
If you are going to pass out subsidies to anyone, why not the various LEO satellite internet projects going on? Starlink's network is estimated to cost $10 billion to build out fully, and would be able to cover every rural area.
Rural areas are serviced by telephones. Perhaps role out broadband the same way: well regulated monopolies, then break them up when people complain that they're monopolies.
I was under the impression that the forces of the free market would solve the problem, just as they solve all the problems. You mean to say that that's not true?
Ha ha. No.
The problem is not "political". The problem is simply that there is no problem.
"What!!?!??!!" I hear you scream. "Of course there's a problem. All those Americans are suffering out there in the hinterlands without high speed internet. We have a DUTY to help them!"
Sorry, but that is wrong, or rather that the terms of the problem have been so poorly defined that politicians are manipulating the "problem" in order to divert funds to make sure ex-urban areas (exurbs) get cheap broadband. Using this "problem" to provide exurbs with broadband allows the numbers of "rural" citizens served to increase dramatically while giving cable companies and telcos huge subsidies for something they would do anyways.
If you want to fix broadband in what most Americans think of as rural ares I think we need to start with two ideas:
1) Redefine what "Broadband" means so it includes things like Cellular service and Community WIFI.
2) Redefine what "Rural" means so it excludes what are now (and what will be in the near future) exurban areas.
This will not solve the problem, but at least it will make the solutions more honest.
There is a free market solution to this - LEO satellite internet. Several vendors like Oneweb and Starlink have already gotten FCC approval for their satellite constellations, and Starlink has test satellites in orbit already. Once these networks are built out, the rural broadband issue is solved.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence.
We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
I read an article in the last year or two about landline subsidization, the article made the argument that unlike the initial roll out of telephone, or the electrical grid where well-off people in cities subsidized the roll out to the rural poor, the current situation is generally flipped and the poor now live in cities, or towns and subsidize the well-off living in rural areas. I don't know how true this is but its something we ought to consider and not blindly point at a similar project from an entirely different era.
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like ... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
Small guys getting bigger isn't on the US agenda.
I'm getting a kick out of this article because I live in a second-world country and I pay 30 Eurobucks/month for an individual fiber all the way to my PC, 600Mbit up/down speed (symmetrical).
(It actually delivers, too. I've never done a speedtest and got less than the full rate, usually I get a little bit more).
No sig today...
Better part of a hundred Dollars for internet access?
Why must we coddle monopolies such as Comcast, ATT&T, and Google in this country?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
How about not giving CenturyLink 3 billion dollars over six years to bring coverage to rural areas and then not holding them accountable? The fuckers are using that money to open up only in "new markets" where competing providers near one of their coverage areas start providing coverage instead. Meanwhile the other rural areas that no one's tried to serve yet are still not being covered, six billion dollars later. Just to put this into perspective, that amount of money equals just a bit under $20 for every single man, woman, and child in the United States, from newborns to the near-dead. The money came from somewhere, isn't being used for what it was supposed to, and there is zero accountability.
We paid 200 billion that was stolen for this
Arrest the people responsible for appropriating those funds and use their2 assets
Shut it down and remove the copper land lines too so people can't even get ADSL. Those backwoods hicks can use metered mobile for their Internet!
Nobody talks about subsadies. It is like how they removed roamingh costs in Europe. "You are not allowed to charge roamning costs and are not allowed to increase prices because you lost romaing costs and the max price for a SMS is X amount." so somthing like "You MUST bring high speed Internet to everybody who is connedcted to the electrical grid, otherwise you lose your licence to do business" is not such a bad idea. Not saying that it should be exacly like that. It could be even "Everybody home or business".
And when that is done, you go to the rest as well as increase the minimal speed.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Over the years, the government has continued funding the major ISPs exactly so that they would upgrade their infrastructure and increase the range of their network to rural regions. They took that money, gave it to the higher echelon of the company as "bonuses" and "pay" and now we're back to square one.
Congrats. You keep funding the rich with money from the poor.
