News FCC proposal aims to nix long-term gigabit internet speed goals, pricing analysis

[Admin]

An FCC proposal seeks to undo the Biden administration's efforts to encourage increased availability of gigabit download speeds.

FCC proposal aims to nix long-term gigabit internet speed goals, pricing analysis : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

that efforts to ensure Americans have gigabit internet, which the Biden administration identified as a long-term goal in 2024

except this wasnt a biden admin thing..

Wanting fast affordable internet was a thing way back in the late 80's early 90's. when ISP's were given an insane amount of dollars (especially given the time) to expand fiber networks which they barely did and instead pocketed the majority of the $.

That is 1 of the greatest crimes that has still gone unpunished.
http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/ literally a free book w/ if you wanna see exactly how badly the ISP's screwed (and robbing) Americans of having affordable fast internet like most other developed nations.

 

[chaos215bar2]

except this wasnt a biden admin thing..

Wanting fast affordable internet was a thing way back in the late 80's early 90's. when ISP's were given an insane amount of dollars (especially given the time) to expand fiber networks which they barely did and instead pocketed the majority of the $.

That is 1 of the greatest crimes that has still gone unpunished.
http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/ literally a free book w/ if you wanna see exactly how badly the ISP's screwed (and robbing) Americans of having affordable fast internet like most other developed nations.

It was also a Biden thing. Because every time we try this, regulatory capture ensures ISPs essentially aren't on the hook for actually delivering anything.

 

[thestryker]

I still think it's funny that these fools think satellite is actually a viable option. With today's technology there simply isn't enough capacity even if the latency and bandwidth is a lot better. Fixed wireless can also definitely get up to those speeds whether or not anyone sells it.

Ah well we can always count on the corporate stooges to roll out the "winners and losers" line when the only losers are tax payers and those stuck with inferior service (if they get any service at all).

 

[DS426]

I would agree with focusing on driving accessibility, affordability (both absolute and relative), and value as indeed the fastest fiber networks are mostly in metro areas and therefore only further skewing the advantage of those dense networks over rural and small town networks.

 

[TechLurker]

Meanwhile South Korea laughs in having standard 1 gigabit internet as the standard even in most rural areas.

 

[hotaru251]

Meanwhile South Korea laughs in having standard 1 gigabit internet as the standard even in most rural areas.

not as a black and white as this.

USA is over 9,500% larger than South Korea (by area)

 

[bit_user]

Because every time we try this, regulatory capture ensures ISPs essentially aren't on the hook for actually delivering anything.

Regulatory capture? You mean like how ISPs bribed many state legislatures to pass laws preventing cities & towns from establishing their own broadband co-ops?

IMO, internet access should be regulated like a utility, to prevent ISPs from abusing their power. The other main thing government should do is try to ensure competition either does or can exist in all markets.

That said, the plain old telephone system (POTS) serves as a model of how to get access to virtually everyone. In order to achieve that, I think the government established a relatively small tax on each land line, that was used to subsidize building network infrastructure in far-flung locations where it'd otherwise not be commercially viable to provide service. I think that's what the previous admin was going for, except without the taxation part.

 

[palladin9479]

The way it's written is that they do not want to disadvantage rural internet options in favor of urban ones.

No one is going to run fiber infrastructure to truely rural areas, the customers per mile just isn't there to justify it economically. Wireless and Satellite are the perfered options. Some power companies are looking to implement broadband using their existing infrastructure, but it won't be gigabit and therefore can't access this government program.

 

[thestryker]

The way it's written is that they do not want to disadvantage rural internet options in favor of urban ones.

No one is going to run fiber infrastructure to truely rural areas, the customers per mile just isn't there to justify it economically. Wireless and Satellite are the perfered options. Some power companies are looking to implement broadband using their existing infrastructure, but it won't be gigabit and therefore can't access this government program.

It seems you missed what this is actually about entirely. This isn't about any specific government program at all it's about broadband deployment, long term goals and state of the industry. These changes being proposed do nothing to help anyone except for ISPs and rubber stamping whatever they feel like doing.

 

[palladin9479]

It seems you missed what this is actually about entirely. This isn't about any specific government program at all it's about broadband deployment, long term goals and state of the industry. These changes being proposed do nothing to help anyone except for ISPs and rubber stamping whatever they feel like doing.

Umm... no.

Previously the definition of highspeed broadband for those programs was changed to 1Gbps. All they did was pull that back and now it's just the regular rural broadband program that we've been using as a funding source for decades.

 

[thestryker]

Umm... no.

Previously the definition of highspeed broadband for those programs was changed to 1Gbps. All they did was pull that back and now it's just the regular rural broadband program that we've been using as a funding source for decades.

This is false. The definition you're talking about was changed to 100/20Mbps.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

The way it's written is that they do not want to disadvantage rural internet options in favor of urban ones.

