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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.
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
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
Plus we already paid to roll out nationwide fiber, but the telecom companies just pocketed the cash.
This.
The US already paid $200 billion to the Telcos (some claim $400 billion, it's hard to say exactly how much because it was a tax credit) for nationwide broadband. They didn't deliver.
No sig today...