The problem is that they make it hard to get the money. USDA handled the last round of lets fix rural broadband. The first thing they asked for was first lien. The problem with that is we already had loans with local bank who were not going to give that up. We hired someone who had worked with USDA and even he couldn't cut through all the red tape. They made it so difficult to get the money to improve our infrastructure that we just passed on it. The problem with using the USDA for this kind of rural development is that they really don't have the experience in dealing with this type of problem.
You have corporate welfare interests pitted against right wing political interests. If you give them internet access, rural voters may run into information counter to the disinformation they get from their preachers and AM radio.
Maybe the internet providers can strike a compromise and only provide portion of the internet that the GOP, preachers, and NRA approve of.
The well-off live primarily in suburbs, not rural areas. Wealthy suburbs are largely well-served with broadband because density is relatively high and they're able to pay well.
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The issue here is economic, plain and simple. The providers want all of the most lucrative areas [where densities are maximized and their profits will be fat] and they're not interested in locations with poor likely return. So the ONLY ways to address this are to either cover those locations with a national non-profit (i.e. government funded) provider, paid for out of federal taxes, or to write the contracts for existing commercial operators to give them a legal obligation to provide full, national coverage.
I'd also like to point out that the problem faced here is also in some ways similar to the problem of providing healthcare insurance coverage.
What ISP would want to spend hundreds of thousands of doll-hairs to put in a line for John Rural Hick and then charge him $40/month for it? It will ROI never.
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like ... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
Small guys getting bigger isn't on the US agenda.
I'm getting a kick out of this article because I live in a second-world country and I pay 30 Eurobucks/month for an individual fiber all the way to my PC, 600Mbit up/down speed (symmetrical).
(It actually delivers, too. I've never done a speedtest and got less than the full rate, usually I get a little bit more).
Yes, and there in lies the problem. Small guys getting a foot in the door is what the US is supposed to be about. Instead what the US has come to be about is the big monopolists who own congress stepping on everybody who even remotely looks like they might some day become a threat to their monopoly.
So let me get this straight, their solution is to crowd source data from all the people in the most lightly populated and poorly connected portions of the country?
It isn't like they'll be able to report the results Waze style. Participation rates in this sort of thing are notoriously low, in urban environments that is fine because low participation is still a lot of people. That isn't true in Blood, IL population 500.
If the reporting metrics and types are inconsistent across providers then come up with a combined information map with stringent requirements and a heavy fine structure. Require them to report the updated metrics and THEN put in a system like this where not only do you gain whatever advantages are to be had from crowd-sourcing but teeth are attached. If the fines are steep enough they can motivate the carriers to fix their networks. Don't just keep the funds of course, convert them into a prize for the provider big or small with the highest customer satisfaction results or something along those lines.
If you are going to pass out subsidies to anyone, why not the various LEO satellite internet projects going on? Starlink's network is estimated to cost $10 billion to build out fully, and would be able to cover every rural area.
Precisely, let towns, cities, counties in rural areas set up the fibre using local contractors, subsidise that along with whatever satellite up-link equipment s necessary and once there are several LEO satellite providers you have basically killed off the regional monopolies. The best way to improve services is always to break up or destroy monopolies.
corporations are corrupt, greedy and evil. The government is corrupt, incompetent and evil. The people are stupid, lazy and apathetic. We got what we deserved.
I was very passionate about these issues in the early 90s. We got shafted over and over and over again.
More of the same: billions will go to politician's pork barrels (though corrupt corporate nepotism) and the people will get a pittance of what they paid for through taxes. Promises will be made and never delivered. Democrats will blame Republicans, Republicans will blame Democrats. Both will laugh all the way to the bank on their way to their guided mansions. Golf clap. Well done America.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence. We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
F* em. Too bad they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If their life choices are so good, why do us blue states have to subsidize them? Where is the great red state economic output?
Trump voters f u !!
Outlaw state laws that prevent coops provoding ISP.
Then the local communities can setup their own ISP and avoid the terrible AT&T/Comcast/Cox tax for the rest of their lives.
Also mandate any new wired connections must be capable of supporting at least 1000 Mbps connections without any new equipment. Deploying anything of less capacity these days is just stupid.