No one is going to run fiber infrastructure to truely rural areas, the customers per mile just isn't there to justify it economically. Wireless and Satellite are the perfered options. Some power companies are looking to implement broadband using their existing infrastructure, but it won't be gigabit and therefore can't access this government program.

Wow, maybe it's just a USA thing, as Australia which is just as large is running fibre to a lot of rural areas. I have full gigabit optical fibre and I live in a tiny town of 6000 people. Sure plenty of more remote areas won't get it, but a lot of rural areas did get it and many can upgrade for almost nothing from garbage grade copper network to fibre. USA has about 14-15x the population and could easily afford to bring it to many rural areas, but then again we did this at the national government leve, not allowing private companies or states to decide a user's fate.

 

[Christopher_115]

Meanwhile South Korea laughs in having standard 1 gigabit internet as the standard even in most rural areas.

U.S. versus South Korea. I don't understand why people make this comparison when it comes to things like this.

https://ibb.co/SWYfyNL

 

[palladin9479]

Wow, maybe it's just a USA thing, as Australia which is just as large is running fibre to a lot of rural areas. I have full gigabit optical fibre and I live in a tiny town of 6000 people. Sure plenty of more remote areas won't get it, but a lot of rural areas did get it and many can upgrade for almost nothing from garbage grade copper network to fibre. USA has about 14-15x the population and could easily afford to bring it to many rural areas, but then again we did this at the national government leve, not allowing private companies or states to decide a user's fate.

ISP's are largely private companies, the loans they take to build out the network are backed by an expected return and the math just doesn't work out for areas with very low population densities.

On the flip side of that coin, nonprofits do exist to provide internet to rural areas and these are either rural telephone cooperatives or electrical cooperatives.

https://www.ntca.org (there are others)

The USDA has several programs to assist with this

https://www.usda.gov/sustainability/infrastructure/broadband

https://www.rd.usda.gov/about-rd/agencies/rural-utilities-service

One of the things the organization I work at does is assist with funding models for rural nonprofits along with providing cheap financing for these projects.

FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

Analysis of broadband affordability deemed “extraneous” by FCC chair.

arstechnica.com

The previous administration (not going into politics) set the long term requirements for "broadband" to be 1gbps which made it significantly harder for us to get funding for those rural areas.

 

[King_V]

not as a black and white as this.

USA is over 9,500% larger than South Korea (by area)

Yeah, but "we're too big to be able to do that like smaller countries than," whether by area or by population, has been the tired, go-to empty excuse used by those trying to benefit corporate profits at the expense of the good of the nation.

It's not that we can't. It's that there's an ulterior motive not to.

 

[bit_user]

On the flip side of that coin, nonprofits do exist to provide internet to rural areas and these are either rural telephone cooperatives or electrical cooperatives.

Do you know how many US states have laws that effectively prevent these sorts of arrangements from providing internet access?

 

[palladin9479]

Yeah, but "we're too big to be able to do that like smaller countries than," whether by area or by population, has been the tired, go-to empty excuse used by those trying to benefit corporate profits at the expense of the good of the nation.

It's not that we can't. It's that there's an ulterior motive not to.

It's not ulterior motive, it's a real reason why you can't do something nation wide.

It's best to stop thinking of the USA as a single country and instead as 50 smaller countries joined together under a single military. Every State has it's own Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch that creates it's own laws, passes it's own budgets, and sets policy for people within that State. Some States are more dense then others and are thus much better equipped to insist on government funding only for plans that provide 1Gbps connections. Other States either have different priorities or find that standard untenable and can set their own standard.

The entire concept of Federalism is that each State is free to decide what is the most important issue for them and experiment with various solutions to those issues. The solutions that succeed get adopted by other States, the ones that fail get eventually dropped and relegated to history.

 

[bit_user]

It's best to stop thinking of the USA as a single country and instead as 50 smaller countries joined together under a single military.

...that also share a common Constitution and representation via Congress. Not to mention how that Constitution does things like limiting regulations on interstate commerce. The EU charter doesn't have quite such restrictions, although I think the default situation is to have no trade barriers between EU countries.

The Constitution also allows Congress to tax the states, though I'm not exactly sure if the EU can do that. A friend of mine thought that European unification was virtually a done deal, once the Euro went into effect. The Euro works a little differently than the Dollar, when you get down into the nitty gritty of it.

The solutions that succeed get adopted by other States, the ones that fail get eventually dropped and relegated to history.

That's a theory, but practice is sometimes different. People who advocate states' rights are usually just lacking the power to overturn federal laws they don't like. When they have the power to impose their will on other states, they often don't let such principles get in the way of attempting to do so.

 

[King_V]

It's not ulterior motive, it's a real reason why you can't do something nation wide.

It's best to stop thinking of the USA as a single country and instead as 50 smaller countries joined together under a single military. Every State has it's own Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch that creates it's own laws, passes it's own budgets, and sets policy for people within that State. Some States are more dense then others and are thus much better equipped to insist on government funding only for plans that provide 1Gbps connections. Other States either have different priorities or find that standard untenable and can set their own standard.

