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The US Desperately Needs a 'Fiber For All' Plan (eff.org)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a new report calling for a "fiber for all" plan to combat the broadband access crisis in the United States. Government data and independent analysis show we are falling behind the rest of the developed world in this area, and "the U.S. is the only country that believes having no plan will solve this issue," writes Ernesto Falcon from the EFF. "We are the only country to completely abandon federal oversight of an uncompetitive, highly concentrated market that sells critical services to all people, yet we expect widely available, affordable, ultra-fast services. But if you live in a low-income neighborhood or in a rural market today, you know very well this is not working and the status quo is going to cement in your local broadband options to either one choice or no choice." From the report: Very small ISPs and local governments with limited budgets are at the frontline of deploying fiber to the home to fix these problems, but policymakers from the federal, state, and local level need to step up and lead. At least 19 states still have laws that prohibit local governments from deploying community broadband projects. Worst yet, both AT&T and Verizon are actively asking the FCC to make it even harder for small private ISPs to deploy fiber, so that the big incumbents can raise prices and suppress competition, a proposal EFF has urged the FCC to reject.
This is why we need to push our elected officials and regulators for a fiber-for-all-people plan to ensure everyone can obtain the next generation of broadband access. Otherwise, the next generation of applications and services won't be usable in most of the United States. They will be built instead for markets with better, faster, cheaper, and more accessible broadband. This dire outcome was the central thesis to a recently published book by Professor Susan Crawford (appropriately named Fiber) and EFF agrees with its findings. If American policymakers do not remedy the failings in the US market and actively pursue ways to drive fiber deployment with the goal of universal coverage, then a staggering number of Americans will miss out on the latest innovations that will occur on the Internet because it will be inaccessible or too expensive. As a result, we will see a worsening of the digital divide as advances in virtual reality, cloud computing, gaming, education, and things we have not invented yet are going to carry a monopoly price tag for a majority of us -- or just not be accessible here. This does not have to be so, but it requires federal, state, and local governments to get to work on policies that promote fiber infrastructure to all people. Most of the talk lately has been about 5G networks, but the less-spoken truth about these networks is that they need dense fiber networks to make them work. "One estimate on the amount of fiber investment that needs to occur is as much as $150 billion -- including fiber to the home deployments -- in the near future, and we are far below that level of commitment to fiber," the report says.
This is why we need to push our elected officials and regulators for a fiber-for-all-people plan to ensure everyone can obtain the next generation of broadband access. Otherwise, the next generation of applications and services won't be usable in most of the United States. They will be built instead for markets with better, faster, cheaper, and more accessible broadband. This dire outcome was the central thesis to a recently published book by Professor Susan Crawford (appropriately named Fiber) and EFF agrees with its findings. If American policymakers do not remedy the failings in the US market and actively pursue ways to drive fiber deployment with the goal of universal coverage, then a staggering number of Americans will miss out on the latest innovations that will occur on the Internet because it will be inaccessible or too expensive. As a result, we will see a worsening of the digital divide as advances in virtual reality, cloud computing, gaming, education, and things we have not invented yet are going to carry a monopoly price tag for a majority of us -- or just not be accessible here. This does not have to be so, but it requires federal, state, and local governments to get to work on policies that promote fiber infrastructure to all people. Most of the talk lately has been about 5G networks, but the less-spoken truth about these networks is that they need dense fiber networks to make them work. "One estimate on the amount of fiber investment that needs to occur is as much as $150 billion -- including fiber to the home deployments -- in the near future, and we are far below that level of commitment to fiber," the report says.
If they could prevent local cable companies from interfering with cities/towns setting up their own municipal Wi-Fi or networking, that could bootstrap the whole process. Looking at it as a whole-country fiber everywhere project sounds really expensive, with a lot of setup overhead. Plus, don't a lot of people in poorer areas (not sitting at a desk all day) access the internet primarily from their phones anyway?
I don't want to pay for fiber to rural homes. If someone wants to live in the mountains, let them or their local community pay for their infrastructure.
I misunderstood the title. I thought it was a suggestion to start taking Metamucil.
Hey I know we can pay verizon, google, at&t, windstream to build this thing out. They will not rip us off again at all Lets give them billions this time. I am sure they can get it right this time.
WISPS are doing just fine.. If you want a realistic boost, give them the same access rights to the poles that the big carriers have.
This sounds to me like more money and more subsidies to the same fucking telcos that have been screwing us over all along.
Capitalism always finds a way.. Crony-capitalism not so much...
$300 billion.. That's the amount of subsidies and tax breaks AT&T has been given to deliver on their promise of "45 megabits for everyone". They delivered NONE of it in the time frame they were given.. Not a single fucking residential household. We supposed to give them more? Or are we supposed to put governments in charge of internet? Yeah, all those fiscally responsible local/county/state governments we have? Fuck that too.