I'm on a 25/5 Mbps, though AT&T fibre was put into the neighborhood last spring. I called to get GigE service 60 days later and it wasn't available. Someday, perhaps after the ground they dug up grows again, I'll be able to get a GigE connection for a reasonable price? Perhaps?
Comcast says I can get 250 Mbps for $499/month. That isn't a reasonable price.
sub-$100 for GigE is reasonable to me. $60/month for 500Mbps would be reasonable.
The government grants to improve rural broadband have been dumped into the mobile divisions of said companies, and into executive bonuses.
It's time to de-regulate instead.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
It depends if you think the Rural Electrification Act had a net positive or negative on industry and commerce in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
0100010001010011 is still an asshole I see. On behalf of everyone who has ever lived in a rural area, go fuck yourself with a rusty spike.
In the state of Georgia, the rural areas are frequently majority black. So, is it OK with you if we to run fiber to those counties, or do you still really believe Sarah Palin tells them how to think?
and if they really need it, why are they not paying full cost?
Because bringing internet to rural locations is not massively profitable and disproportionately expensive which often leads to for-profit private enterprise passing them over and giving them piss poor service. This does not, however, mean that these communities would not benefit from better internet connectivity and that they would not increase their contribution to society at large if society bit the bullet and built them an internet access even if it is a bit more expensive. This basically boil down to what people in 'flyover country' are complaining about: 'nobody gives a shit about us' ... and they have a point.
I live in the rural Mountain West, and currently pay $450 per month for my Internet service (dedicated point to point microwave link with an enterprise SLA). I stand to benefit enormously from government subsidies to bring fiber to homes like mine... but I'm not sure it really makes sense. The government initiatives for rural electrification and telephone made sense, because they brought important services to locations that otherwise wouldn't be served at all. But rural areas already do have Internet service, via WiMax, satellite, (slow) DSL and cellular service. It's not as good as "real" broadband, but neither are people in rural areas cut off. The web works just fine over these lesser services. Ping times are high, so online twitch gaming sucks.
why should rest of people subsidize them?
Why should we subsidise Oil companies? Coal companies? Arms companies? The Nuclear industry? Given the choice I'd rather subsidise farmers getting internet.
But farmers have Internet. And none of the farmers I know (and I know many) find their connections to be restrictive. Their kids grumble about ping times.
if there are benefits to the society at large from such subsidization, what are they?
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults
And rural kids can already do that.
It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbanites more likely to go there
Meh. Except in locations so remote that the only option is satellite, it's already feasible to get "real" broadband, just expensive (like mine), and tourism industries can (and do) cover the cost without trouble. In truly remote locations, people understand that connectivity -- like everything else -- will be limited.
it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer
Um, what? How does faster Internet translate enable processing of produce? You're really reaching here.
... the list goes on.
But does it get any better? I doubt it. You were really stretching by the end there.
Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
Internet connection, yes. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about taking people from 3 mbps to 10 mbps (or higher).
In Scandinavia, Germany for example this has led to farmers and people in small villages begin able to rent out their empty rooms, apartments and houses to tourists on booking.com, airbnb.com, etc...
Umm, you can run a solid AirBnb operation with nothing more than a gig per month of cell data.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
How about a "national mission" to get bigger yards for city dwellers who already have fast internet?
The problem is political. Republicans believe free market fairy dust is always the answer, when it clearly has not been in this case.
Except, I live in a rural, republican stronghold and get excellent internet for $49.99/month ;
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7756531682.png
The solution is simple.
1. Make any existing telecom's honour any past commitments, or make them pay for not doing so.
Don't disagree. Why they don't is a larger issue and points to serious corruption.
2. Create requirements and get bids with firm fixed price contracts. Make sure in the end taxpayers get a good deal.
You haven't really solved a problem, just ensured the monopolistic practices continue. You'd do much better to have a state-owned secure trench
that all providers can pay a usage fee for, thereby eliminating the utility pole monopoly that the telcos hold.
The biggest issue is (1). Once you stop assuming free market economics is the solution here, when it hasn't worked for decades, it is simply a normal procurement process you have to make sure doesn't get corrupted.
No, you assume it doesn't work. No idea why. All republican areas I have lived in have immensely better internet for much, much less.
