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FCC: Rural U.S. Broadband Still Stinks
26.2 Million Citizens Can't Get Anything Faster Than 3 Mbps

The FCC and The Department of Agriculture this week released their latest rural broadband report, which not surprisingly finds that rural broadband speed and coverage still lag significantly behind other parts of the country. According to the report, roughly 26.2 million U.S. residents don't have access to broadband at speeds of at least 3Mbps. 73 percent of those users live in rural areas, where they're often served by rural phone companies in monopoly or duopoly markets. Such companies are losing traditional landline customers (and by proxy revenues) in droves, and often lack the resources or motivation to provide next-generation connectivity.

"While we have made significant progress, the report shows that approximately 28 percent of rural residents still lack access to the kind of broadband that most Americans take for granted," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a statement. "That is not acceptable, and it's why the FCC has launched major initiatives to overhaul our universal service system, free more spectrum, and reduce barriers to broadband deployment. These efforts will help ensure that high-speed Internet can connect rural communities to global markets, jobs, and world-class education and health care."

Unmentioned by the FCC boss is that incumbent ISPs are still erecting roadblocks for towns and cities trying to wire themselves with next-generation broadband, even in instances where the private sector is unwilling to. Also unmentioned is the fact the FCC hasn't taken any substantive action to improve broadband competition, contributing to stagnant upgrades and deployment. The FCC's recently released Broadband Progress Report concluded there was very little progress in broadband deployment over the last year, and for the second year in a row stated that broadband in the U.S. is not being deployed "in a timely fashion."
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tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

core reasons

at&t, comcast, century tel block any competition
polticians sell monopolies to the highest bidder
municipalities seem to think that being rural and getting away from it all includes no broadband and/or cell phone service is something that's "cool" and a selling point-- good luck with that.

baineschile
2600 ways to live
Premium Member
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI

baineschile

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

said by tmc8080:

at&t, comcast, century tel block any competition
polticians sell monopolies to the highest bidder
municipalities seem to think that being rural and getting away from it all includes no broadband and/or cell phone service is something that's "cool" and a selling point-- good luck with that.

This might be the lamest repsonse ever. I have an idea....go to a rural area, and count how many restruants there are per square mile. Then, go to NYC, and count how many restruants there are per square mile.

NYC will have more; why? BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE, AND BUSINESS' TARGET AREAS THAT THEY CAN SELL MORE IN. When you move to a rural area, there are some advantages over a more urban area; generally cleaner, more house for the money, more land, less traffic; one of the trade offs is there is generally no competition commercially. Maybe one movie theater, 2 or three restruants, etc. That's just how it is, as I have lived in both areas.

If an ISP thought it would be profitable to wire an area, they would do it. Competition has nothing to do with this argument. ISPs make agreements with the municipalities, and they do have certain addendums where they dont have to service every home, as well it should be. If someone choses to buy a house a rural area, they should make sure a decent ISP can get there, if its really important to them.

There are always options of the sat-co broadband providers. They dont have the same costs associated with the wire guys. Maybe the solution is develop some program where if a wired company wont go to your home, you can get the sat-co broadband; and the government can either subsizide those funds, or give some funds to the sat-cos to improve their speeds.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

ISPs make enough money to wire this country three times over with fiber. They won't because it'd hurt the mythical bottom line.

People who defend ISPs staunch stance against wiring rural areas with decent speeds are heavily deluded. Yes, the you might have to eat the initial investment.. but who is really hurt here? The ISPs will make that drop in the pond back tenfold in a manner weeks and gain customers.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

Wow, PDOOMA much?

The bottom line most definitely isn't mythical. Is yours? Also, with a 1000% ROI in a matter of weeks, it's unfathomable as to why these silly ISPs haven't built the infrastructure yet
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

said by openbox9:

Wow, PDOOMA much?

The bottom line most definitely isn't mythical. Is yours? Also, with a 1000% ROI in a matter of weeks, it's unfathomable as to why these silly ISPs haven't built the infrastructure yet

Wow, really? What kind of world are you living in where the monetary drop in the pond it'd take to get rural communities going would at all hurt companies worth millions, perhaps billions?