Make life easier on the WISPs (more frequency, less regulation, less paperwork, less red-tape in general, and you'll have your coverage.. I'm not suggesting there should be ZERO oversight, but the amount of red-tape we already have to deal with is ridiculous.
No subsidies for ANYONE. Just less paperwork and easier access to telephone poles and possibly federal/state lands for transmitters... That's all we need..
The 'crisis' is caused by telecom companies who won't invest unless there's profit to be made, and meanwhile they price-gouge everyone else.
Eventually if our civilization is to advance some things are going to have to be not-for-profit instead of squeezing people for every penny they can make, by hook or by crook. We see this mainly with healthcare; but since internet is still seen as 'optional' instead of 'a necessity' it doesn't loom as large in people's minds.
The healthcare industry was at one point in time not-for-profit, and that changed, leading us to the expensive mess we have today. If Internet is going to be considered 'essential' then perhaps it needs to be 'not for profit' as well -- and ubiquitos, instead of only where telecoms feel like installing it. Also municipalities should not ever be prohibited from providing access themselves.
that's why we're discussing this. It's too expensive to get internet out to the boonies. Just like it was too expensive to get electricity and phones there. We did it anyway because it was good for the country. A connected, modern and well educated rural population was much less likely to do boneheaded things at the polls.
And I mentioned this elsewhere but if you live in the city the average rural voter has 40 times the voting power you do thanks to how the Senate and Electoral college works, and that's before we factor in Gerrymandering.
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There are always benefits to living in denser areas, and disadvantages, as with rural areas. Why not just move to the place that has the things you most value, that is, make your own trade-offs? You're basically saying that while you have your cake, you want the rest of us (taxpayers) to give you the icing. Good grief!
You're basically saying that while you have your cake, you want the rest of us (taxpayers) to give you the icing.
He said precisely what the problem is:
My community is barred by state law from setting up it's own distribution network.
It couldn't be more clear...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Now people feel forced to move away from cities, where good internet is cheap, to rural areas that may lack it, in part because housing in cities often is restricted to single family dwellings and apartments are much harder or impossible to develop, making city living extremely expensive. Zoning is in effect a subsidy on those who enjoy it, and is an effective way of discriminating against the poor. It should be easier for people to enjoy the benefits of city living, without being a millionaire. A rural internet subsidy is unnecessary and unjust.
While it's clear that some com companies are using dirty tricks to keep small players out of the game, smoothing this out isn't gonna magically grow fiber to the whole US. The US is a fairly large landmass. My understanding is that most countries with really good internet connection everywhere are pretty small in comparison. As in "equivalent to one or two US states" kind of small.
Someone prove me wrong? I'd love to see better net access here but we have LOTS of rural farmland.
Big city doesn't exactly fit either Dakota though. As of the 2010 census not a single city in either state breached 200k people. Neither state breaks 1 million in population. While I'm not saying that is an excuse for poor service but the cost to wire your state spread across the population would cost a lot more then trying to wire California, Texas, New York or Florida. California really has zero excuse considering we have nearly 40 million people.
We all know the government, especially the local and state government, is owned by the corporations. Why else would there be states that ban local communities from setting up their own fiber network? Being Verizon and ATT say so.
That's exactly what he is saying. I would love to live where I can afford a house no more then two hours from beach, mountains or deserts. Unfortunately the average house in San Diego is around 500k. A bit beyond my wife and I to afford and still have a life.
So I make the trade off of staying in a place with typically amazing weather and many natural environments not far away.
If I had to have a house, I would leave the state but then I would have to live in the middle of no where and likely where it either snows, tornadoes or hurricanes and frankly that just sounds terrible.
I'll just accept that my condo is good enough. It's all what you value most.
It'd be nice to have fiber everywhere. It'd be nice to have jetski for each foot, and a dolphin with mechanical spider legs to walk around town as a chariot.
It's not a right to have any of these things. If my state or local municipality wants to provide for these things at my tax payer expense, well, as a tenth amendment adherent, fine. but not a federal program. I'd prefer government not being involved at all, at any level. Let an investor take the gamble to spread fiber to areas they think they can turn a profit. If their analysis thinks it's not worth it, well, that sucks, but no one should be forced to subsidize.
My old man lives in the boonies and cable internet stops a block from him. It sucks, but that's the breaks, there aren't enough residences to justify the cost of expanding the network further, and I certainly dont want to give government subsidies to an already shitty cable company.
Myself, I choose to live in a fiber neighborhood. I made the conscious choice to do so, and my cost of living is higher and I suck down gigabit internet. All my choice in where I want to be. My old man prefers his privacy of shooting guns on his property and walking outside buck nekkid and not giving a damn what his neighbors think. his choice to live there, i couldnt do it.