The entire concept of Federalism is that each State is free to decide what is the most important issue for them and experiment with various solutions to those issues. The solutions that succeed get adopted by other States, the ones that fail get eventually dropped and relegated to history.

The excuse is used on a federal level as well (ie: single-payer health care), but, even specifically in this case, that does not apply. The states that "can't" are actively outlawing any town/district's ability to even try, in order to prevent the established companies from having to face competition. Companies that charge a whole lot more for the same service in any region where there is no competitor.

If actively taking a hand in protecting those captive markets isn't an ulterior motive, then what is it?

 

[palladin9479]

The excuse

It's not an excuse.

We can't have a productive discussion if one side is being intellectually dishonest.

For the topic at hand, the FCC guidelines for 1gbps long term goal was making getting USDA/RUS funding for our customers very difficult. We would assist them in submitting applications with the project plans and they would get kicked back months later saying it wasn't approved because they were not meeting FCC guidelines. This change comes as a massive relief to our members who are predominately rural in nature, lots of chatter about restarting various projects for rural broadband.


And just to cut off the "butt CAPITOLISM!1010101" folks, we are a non-profit that works with other non-profits to serve rural electrical and infrastructure needs. There is ZERO profit motivation here, nothing is free though. We need to find ways to fund these various initiatives, government funding really helps but we almost always need to rope in private funding in the way of long term loans, which are usually very cheap. The costs are then amortized out and rolled into monthly utility bills based on the costing models we put together. Insisting on only 1Gbps+ projects to be eligible for funding and cheap loans made the monthly utility increases unacceptable.

 

[bit_user]

we are a non-profit that works with other non-profits to serve rural electrical and infrastructure needs. There is ZERO profit motivation here,

And how many states currently allow these sorts of arrangements?

 

[King_V]

It's not an excuse.

We can't have a productive discussion if one side is being intellectually dishonest.

For the topic at hand, the FCC guidelines for 1gbps long term goal was making getting USDA/RUS funding for our customers very difficult. We would assist them in submitting applications with the project plans and they would get kicked back months later saying it wasn't approved because they were not meeting FCC guidelines. This change comes as a massive relief to our members who are predominately rural in nature, lots of chatter about restarting various projects for rural broadband.


And just to cut off the "butt CAPITOLISM!1010101" folks, we are a non-profit that works with other non-profits to serve rural electrical and infrastructure needs. There is ZERO profit motivation here, nothing is free though. We need to find ways to fund these various initiatives, government funding really helps but we almost always need to rope in private funding in the way of long term loans, which are usually very cheap. The costs are then amortized out and rolled into monthly utility bills based on the costing models we put together. Insisting on only 1Gbps+ projects to be eligible for funding and cheap loans made the monthly utility increases unacceptable.

Before you accuse anyone of bring intellectually dishonest, I specifically pointed out the action on the parts of states of specifically forbidding things like municipal Internet.

Bungled/difficult restrictions can be a problem anywhere. That just needs to be fixed, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Also, "butt CAPITOLISM!1010101" isn't the point. Those "forbid it" laws are logically a anti-capitalism hurdle placed to placate a specific, favored capitalist.

"Can't be done," however, is absolutely an excuse. Because it CAN be done, there's just a special interest that does not want it done.

 

[palladin9479]

states of specifically forbidding things like municipal Internet.

Municipal internet is bad as municipalities are governments and we cross into very corrupt and uncomfortable territory.

The organization model you are looking for is known as a Cooperative, they are non-governmental organizations that are also not-for-profit and organized as a 501(c)(12).

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-tax-exempt-organizations

For broadband internet you would likely want to organize as a Rural Telephone Cooperative as that would allow you access to NRECA resources, which are vast. That would get you your startup funding and organizational template and roadmap.

https://www.cooperative.com/topics/telecommunications-broadband/Pages/default.aspx

Cooperative's are run the same as any regular business except their "owners" are the customers they serve. Those customers/owners get to vote for rules and elect Board Members that then set policy and rates. There is no profit to earn or return, just a service that needs provided and therefor this organization is tax-exempt. This organization not a government body, it's a private entity without regulatory authority that is run and managed directly the body of people they serve.

Now to blow your mind, I happen to work for a Cooperative and my benefits are through NRECA. That's right I have health insurance through a non-profit organization and it's amazing. This type of organization provides many of the social benefits we want without falling into the perverse incentive structures either of government agency or for-profit company.

Anyhow this is starting to drift a bit. What the FCC ruling really does is allow all these government programs to be used for rural nonprofits to provide broadband to their communities.

 

[King_V]

Municipal internet is bad as municipalities are governments and we cross into very corrupt and uncomfortable territory.

This is belief, not fact.

That said, the very same people trying to forbid municipal internet (which was just an example) are also trying to block cooperatives, small players, etc.