Case in point; http://www.speedtest.net/result/7756531682.png
A lot of problems are like this.
Some twit thinks they have all the answers without having any background or experience? Definitely a problem!
Once you stop assuming the solution is what you have been doing for decades without success, you can actually begin to solve a problem
This is exactly what you are doing, and are demonstrably, horribly wrong.
Sorry, latency on my rural internet connection.
Basically there's two things here
1. Telcos got credits and contracts in return for promise to supply net neutral services to rural areas
2. Amit Pai thinks that since we no longer have net neutrality, the Telco's could monetize the rural areas better with exclusive contents services.
Lipstick on a pig.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
My backstory is pretty much identical, but I've come to the opposite conclusion. I'd much rather see my small hometown get decent Internet access.
My hometown has a pretty wide income gap. Most of the kids in my high school class were setting their sights high to work in the nearby "big city" of 10K people. Most didn't go to college or any trade school, so they're almost entirely dependent on the local tourism income... which went well until around 2008, when the recession hit and tourism dropped. The only reason the town's survived is because a casino dumped a significant amount of money into community support.
Internet access is vital for connecting small towns to the rest of the world, but more importantly it connects the youth to the possibilities outside what their parents provide to them. That's what changes the "could not be better" perception, once people are aware of what the rest of the world has to offer.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
So.......you feel pissy because for once, the shoe is on the other foot?
Queue my inner Nelson Muntz.
I find your comment fascinating. Where can I subscribe to your newsletter?
And it will stay like that BECAUSE they don't have broadband. I would live in the countryside and dilute thier small world view with my worldview of inclusion and debate. But I am not going to unless there is melt your face off internet for $50 a month.
I really feel like this country could get a lot of bang for it's buck if we did an Eisenhower Interstate project for broadband internet. Imagine how much more would be possible if hugely high speed internet was available everywhere. Think of the boost the economy could have.
You may not be aware of this, but your comment makes no sense.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
A person can't live in a low density environment then reasonably expect to get the benefits of living in a high density environment. If you live in a rural setting, you get rural technology. If you live outside of the city, you can't reasonably expect the city to provide you with water and sewer. People make a better world when they work together.
Democrats believe socialized fairy dust is the cure all but, as always, reality has a way of tempering rash thinking. The fact is deploying cable in rural areas is very expensive. On top of that is the huge costs of subsidized access for low income households, which is a very expensive social welfare program.
Satellite internet available for $50/month across USA. Speeds appropriating 12MB which is much better than low cost DSL and somewhat competitive with similar services. I can think of a lot of uses of taxpayer money that fiber to everyone in US. We could start by reducing the debt.
I'll tell you why I really don't care if rural areas ever get broadband. You know what I hear all the time from people who still live in my hometown and other small towns in my state? This is what I hear all the time.
1) Sarah Palin made a career out of telling small town America that they are the "Real America" and those of us in large metro areas don't matter - at all.
2) I keep hearing how in my large metro area that we are "out of touch" because many of us don't think Trump is the greatest president of all time.
3) I keep hearing how life in their small town simply could not be better.
So no, I am not interested at all in paying to help rural America get broadband given how they've already told me what they think of me just because of where I live.
At the very least the FCC should step in to not allow the blocking of municipal broadband. If communities / counties want broadband then they can at least build it themselves. Float a bond and build out GPON / EPON fibre.
Rural areas already have high-speed data by means of wifi which is already installed and being used (and they are putting in 5g right now), the problem is the phone companies putting restrictions on the speeds in relation to the data the customer uses, for a two week period I saw my phone company (AT&T) removes ALL restrictions on high speed data due to a recent hurricane. The speed was at the rate of a renewed account, yes a few times it wavered a little but not much. This showed me they can give unlimited high speed data to everybody and this will make the problem go away as far as rural areas having access to high speed broadband.
I don't doubt your experience with the incident in which AT&T removed restrictions on high-speed cellular data service, but you have some of the aspects of the technology wrong. The technology for which the short-hand description is "Wi-Fi" (short for Wireless Fidelity) is the IEEE 802.11 series of standards related to wireless Local Area Networks (LANs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi. This tech is limited to a very small geographical area and is not suitable for providing rural data service.