Excuse me for not playing the woe is the telco card. I have personal experience in trying to get a WISP going and it was a nightmare of redtape and local telco and cable blockading everything.

Prices from other markets and the fact America is largely a duopoly of cable and DSL/fiber, along with TV price hikes, well. They'd more than make up that investment in giving a scattering of people access to speeds above 3MB.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

1 edit

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

How exactly do you define a "monetary drop in the pond"? Apparently the government has wasted billions on encouraging buildouts with little to show. Granted, private industry could likely do it more efficiently, but it's not a "drop in the bucket".

I'm sure you realize the significant differences of wireless providers versus wireline, so I'm not sure your point there except to suggest that starting a business is challenging.

My point is that a lot of people appear disillusioned as to how much money infrastructure projects can cost.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

It isn't the government's fault that the corporations evaporated the funds they were given.

Private industry? Don't make me laugh. If it were up to them, we wouldn't even have 768K download speeds.

Why do you feel the government is to blame and not the people wasting the money they were given? You don't want the government telling them how to spend taxpayer money, yet it's the government's fault they wasted it?
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

What? It's not the government's fault that regulators failed in their responsibilities? It's not the governments fault for continuing to drop money left and right with no accountability or return on investment? Accountability, accountability, accountability.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

Then where's the accountability of the corporations who wasted the money?
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

Ask your elected officials and their appointed regulators.
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina to slynerve

Member

to slynerve
Let's say you are a subdivision trustee responsible for making sure the common grounds in the subdivision are mowed. You contract with a neighborhood kid. He sends bills, which you regularly approve for payment, but he never mows anything. In fact you learn that he has subcontracted the job and they mowed once and then never again because the kid didn't pay them. The kid keeps sending bills and you keep approving them for payment.

Who do the subdivision members hold accountable for wasted funds and overgrown common grounds?
public
join:2002-01-19
Santa Clara, CA

public to slynerve

Member

to slynerve
said by slynerve:

said by openbox9:

Wow, PDOOMA much?

The bottom line most definitely isn't mythical. Is yours? Also, with a 1000% ROI in a matter of weeks, it's unfathomable as to why these silly ISPs haven't built the infrastructure yet

Wow, really? What kind of world are you living in where the monetary drop in the pond it'd take to get rural communities going would at all hurt companies worth millions, perhaps billions?

Excuse me for not playing the woe is the telco card. I have personal experience in trying to get a WISP going and it was a nightmare of redtape and local telco and cable blockading everything.

Prices from other markets and the fact America is largely a duopoly of cable and DSL/fiber, along with TV price hikes, well. They'd more than make up that investment in giving a scattering of people access to speeds above 3MB.

In Australia the cost on national fiber to over 90% citizens has been put at $40billion, or about the cost of 20 weeks of Iraq war.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na ··· _Network

Meanwhile here anti technology ATT offers dialup. Even police gangs are unhappy.

Some Arizona Department of Public Safety computers remain on dial-up:

"The dial-up internet connection is extremely slow and inconsistent, .06 megabits per second. There are often two officers sharing this slow connection, which makes for even slower speeds and less consistent service. Some of the videos on the intranet and training sites are five, ten or even fifty megabytes, which means it often takes from four to twenty hours to download some of the videos and files necessary for training or other work related items"


battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to slynerve

Member

to slynerve
" I have personal experience in trying to get a WISP going and it was a nightmare of redtape and local telco and cable blockading everything."

You are doing something wrong considering how many WISPs exist today to serve rurual America.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

I didn't do anything wrong. I was blocked by foot stamping and tantrums because I wanted to lay fiber to the sites where I intended to build towers.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: core reasons

Are you / were you a CLEC?

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker to openbox9

Premium Member

to openbox9
said by openbox9:

Wow, PDOOMA much?

The bottom line most definitely isn't mythical. Is yours? Also, with a 1000% ROI in a matter of weeks, it's unfathomable as to why these silly ISPs haven't built the infrastructure yet

Major POTS build outs ended a long time ago. So where is the USF going?

