Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
1–10 of 42 posts
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#2The question is....does the FCC really want to fix it?
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#3The question is....does the FCC really want to fix it?
ya down with FCC? yeah you know me... (dunno just popped into my head)
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#4The question is....does the FCC really want to fix it?
My thoughts are only in capacities that support the large incumbent ISP behemoths. I would imagine establishing standards and removing city / county ordinances restricting companies (outside of the big players) from installing services would be a bigger step. It's ridiculous to think that some cities want to provide better services but the lobbying arms of the big guys simply shut it down. We have plenty of people pushing to improve broadband, it's this incentive the rich, restrict the poor (relative to operating budgets) scenario that's only going to be exasperated by these types of counter productive rules.
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#5I'm cynical that this will bring meaningful improvement. Government has given money to telecoms before, and it's only brought us mediocre service, and brought executives huge paydays.
Where's the fiber, Verizon? We (NJ and PA[0]) gave you huge tax cuts 20 years ago for universal fiber service. You and NYC agreed to provide everyone with fiber.[1] Meanwhile, AT&T keeps merging with promises that are meaningless or eventually reneged on.[2]
[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/verizon-pennsyl...
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/nyc-sues-verizon...
[2] https://muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-merger-pro...
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#6I'm cynical that this will bring meaningful improvement. Government has given money to telecoms before, and it's only brought us mediocre service, and brought executives huge paydays. Where's the fiber, Verizon? We (NJ and PA[0]) gave you huge tax cuts 20 years ago for universal fiber service. You and NYC agreed to provide everyone with fiber.[1] Meanwhile, AT&T keeps merging with promises that are meaningless or eve…
I was looking for references like these, thank you.
> Pai is proposing an ambitious program whereby the FCC could expand corporate subsidies for building networks while scaling back regulations...
Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#7> Pai is proposing an ambitious program whereby the FCC could expand corporate subsidies for building networks while scaling back regulations that, he said, deter private investment.
Given the history of the players involved (e.g. Verizon and AT&T pocketing billions in subsidies to extend service, then paying those billions out in dividends and doing no upgrades at all), this is clearly a case of "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."
Or is this simply purchasing a nice post-government job with the taxpayer's money?
Either way it isn't plan worth supporting, no matter how important broadband expansion is. Or rather, "especially because broadband expansion is important".
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#8> Pai is proposing an ambitious program whereby the FCC could expand corporate subsidies for building networks while scaling back regulations that, he said, deter private investment
All hail our corporate overlords. We give you the offer of more money (in the guise of helping consumers of course).
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#9So basically the government will be responsible for the costs of building the thing, but companies will own the monopoly ? and fiber will have a very long monopoly.
This is the reverse of what will be needed in a possible, high-unemployment future: instead of large bills, we need to aim towards extremely low-cost of living(probably by using community owned fiber in this case).
And in general, creating jobs towards that aim, seems like a decent strategy to transition into that high-unemployment world.
Re: Broadband left out of infrastructure goals, and how the FCC wants to fix it
#10I'm cynical that this will bring meaningful improvement. Government has given money to telecoms before, and it's only brought us mediocre service, and brought executives huge paydays. Where's the fiber, Verizon? We (NJ and PA[0]) gave you huge tax cuts 20 years ago for universal fiber service. You and NYC agreed to provide everyone with fiber.[1] Meanwhile, AT&T keeps merging with promises that are meaningless or eve…
I'm fairly sure that Huffpo piece is misinterpreting the context of universal fiber service.
The statutory "minimum for universal broadband availability" was "1.544 megabits per second (Mbps)" in 1996 when Verizon claimed it would increase it to 45Mbps. See 6 Pa. C.S. §3002. 1.544 Mbps is a T1 line.
This strongly suggests that universal broadband availability isn't talking about residential mass market, $49.99 dollars a month, but instead, was about about replacing trunk lines. They weren't promising to give every house 45Mbit.
They were promising to upgrade T1 lines to T3 lines, which coincidentally operate at 44.736 Mbit/s.
This is confirmed by the time frame of these claims. 45Mbit for home house would have been seen as insane for 1996. 56k modems hadn't even been released on the market. AOL had just introduced flat rate pricing. Home networking didn't really even exist. I'm not even sure if FttH was a concept then. Fiber termination was still very expensive (still is really).