Wi-Fi is not what cellular telephone companies are selling for mobile phone/data service, with the familiar evolutions of 2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G as very loosely defined labels for tiers of communication speeds. However, like Wi-Fi, cellular data service has real limits, including geographical coverage. Radio services used to transmit data typically divide a given licensed frequency range into a number of channels, each channel having a limited capacity. If multiple customers are being served, those channels are shared among those customers using a combination of time division and frequency division (i.e., not everyone gets to send/receive at exactly the same time on a single channel). If you are familiar with how multi-processing works on computers to let multiple users/processes share a processing resource, this is a conceptually similar way of sharing the communications resource. As long as each user's service is bounded, the resource sharing works. If too many users offer too much load, however, service for some or all will be degraded, typically using some kind of prioritization mechanism to sort out who gets hurt more and who gets hurt less. This is not unlimited capacity. Cellular data services support larger numbers of users by shrinking the cell size, which permits frequency bands/channels to be re-used in a large geographical area. However, each cell needs a transmitter site and a healthy amount of wiring to interconnect it to other cell sites and the fixed phone/data network, so as the number of sites goes up, so does the wiring and other expenses. Servicing fixed wireless users can be done much more cost effectively (using tech other than cellular mobile data service).
So, wireless technologies (of which cellular data service is just one) can be used to solve "last mile" problems because they can provide service to multiple endpoints from one distribution point, but there are limitations. The amount of wiring necessary in a "wireless" cellular phone system is nothing short of amazing. Cellular service emphasizes relatively small cell sizes, because channel capacity is limited and mobile users are a primary use case. In short, although you may have have a good experience in the incident that you cite, I don't believe that there is sufficient capacity already present in existing cellular data service deployments to service all rural users by just "turning off the artificial limits" on those existing services. The other issue with using cellular data services to solve this problem is that there are still large parts of the US where there is no cellular service; these places tend to be the rural areas. So... wireless as part of a solution to servicing large rural areas - yes; simply flipping a switch on existing cellular data services to solve the problem - no.
Also need a new national fee, tax, charge, & surcharge to go along with that, of course.
There is a free market solution to this - LEO satellite internet. Several vendors like Oneweb and Starlink have already gotten FCC approval for their satellite constellations, and Starlink has test satellites in orbit already. Once these networks are built out, the rural broadband issue is solved.
I can't "crop dust" with your D@MN ballons in my way everywhere I need to fly!
magic word: annoyed
You better believe it, and them balloons make for dang good target practice after a few beers when the wife don't want to "put out"....
I live in a rural area. About 12 miles from a small town. Prior to being able to get fixed wireless, I was paying about 350.00 a month for 80GB of bandwidth so I could work from home. Had to restrict my online activities so I didn't go over the bandwidth allowance. What really puzzles me, is that cable was laid across the ocean recently. About 4,000 miles of cable. Took a couple of years. Here, it takes under an hour to run a mile of cable. As I live in an area with dirt roads. And, the adjoining highways have grassy areas on either side all the way to town. The fixed wireless I use connects to a tower that is a mile and a half away. The tower is connected to cable. Yet, why in the hell can't that cable reach my end of the woods. I was hopeful when I heard about broadband over power lines. As I felt that should makes things easier for rural connectivity. That was 5 years ago. As of late, it has become a popular idea amongst some ISP's again. Here is hoping.
The government grants to improve rural broadband have been dumped into the mobile divisions of said companies, and into executive bonuses.
Yeah, that sounds like a problem that could have been solved through regulation. Require that the money be spent usefully with reasonable requirements.
It's time to de-regulate instead.
What? It's time to break up the telcos again, and to put the infrastructure under direct government control. Less regulation never kept a monopoly in line, and only a useful idiot argues otherwise.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No that's not the way we do things. We'll push this 'mission ' that has been festering for decades and then when it is completely finished , all the rural Homes wired up, then LEO Internet becomes available those same users will switch to cheaper LEO orbit Internet. That's how we do things /s
You're paying 49.99 for that?
