White House, FCC Unveil 5G Push and $20B Fund For Rural Broadband (cnet.com)

The White House on Friday will unveil a new 5G push to position the US ahead of global rivals in the race to deploy the next-generation wireless technology. President Donald Trump and Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai will announce new airwaves auctions and plans to spend $20.4 billion over 10 years on rural broadband. From a report: The FCC will auction off three segments of millimeter-wave spectrum -- which can offer insane data speeds but has limited range -- for commercial use. The auction is scheduled for December, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said on a conference call with reporters ahead of the White House event. He said the FCC plans to auction off 3,400 MHz of spectrum in three different high-frequency bands. "This will be the largest spectrum auction in American history," he said. Pai went onto say that this auction, along with others planned for the future, are putting the US on a good path. "The US is well-positioned to take a lead in 5G," he said.

The FCC is also announcing the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. The agency plans to reallocate $20.4 billion from its Universal Service Fund over the next 10 years to subsidize eligible companies to build out broadband infrastructure in underserved areas. The money will be allocated to internet service providers that can provide a minimum of 25 megabit per second downloads in areas that are currently in need of connectivity, Pai said. He added that the new infrastructure will also help bring 5G to these rural areas. "There are a number of startups that are working on millimeter wave technology to bring 5G to rural America," he said on the call.

Comments

Re:Sounds like a waste of scarce tax dollars

[flippy]

It's much more expensive to do that in underserved / rural areas, and that's exactly what the Universal Service Fund was designed to help with.

Re:Fiscal responsibility?

[wierd_w]

It certainly is, but I would look very closely at the agreement before signing off on it.

I remember the 90s, and the 200bn that got wasted because the telecoms wanted a handout on government dimes.

Poaching the USF with promises of what it is supposed to be used for, without actually delivering, is the actual track record here.

I would only support this kind of deal if there were strong liabilities for failure to deliver. I am talking board and CEO jail time levels of liability here.

Re: interesting. Whose equipment?

[flippy]

I'd like to see that link, too.

Let's look at some basic electronics and physics:

According to Wikipedia, "Low Earth orbit (LEO): geocentric orbits with altitudes below 2,000 km (100–1,240 miles)"
Let's look at the minimum of that range: 100 miles.
Electromagnetic waves travel at approximately 1 foot / nanosecond.
Meaning 5.28 microseconds per mile.
So, 528 microseconds for 100 miles.
1056 microseconds for the round-trip to the satellite.
That's 1 ms right there, just for the electromagnetic waves to travel up to the satellite, and the response to travel back down.
Double that, because here's what has to happen:
Ping goes from user to satellite (~0.5ms).
Ping goes from satellite to ground station (~0.5ms).
Ping goes from ground station through terrestrial infrastructure (no faster than with wired broadband).
Response comes through terrestrial infrastructure to ground station (no faster than with wired broadband).
Response goes from ground station to satellite (~0.5ms)
Response goes from satellite to original ping initiator (~0.5ms).

As an electrical engineer with an extensive physics background, I'd be pretty impressed if they could get that all done in 20ms or less.

We've heard this before

[smooth wombat]

Back when Bill Clinton was president, the U.S. government provided ISPs with billions of taxpayer dollars to build out the internet infrastructure in this country. ISPs promised that within a decade, consumers would have 45/45 Mbps network speeds for a low price (can't remember the figure).

Almost three decades later, the vast majority of people either can't get 45Mbps (download only), let alone 45 up, or the cost is not low.

Now we're being told if we hand over more billions of our dollars, private industry will do what they said they would do those three decades ago.

I wouldn't hold my breath.