But i'm certainly not going to pay for ppl that have no connection to me, not even in my county or state, to have access. that's their responsibility.
And yet, in first world countries, cities of 200k people provide gigabit fiber to all.
The entire article is wrong: ""the U.S. is the only country that believes having no plan will solve this issue," - The US does have a plan! It's called Capitalism - and GOP continually scream that capitalism and competition will fix all problems...
Unfortunately, in practice, capitalists have become so wealthy and powerful, capitalism has become the problem. Elected Representatives need money to get elected. As the wealth concentrates, capitalists have more and more power to influence laws and regulations by buying our (actually their) representatives.
The only way to fix the problem is campaign finance reform and return Government to The People.
All that needs to happen is to repeal all the laws, deals etc (at various levels of government) that prevents or restricts new players from entering the market (be they government run, community run, not-for-profit, for-profit or otherwise). That includes things that allow the incumbents to tie things up in court and deny the new players until they give up.
If you have proper competition against the last-century dinosaurs and the market is truly unrestricted, new players will emerge that offer the service people want but can't get from the aforementioned dinosaurs and the market will sort itself out.
Actually, better than 80% of the US population is within a much narrower range.
Why? Turns out the population isn't evenly distributed but focused in a much smaller area.
And they often still can't get decent internet.
They have voting power over their local issues, which is as it should be. If the majority were to decide on every issue, then every minority would be at risk of losing its rights. Imagine if there was a proposed law that people who work in IT should give 30% of their income to everyone else: the majority of the population - who do not work in IT - would surely vote for it! This is why the majority should not make the rules: it is why we have a senate with two senators from each state, and it is why we have the electoral college - to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" and give each state some authority to have a say about what rules are imposed on it by the other more populous states.
Please explain the GDP impact of building out such infrastructure as well as specifics on how much it will raise the standard of living for rural and urban dwellers in the USA.
I don't have hard numbers, but rural high-speed Internet does mean that farmers won't have to drive an hour into town to upload large files to a crop consultant quite as often. This in turn means they won't have to wear down the roads, fund foreign oil barons, and pollute the air doing so.
Half the US population
It's interesting that you say "half", as Finland has high-speed Internet with roughly half the population density of the USA.
Finland: 17 people per km^2
USA: 35 people per km^2
If you live out in BFE, you already know how to live with satellite or at best a cell data plan.
And they currently make do with sneakernet over motor vehicles. whose exhaust pollutes the air. From an interview:
Why do you hate the air? :p
Look, fiber out 10 miles in rural area? Nope. Does not make sense.
Instead, we have 1-web, starlink, etc for the rural areas.
What is needed is for the cities and towns. In those, we need to allow local gov to run this as utilities OR just own the fiber, but outsource the various services including internet( great for small towns up to small cities), OR for multiple private companies (works best in cities).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Community broadband would be set up by that local community.
That would then bring fast innovative ISP services to their area.
Fast internet would attract work and investment. Growth and jobs.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
ideally, not having a data cap, with a 1GB up/down for $50/month.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Every part of the USA has smaller towns. They need the ability to get their own fast community broadband working.
No need to move to a big city with all its city problems.
Stay in the best parts of the USA and enjoy new community broadband.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's too expensive with too little return on investment to place fiber in all but the highest density areas where the population density and / or more affluent can afford the monthly costs. ( Both Google and Verizon tried it. Both failed. Miserably. )
In all likelihood, what will happen is they will simply bide their time until 5G is rolled out because wireless is MUCH cheaper to deploy than fiber.
In addition, since it IS wireless, they get to charge you insane amounts of money for those wireless data plans vs a traditional ISP data plan.
So, in their eyes, it's a Win - Win.
Cheaper rollout and can charge you much more for the privilege of using it just because.
This is assuming it works well, which I have doubts about.
( Considering the frequency range it operates at, I suspect rain, fog, snow, etc. will be quite the experience for the end user. It will make Xfinity look amazing by comparison during inclement weather. My theory only though, will wait to see what reality has to say about it. )
Are you saying it would be better to have tyranny of the minority? So a minority of people, lets say farmers, could vote that everyone in IT should give 30% of their income to everyone else even if most people disagreed?
Never could understand those who think that a tyranny of the minority is a better form of tyranny. I guess they just think they'll be the tyrants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
1. Ask the monopoly ISP to upgrade their network in your community to 1000/1000 ready services.
Wait for the offical "no".
2. Take the offical "no" to your gov and ask them to allow in a new ISP that can build a 1000/1000 ready service.
Wait for the monopoly ISP to block the new ISP attempt.