You should move away from Spectrum and to that Municipal Boradband place instead.
Which you could have except for the GOP manipulated government of your state is corrupt.
laying fiber optics in an unprotected environment
That shouldn't be an issue. The owner of the fiber should provide cable maps for benefit of the developers, landowners and the customers.
and the distances required is not feasible or logical.
That may be an issue indeed. But it can be solved or at least reduced with little farmer's collaboration and private association that no telecom lawyer can interfere. ;)
5G will change things again. Only this time it will be the case of every connected machine in the farm using the network. So fiber links will be needed anyway for the telecoms to provide the backbone connection to the services.
Just to be clear, it isn't possible to agree on things when one side is specifically and explicitly going out of their way to be dicks.
I know that at least once, the Republican party had standing orders to vote against *anything* the Democrats wanted, no matter how good an idea it was.
How do you work with people who have standing orders to go against whatever you stand for, no matter what?
I'm trying to find a link to an article where the above was admitted, but I'm having trouble finding it cause this Kavanaugh nonsense is flooding the results.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence.
We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
Those balloon constellations will require FAA approval in the USA regardless of where they are located or what they are for.
Why?
They are a potential hazard to aviation due to their elevation in the sky and their mooring cable(s).
The FAA has the power to regulate antennas that may intrude upon controlled airspace, especially if they can be considered a hazard to aviation. So those balloons had better be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, or else.
[true story follows, I was there at the time]
I know the FAA had to review the permit for a microwave reflector that was part of a County government telecommunications network. That reflector was placed flush against the 5th or 6th story of a building (flat roofline level) used for State business; the building was that high and located on a hill about 30 feet above a major interstate.
The FAA said the building had to be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, because it was being used as a mast for an antenna. I know, it sounds crazy, but the story is true.
This particular County happened to be where the state capital was located, so the County government people had "friends in high places" at the State, and the State people had no problems with the County people placing a reflector on the side of their building at the flat roofline level.
The County people reminded the FAA people that the building in question was a State building. The FAA people were not moved to change their mind by that comment.
The County people told the FAA that the building in question was the State's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) headquarters. That got the attention of the FAA people.
The County people suggested to the FAA people that the FAA ought to rethink it's "paint the building" requirement. The FAA people reconsidered their suggestion and then withdrew their "paint the building" requirement.
Nobody messes around with the DMV in any State in the USA and gets away with it.
The correct way to solve the rural issue is let private companies, esp SATs, solve it. After all, that was argument made for getting net neutrality. Now however, with multiple companies about to start .1-1 Gb sat service, the GOP want to 'fix things'. Yeah. No.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Tell us all about the free market failing under state-enforced monopolies?
But the answer to bad data is simple - if they claim service to an address they install it on their dime within 60 days or the CEO faces a purgury trial.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's not just rural broadband that's the problem. I live inside a city of 130,000 people and can barely get 5 megabit download speeds on a good day. Broadband, in general, is broken.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence. We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
Those balloon constellations will require FAA approval in the USA regardless of where they are located or what they are for.
Why?
They are a potential hazard to aviation due to their elevation in the sky and their mooring cable(s).
The FAA has the power to regulate antennas that may intrude upon controlled airspace, especially if they can be considered a hazard to aviation. So those balloons had better be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, or else.
[true story follows, I was there at the time] I know the FAA had to review the permit for a microwave reflector that was part of a County government telecommunications network. That reflector was placed flush against the 5th or 6th story of a building (flat roofline level) used for State business; the building was that high and located on a hill about 30 feet above a major interstate.
The FAA said the building had to be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, because it was being used as a mast for an antenna. I know, it sounds crazy, but the story is true.
This particular County happened to be where the state capital was located, so the County government people had "friends in high places" at the State, and the State people had no problems with the County people placing a reflector on the side of their building at the flat roofline level.
The County people reminded the FAA people that the building in question was a State building. The FAA people were not moved to change their mind by that comment.
The County people told the FAA that the building in question was the State's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) headquarters. That got the attention of the FAA people.
The County people suggested to the FAA people that the FAA ought to rethink it's "paint the building" requirement. The FAA people reconsidered their suggestion and then withdrew their "paint the building" requirement.