USF could have paid for universal fiber 20 times over, yet it just vanishes into thin air.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

I agree. It needs to go away. We've been soaked by wasteful taxation long enough.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: core reasons

said by openbox9:

I agree. It needs to go away. We've been soaked by wasteful taxation long enough.

I'd rather the ISPs pay back the last 15 years of USF fees and the $200 billion in tax grants they received as per the '96 Telecom Act. Then use that money to buy up the copper lines and build out FTTH.
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina

Member

Re: core reasons

Why the hell would we want to buy the copper lines instead of just running new fiber and letting the copper rot?
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: core reasons

So that we wouldn't have infrastructure competition with private ISP incumbents. If taxpayer money went to build a new FTTH network, you'd want to maximize the revenue rather than split it in half to support the bonuses of CEOs.
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina

Member

Re: core reasons

So fiber is concerned about competition from copper? For the moment, forget the capabilities delta, doesn't the cost of maintaining copper vs. fiber eliminate the competitive threat?

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to DataRiker

Premium Member

to DataRiker
said by DataRiker:

I was more concerned with the Inaccuracy of your post that strongly implied KADO used GOV money to build out Infrastructure.

I also like your minimization of the USF. Might want to rethink that position.

"I also like your minimization of the USF."
Why it seems like only yesterday SOMEONE thought that point didn't fit their argument, while today it is their central point. Perhaps He forgot.

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

1 edit

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

said by tshirt:

"I also like your minimization of the USF."
Why it seems like only yesterday SOMEONE thought that point didn't fit their argument, while today it is their central point. Perhaps He forgot.

English 101

When somebody says you minimized a point, they think it is more important than you have implied.

Which means I think it is more central to my point.

Grothendieck
Premium Member
join:2002-07-28
Miami, FL

1 edit

Grothendieck to slynerve

Premium Member

to slynerve
It can be understood that ISPs don't wire every house if there's not enough potential buyers to justify the cost, as you have stated.

However, how do you justify the fact that ISPs shoot down every proposal by other entities to wire the same places they refuse to wire?
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina

Member

Re: core reasons

Is that "bad" ISPs or is it ineffective and broken government?

Corporations don't work outside the law. They work with the law and law makers to their advantage. They are obligated to do so for their stock holders. The fact that our government lets them do this isn't their fault. If their protection tactics (i.e. "...shoot down every proposal..") didn't work, someone else would wire it, they would wire it or the community would form a coop to wire it.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

You're wrong. Why are you completely ignoring the fact incumbent ISPs will us every trick to block community broadband? Sure, co-ops work sometimes and WISPs are far from a rarity, but the fact is that when incumbents can, they do block any alternatives.

And again: we demand government accountability, but a common thread in this countty is to keep government out of the private sector.. so, who exactly is going to hold them accountable for literally squandering millions?
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina

Member

Re: core reasons

I'm not ignoring any facts. What you call "tricks" I called working within the law and with lawmakers to their advantage. This is no different than attorneys who specialize in bringing class action lawsuits against companies and walk away with millions while customers end up with a $20 credit on their next bill.

The government has created a business and legal environment that allows these tactics to succeed and they need to reform it so that some or all of these "tricks" are either ineffective or illegal. This doesn't mean the government is involved in the private sector. This simply means the government changes the rules to encourage competition rather than allowing incumbents to bring rapid-fire lawsuits against competitors.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to slynerve

Member

to slynerve
Care to share source of the data that says ISP's can wire the country 3 times over with fiber?

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

said by battleop:

Care to share source of the data that says ISP's can wire the country 3 times over with fiber?

Agreed.

If we include not just USF but all gov grants for broadband, its more like 10 times over. All wasted.

ansar
Search for HighSpeed
join:2004-12-10
Utica, MS

ansar to baineschile

Member

to baineschile
What about the Universal Slush Fund? I would love to have all the money back that I have paid into it over the years.

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: core reasons

said by ansar:

What about the Universal Slush Fund? I would love to have all the money back that I have paid into it over the years.

+1

The Universal Slush Fund just evaporates into thin air.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080 to baineschile

Member

to baineschile
Your argument might have some weight if AT&T and Comcast have not spent MILLIONS to protect various "RURAL" and low density "SUBURBAN" communities from having a 3rd carrier.