3. Ask for community broadband as the monopoly granted to the ISP is not keeping up with advancements in network tech.
The monopoly ISP is also using its monopoly position to block competition in your community.
4. Allow the monopoly ISP to state when it would have a 1000/1000 ready network.
5. Did the monopoly network get a 1000/1000 network ready when asked?
6. Show the monopoly network did not have a 1000/1000 network and that it also used its monopoly position to block any new ISP that could offer a 1000/1000 network.
The granted ISP monopoly is no longer worth keeping as the ISP has not delivered what is needed to stay as a protected monopoly.
7. Go with community broadband and bring an open 1000/1000 network to your community. Time for some new trenches and fibre optic cables.
8. The community has a 1000/1000 network ready to connect to private land. Connect when a connection is requested to private land.
Land owners can help if they want. Connect when they want.
9. Invite different ISP from all over the USA onto your network. Enjoy some selection in ISP services.
10. People can enjoy fast internet connections like in a US city.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Then you have a business opportunity.. Start a WISP. Why does the government have to solve this problem?
You are, clearly, a luddite. Probably the same type of asshole who got all irritated when cars gained the ability to travel at 30mph.. BUT 15MPH is enough for anyone!
It was funny when the first 3 people made this joke.. You're like #10.. Not funny anymore.. You're a hack.
The private scenario: now that the cost of access to space is plummeting, send up constellations of mid-altitude satellites to relay Internet service.
The public scenario: deploy an ultra high capacity fiber backbone along Interstate Highways, with taps at strategic exits. Access would be leased to local cable providers with the stipulation that each ‘data intrrchange’ be served by at least two competing providers and that one tap at each interchange be reserved for local volunteer organizations or municipalities. If this system pays for itself in large urban areas, service would be extended to an increasing number of rural tap points.
No no no, they'll tell you that its better that they vote for what's good for you as a minority and non popular vote winner while at the same time you're an elitist who should stop telling them what to do. Makes total sense. Not hypocrisy! Winning!
No, just saying that the minority should not have the will of the majority imposed on it. The minority can always organize and make decisions for themselves, as long as their basic rights and freedoms are protected. The US is a republic and a federation for a reason. It was not designed as a popular democracy. It is a federation of states - "Federal" government. That means that each state is its own autonomous "state" ("state" means "nation").
The European Union is set up like that. It is a federation of independent nations. People often point to European examples of good governance. It works well because each member of the European Union has its own health care, its own system, customized for its own population and culture.
The US is too big and diverse for a single government imposing its will on every corner of the country.
Human trafficking? Civil rights violations? School shootings? Mass murder? Clearly none of these are as important as making sure rural Americans can download their porn faster.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
Are you too stupid to know that 5G would still require almost literally the same kind of fiber deployment? At that point, you might as well just wire fiber up to the houses (because the range on 5G is fucking DISMAL, like only as good as typical wi-fi type dismal.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The specification of fiber-everywhere should be replaced with a goal of broadband-everywhere (defined as > X Gbps, where X is defined by some balance of cost-performance based on current technologies and X increases over time.)
A lot of us on /. are technical and in engineering-like professions and hobbies. So, why would we demand a specific technology instead of looking at how we can deliver faster broadband to more places in the most economically-efficient way.
Without a doubt, the most economically efficient way to provide broadband to rural areas is via wireless, whether it is via terrestrial antennas/repeaters (LTE, 5G, VHF/UHF/ microwave) or satellite (currently geosynchronous high-latency, but soon with much lower-latency via a LEO constellation).
The US governmental agencies can be involved by lowering the regulatory hurdles for building more cell/radio towers, opening up more RF spectrum, and allowing LEO satellite constellations to be built-out. To do so, would even add competitive pressure to the areas where cable and telephone companies have local monopolies and force them to improve their service to their users, too.
Lie.
Mueller said only that HE is not issuing new indictments
It says nothing at all about innocence.
Manafort.
Collusion
He confessed
What specific crime of Russian collusion related to the Trump campaign do you allege Manafort either confessed to, or was convicted of?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Pretty sure he's saying that he's against tyranny altogether, by anyone. The basic concept is that people have certain inalienable rights and that other people under the cloak of government can't morally violate them, even if they can convince a majority of the people who live in a geographic region to agree that they want to.
As "tyranny of the majority" is a known failure mode for governments in which leadership is selected via voting, several safeguards were designed into the U.S. Constitution to limit this, and other risks. These involved super-majority requirements for changing the structure of the government, various hard-coded limitations on power and authority, plus splitting power between various groups selected or elected by different methods. The minority is much less likely to have the power to tyrannize anyone without support from the larger population, but most of the same safeguards limiting various people's power to violated our rights work against them as well. It's not perfect as a safeguard against tyranny, but at least it's been failing relatively slowly compared to most places.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.