Nobody messes around with the DMV in any State in the USA and gets away with it.
They are not balloons they are satellites, LEO == Low Earth Orbit. The last time I looked the FCC had already approved two of these satellite constellations one from Space X and the other one operated by OneWeb.
We should make it a national mission to find out where the billions the telcos got to do this went.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The solution for rural broadband is LEO satellite access. There are multiple companies working on this, including SpaceX. This will be available in a few years. Problem solved.
SpaceX Starlink
Gosh, a sneering European looking down on America. I haven't seen that since...a few minutes ago.
So, how about that military of yours? Oh, you barely have one? And rely on the Americans to pay for your defense for you? Nice situation you've got going there. Accept all the free stuff and then shit all over them for providing it. Someone tell me why we still pay for your sorry asses, despite the fact you're overflowing with cash and clearly able to do it yourselves?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
who needs it? and why?
I know. We don't need farmers or other rural weirdos. Everyone should just move into the city. Seriously food comes in shops. What does rural America even contribute? Let them rot!
Yes it does. You failed reading comprehension pretty hard.
We've had satellite internet for quite a while now.
Satellite internet sucks because of the physics involved. The physics doesn't care if you have a great salesman or not. No matter how charismatic Musk is, radio waves do what they do.
SpaceX plans to use Ku band communications, because that's the frequency range that can give you high bandwidth at satellite distances. Unfortunately, it's also the peak absorbtion range for water - clouds and rain are opaque at that Ku wavelengths. Ask any satellite internet user what that means for their service.
Once again. You have the wrong binary UID.
I live in a rural area. I'm not the other guy.
See also:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....
I'd think if someone wants internet access, they should move to a city. I'd like to move to a rural area myself and wouldn't mind being cut off from the internet, I haven't found it all that useful or important. I send a few emails once in a while, and sometimes make useless comments on here.
When everyone has internet access their becomes certain expectations from schools, work, business that you will use their online services. It's like a punishment.
Rural people don't want your crummy internet.
There's an epidemic in the current Administration of "blame anyone else but me." In fact, how about not attempting to lay blame and focus on fixing the problem? How about that Mr. Pai?
You know, act like the leader you claim to be?
as mentioned by other posters they got the economic incentive in the form of massive tax breaks ($200-$400 billion worth) and still didn't do the roll out. Even when we pay them to do it they don't do it.
If we want national rural broadband the government's going to have to do it. No private business will. They'll take your money and run.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
a well educated electorate doesn't necessarily vote the way you want them to.
Remember how before the printing press only the priesthood could read the bible? Internet is like that times 100.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Whats needed is for Telcoms and ISPs to do what they were supposed to when they got huge taxpayer funded subsidies years ago to build out infrastructure! They took that money, and then only built the infrastructure in areas that were profitable to them! There are many places that don't even have dial-up in this country, just as there were still many places in rural America that did not have electric service at the end of WWII!
I say that ISPs are making such huge profits, that they should have to pay for building the infrastructure that they were supposed to have built years ago, but didn't!
It shows that selfish people like you who think only about themselves during a crisis like a hurricane are rare, and that just because uncapping the high speed data worked well in the cell you were in doesn't mean it will work everywhere.
They can't very well say "we'll uncap the data for some people, but not others, without rhyme nor reason because it depends on our capacity vs. usage in a given area". They make the rules nationwide, so they need to be workable in the large majority of cells nationwide.
What is your incoherent rambling supposed to actually mean?
We've had satellite internet for quite a while now.
We haven't had LEO satellite internet. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
SpaceX plans to use Ku band communications
Actually they're planning to use Ka and Ku, which stand for 'above' and 'under' the center 'K' band--which is the one where the peak water vapor absorption falls. Sure there will be some attenuation due to weather on the Ka/Ku bands as well--but there's a metric shit-ton of bandwidth available. Broadband that's somewhat degraded in weather is still better than no broadband at all.