Why telecom and cablecom do what they do to ensure monopoly or duopoly status is somewhat more complicated than your density and geography ROI factors. AT&T and COMCAST have both spent money to keep competitors out of markets where these two companies lacked resources to build broadband. Municipalities have decided to build their own network (or partner with companies) only to be stopped by political sellouts who pass legislation to halt or highly regulate 3rd wire competitors from entering the marketplace.

Nevertheless, I still find the "MOVE" incentive very telling.. if a community lacks this infrastructure it will be left behind will suffer for it. The majority of the population lives in major metro areas (or within about 400 miles of one). Nobody's saying North Dakota should have the same number of miles of fiber optics as New York, but why not ONE chunk of wires going into each town? Once these rights of way are established they can be expanded. There are still communities with little to no wired telecom infrastucture. Cellcos could be a decent alternative, but pricing is somewhat stagnant because of the att/tmobile merger.

Broadband is somewhat important to the forum goers here (at least).. and if they could, they'd probably consider moving to get better access or choice of providers who compete.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: core reasons

Of course communities without broadband will suffer. But who cares? The people in the city have broadband and that's all that matters. Crab mentality.

And we need to stop government initiatives to improve the country at all costs. Why, tax dollars shouldn't go to improving things.

It's like we're blaming a person who was sold a faulty lock for getting robbed instead of blaming the thieves and the company who knowingly put out a bad product.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray to tmc8080

Member

to tmc8080
said by tmc8080:

Your argument might have some weight if AT&T and Comcast have not spent MILLIONS to protect various "RURAL" and low density "SUBURBAN" communities from having a 3rd carrier.

Why telecom and cablecom do what they do to ensure monopoly or duopoly status is somewhat more complicated than your density and geography ROI factors. AT&T and COMCAST have both spent money to keep competitors out of markets where these two companies lacked resources to build broadband. Municipalities have decided to build their own network (or partner with companies) only to be stopped by political sellouts who pass legislation to halt or highly regulate 3rd wire competitors from entering the marketplace.

Broadband is somewhat important to the forum goers here (at least).. and if they could, they'd probably consider moving to get better access or choice of providers who compete.

AT&T and Comcast are well within their rights to prevent illegal government takings. Legitimate private for-profit 3rd wired competitors are not prohibited from entering the marketplace, and they are no more regulated than the incumbents.

glyder
@centurytel.net

glyder to tmc8080

Anon

to tmc8080
i live in rural missouri.mediacom,centurylink,socket and tranquility that i can recall.granted the last two ride ctl's copper.so how many would it take to make you happy.
glyder

glyder to tmc8080

Anon

to tmc8080
socket and tranquility ride ctels lines here.also mediacom has most of the cable subs.charter is here but small in this area.
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve to tmc8080

Member

to tmc8080
No. I co-own a computer repair shop and had the backing of other local businesses in the finacial side of things. Again: it was not any error on my end. It was blockading from incumbent ISPs.
slynerve

1 edit

slynerve to tmc8080

Member

to tmc8080
Wow. So, they aren't tricks or underhanded because they were within the law? And because they were within the law, they should be exempt from accountability or scorn?

As for third party carriers.. really? You need to be private company with tons of money to throw around if you want to compete with either the telco or cable? That's completely absurd.
Arty50
Premium Member
join:2003-10-04

Arty50

Premium Member

Thank, Julius!

"'While we have made significant progress, the report shows that approximately 28 percent of rural residents still lack access to the kind of broadband that most Americans take for granted,' said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a statement."

Someone should tell Mr. Genachowski that I live in a nice neighborhood 5-6 blocks away from downtown in a city of 400,000+ and the best I can get from AT&T is 3M. Thankfully, I guess, Charter offers much faster service; but then I'm essentially dealing with a monopoly for "the kind of broadband that most Americans take for granted." The entire broadband landscape in the US is a joke. It's not just a rural problem.