Either way, this will be sorted out by the market--and the market doesn't care that the existence of Elon Musk makes you confront your own failed life on a daily basis.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ajit Pai earlier today: They were lying to us about the coverage maps all along! Egad! What have we done?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I live in rural boondocks and I'm currently on satellite ISP. I refuse to subscribe to privately owned broadband after seeing the arrogance of Charter/TW, AT&T, Comcast, etc. The only thing that will get me to leave satellite is municipal ISP. Fund the municipal infrastructure - the privately owned companies have already demonstrated that they can't be trusted with it!
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Maybe the REALLY wealthy suburbs. The normal suburbs are low-hanging under-served fruit with a notable lack of /real/ competition.
Like roads, the pipes to get to the Internet should be community owned and paid for with a small use tax.
Longer distance shipping can have competition from the local peering point(s).
Septic tanks?
the point it to allocate hundreds of billions of $$$ more to the telcos so they can pocket it again.
notice what works empirically for rural broadband: local government owned collectives.
notice what they want to stop: local government owned collectives.
Back in 1996 when Bill Clinton (at the behest of his pal Al Gore) created this mess of stealing money from telephone customers in order to give services to people who were not paying for them, they created a typical government redistribution scam that has performed like such scams always do. The costs to the legitimate customers gradually rise, and the politicians fond more and more people to give "free stuff" to in exchange for their political loyalty.
This got so out of hand that when the broadband internet stuff was added (jacking up phone bills for average people even further) the government failed to add any enforceable metrics to the providers, so essentially the telcos got a government-mandated windfall profit. They got to bill people more each month and point the finger of blame at the government, while getting to pocket the money and not being required to provide anything meausureable in exchange. The politicians did not really care; they rarely care about results when what they really want is the ability to claim they "did something", and they avoided making their campaign cash contributors at the telcos mad by making them do something.
Oh for the days of a free market again where the only people paying companies were their customers, the only people getting stuff from companies were their paying customers, the proof that this worked efficiently was something called a "quantity discount", and people who wanted stuff had the motivation to get off their butts and get a job.
I don't disagree too much with your analysis of the cost of laying the fiber.
There are other costs other than the initially laying the fiber, course. There's maintenance. There's transit / backhaul. There's per-customer costs such as customer service and billing. Marketing. Administration (a building full of employees isn't free), etc.
At very roughly $50-$70/month recurring costs, plus $70 ish for amortizing laying the fiber, total monthly costs might be around $150/month in a lot of areas. Plus as you said, neither you nor is going to put our retirement savings into a fiber project merely hoping to maybe get our money back 20 years later - gotta have a little profit to do that instead of doing some other thing.
You can actually call the nearest ISPs and if you get the right person on the line they'll give you a price, $10,000 or whatever it is. There are also OTHER companies who will just put in the line between you and the ISP - I've received price quotes from them. The ISPs don't like trying to manage wildly different prices for each individual customer. That would be a monthly recurring cost to them to just manage having different pricing for each customer, so they like to have the cost of one-off line extensions paid when they incur the cost. That doesn't mean you have to pay at all once, though. If you want to finance it over 20 years, there are companies that specialize in financing - banks. The bank gives you the $10,000, which you use to pay for the fiber. You then pay the bank back $70/month.
Who is preventing competition from entering the markets?
It's not the big players directly. It's the big players bribing government and begging for regulation. Regulation is something the big players can bear, but is much of a burden for little guys.
Begging for MORE government makes you a useful idiot.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Who is preventing competition from entering the markets?
It's not the big players directly. It's the big players bribing government and begging for regulation.
It's both, obviously. Big players' ability to manipulate markets is why we have laws against anticompetitive behavior. Too bad we don't enforce them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So:
You've just admitted laws don't work.
Your solution?
Another law.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Been living in my house for over 4 years now, AT&T refuses to admit that what they are giving me (3Mbps down/1Mbps up for $55/month) is not broadband. Spectrum says AT&T will help so they refuse to talk. I do live in a "rural" area, but I have a friend less than a mile away getting 60Mbps from Spectrum for $35/month, the big Telco are too big, it would sure be nice to have more than a single option for wired internet... some small ISP's competing would do wonders... even if just two of the big ones were competing things would improve...
timeo Danaos, et dona ferentis