••••••••••••••
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

1 edit

1 recommendation

openbox9

Premium Member

Actual report located at

»transition.fcc.gov/Daily ··· 77A1.pdf

Count up the billions of dollars thrown at this "problem" and then look at the relatively small percentage increases in service subscriptions from 2009 to 2010.
ShellMMG
join:2009-04-16
Grass Lake, MI

ShellMMG

Member

28%??

I'll bet that figure is a LOT higher than 28%.

What a lot of small mom-and-pop WISPs face is red tape. In my case, Great Lakes High Speed has a new antenna ready to go "any moment now," but Jason is being held up by the bureaucracy. Because there's no public land available (it's all state recreational or privately owned), he's dependent on individual landowners to allow the placement of small towers. The landowners are willing and more than happy to help because +75% of the township desperately would like to dump satellite, but TPTB at the government office don't know how to zone it. Jason is getting a three-legged runaround that he *hopes* to have resolved...you guessed it..."any day now."

In the meantime, Frontier is still planning to bring DSL. I got a mailing offering $14.99 for 1Mb down combined with phone, but it's not available yet and deployment is scheduled in September.

And I'm not even really rural.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

2 edits

Transmaster

Member

Re: 28%??

There are whole areas in Wyoming and Nebraska where there are people who would sell kidneys for a 3 Mbps connection. I know ranchers in Nebraska that are lucky to have a 14.4 k baud connection, and as bad as it is a satellite system with all of its cost and caps is better.

cableties
Premium Member
join:2005-01-27

cableties

Premium Member

Oxymoron...

Rural Broadband!

Nothing fast about living in the country. You can be rich as crap and not get a fiber line pulled to your home (well, usually as rich folks are cheap b-stards)

Ofcourse, you'll start to see LTE bump outs to the bumpkins. $80/10Gb limits. But that is still far out. And they still have to put backhaul to the transmitters...

Want fast internets? Live in congestion.
Want to live in quiet country, live with dialup-interruptus!

•••••

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

Member

about the rural broadband.

Well see I am trying to get my small WISP going here because the other 2 wisp in my area just blows with crappy service. Its also hard to find any open land to place any towers so I am going to start contacting some local farmers to see if I can use small section of there land to place some towers up.
travelguy
join:1999-09-03
Bismarck, ND

travelguy

Member

Re: about the rural broadband.

I've considered the same, but you are going to have two problems: Who are you going to get backhaul from and have you looked at what your ISP is going to charge you?

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

Member

Look at TWBC small business if you have them for cable operator. For 15/2 is 289 a month switch they just upgraded to DOCSIS 3 in my area so for 26 dollars more I can get 35/5.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

That's not all.

There are probably another 26.2 Million U.S. citizens who are still dreaming of 3 Mbps internet, and would be happy with such an advanced connection.

hyphenated
@bellsouth.net

hyphenated

Anon

Re: That's not all.

And probably some of us are still dreaming of a "reliable" ~3 Mbps connection.
joeMI
join:2006-08-15
Mcmillan, MI

joeMI

Member

3Mbps? I wish.

We can only get 26K dial up from AT&T unless we fork over $780 per month for a 1.5Mbps T1.

Personally, all muni's should keep wiring and tell the judges that they'll stop when AT&T commits to upgrades. What are they going to do, put the whole town in jail?

Camaro
Question everything
Premium Member
join:2008-04-05
Westfield, MA

Camaro

Premium Member

Re: 3Mbps? I wish.

said by joeMI:

What are they going to do, put the whole town in jail?

Shhh stop giving the uneducated any ideas. On a serious point that comment made my night thanks.

ruralsub
@mymmode.com

ruralsub

Anon

Does wireless count?

Depends how you interpret true broadband and rural. I have both a 1Mbps WISP connection and a HSPA+ connection where I live. That being right next door to a rice field in the middle portion of Louisiana. I have accepted the fact that I will never see DLS or Cable access.

Uterus Madri
@frontiernet.net

Uterus Madri

Anon

That's not such a bad speed

3 Mbps is what I've gotten from Verizon/Frontier for years.
The alternative is Suddenlink, which is twice as fast but unreliable.
I can download everything I want pretty quickly.
I've had the service pegged full-tilt since I got it.
This DSL still "feels" like broadband.
I don't stream any movies, though.

••••
phazah
join:2004-05-02
Findlay, OH

phazah

Member

rural us broadband

Why should I attempt to go above 3mbps....
im capped at 150GB, why go higher and risk paying outrageous overage charges....

3mpbs isnt that fast, but at least i can afford it since i wont go over my cap....
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Wasted 700 MHz Wireless

Sigh. The WHOLE POINT of freeing up the 700 MHz band and auctioning off licenses was that the major carriers would expand high-speed 4G to rural areas, providing them with high-speed substitutes to landlines. The centerpoint of Obama's and the FCC's Broadband Plan was to cover 98% of the US with 4G wireless. But now Verizon and AT&T, the holders of 700 MHz spectrum, are CAPPING their services. What is the point of extending wireless service to rural areas when the service is capped at pathetically low limits?

In fact given the low number of users per tower in rural areas, and the fact that Verizon and AT&T own all their own backhaul, why would you even need to cap service at all??? The bandwidth doesn't cost them anything!

Now the FCC is faced with the AT&T and T-Mobile merger. If they approve that behemoth of a disaster, then they've truly abandoned their original mandate.

geeknik
join:2000-04-30
Luther, OK

geeknik

Member

I feel bad for those folks..

I was one of those up until 2006 when AT&T graciously delivered 6mbit DSL to our town of 600 or so people. And as of 2 weeks ago, I've now got 18mbit uverse (internet only, no tv). Town is still about the same size too. =)
chances14
join:2010-03-03
Michigan

chances14

Member

outside village limits

a lot of rural cities have access to broadband. the problem is that nobody outside the village limits can get it. i live 1.5 miles outside of my town, population 4,000 where they have a choice of cable, dsl, good 3g coverage. as soon as you go outside the city limits in any direction, it's a broadband dead zone.

And add insult to injury, i recently got a letter from frontier saying dsl was avaliable after all these years of waiting for semi decent internet. called them and they said it wasn't available. go figure

fish1000
@army.mil

fish1000

Anon

Re: outside village limits

I note that too. Both my phone and cable send me plenty of junk mail saying Broadband internet is available in my area. It isn't. Wish they would use that money spent on mail to expand broadband service.

kpzel1
@logixcom.net

kpzel1

Anon

maybe the truth lies in the facts

with infastructure and water go people. the best possible way to keep unrest at a minium is to centrlize to make assets cheaper to deliver. but we should not think it a conspiracy it is simple GREED and EGO (witch are key components of existance) that have formed our country. don't fool yourself into thinking that the question is answered easly. we are all blinded to the truth by our own needs. LIVE LONG and PROSPER.

vgyfutfhg
@direcway.com

vgyfutfhg

Anon

istill cant get broadband

the only choices i have are satellite dailup or 3g and i live in a semi rural area with neighbors

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
Premium Member
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

1 edit

RR Conductor

Premium Member

Why not an REA for Telecom?

We need to do something like FDR did to get the nation wired up with power in the 1930's, that was known as the Rural Electrification Administration, and it gave power to millions that would otherwise never had it if they'd waited on the power companies to do it themselves. While over 90 percent of populated areas had power by the 1930s, only 10 percent of Rural American's did, and it took that number all the way up to 25% by 1939 alone. Today's Rural Service Utilities was formed when the REA was abolished in 1994.

So, we can get America wired with power, send a man to the moon, build a transcontinental Railroad, why can't we get America wired up to the net as well? This nation can't function without a good railroad system, power or roads, and it will continue to lag behind the world if we don't do something about the net situation. My gosh, we have done AMAZING things in this country, some of which I've named, we are capable of so much, why have we allowed our nation to fall behind, when we used to lead?
slynerve
join:2011-04-11

slynerve

Member

Re: Why not an REA for Telecom?

Those things took government money, and we all know any government spending is wasteful and they can never do anything right. Time and time again, the private sector has shown they can do anything the government can do and...

The above statement is sarcastic, but it's what the majority of this country now believes. Government programs have given us all of the things you've listed, but now we've decided that because people steal from the government that the government is wasteful and to blame instead of the people stealing through vague loopholes and tax breaks.