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FCC abandons efforts to make U.S. broadband fast and affordable
- gnabgib 1y agoDiscussion (272 points, 15 days ago, 207 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44641464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44641464
- ranger_danger 1y agoMaybe in another 20 years my local monopoly will adopt ̶I̶P̶v̶6̶ a technology faster than 6mbps/768k ADSL1.
- alyandon 1y agoWhen I bought my home in 2009 (suburbia in major metro area) - AT&T was offering a whopping 6mbps DSL connection for wired internet. At the end of 2024, they were still only offering 6 mbps DSL. This year - they rolled out fiber. So, it only took 16 years - maybe you'll get lucky.
- Alupis 1y agoIt's always been available - you just have to pay for the install. Get a quote from your local ISP and you'll realize why it took 16 years to bring fiber to your home. I received a near $100k quote to come across the street in a former building... it gets stupid expensive stupid fast.
- fn-mote 1y agoA sewer line is on the order of $10k. Fiber across a street should not be $100k. Maybe municipal regulations make it harder than it seems. I’m curious.
- Alupis 1y agoDepends where you are and where the line needs to be run. Shutting down a busy city road? Gonna be expensive... At our current building, we just had fiber run from an in-ground vault already on premises (but not serving the building) into our MPOE - cost about $18k to go less than 100 yards... majority of-which didn't require boring. My original point was, people want fast internet out in the boonies but aren't willing to pay for it. Few residential customers are going to shell out $600+ a month for fast internet... but that's what's required for the ISP to recoup their construction costs in anything resembling a reasonable time period.
- voakbasda 1y agoWe will pay for it over the course of the years of paying for the service. Plus, the economic benefits of enabling remote production/consumption of digital services probably outweighs the cost by an order of magnitude or two.
- Alupis 1y ago> We will pay for it over the course of the years of paying for the service. Yes, at like $600+ a month over 6 years... you can do the math, it's nasty. > Plus, the economic benefits of enabling remote production/consumption of digital services probably outweighs the cost by an order of magnitude or two ISP's aren't a charity service. Even your municipality cannot afford to run fiber to the boonies.
- rsynnott 1y agoOkay, whatever about ADSL2+, why on earth would anyone still be doing ADSL1? Are they buying the DSLAMs off eBay? Like, I'm legitimately surprised that they can still get the equipment; you'd think it'd be cheaper just to go to ADSL2+. 10 years ago I had ADSL2+ at home (basically due to planning issues; traditionally, urban phone stuff had been hidden underground, and the telecom was having trouble getting planning for VDSL street cabs), and that felt like living in the past back then. ADSL1, today, is absurd.
- esaym 1y agoWith satellite internet from starlink (and I think amazon is attempting their own version?) I don't see how running internet over wires to rural housing could ever be seen as a good expenditure of money. That said, I've always felt satellite internet to be yucky but I'm used to "satellite internet" adding 1000ms to your latency and uploads that actually run over your telephone line. I am curious if good satellite internet will lead to an exodus of people from cities and subdivisions. I actually live in my current house because the place I wanted to build on didn't have any form of internet access. Also, I'm not really aware of anyone that is truly without "internet access" as cell phones have basically filled that area in years ago.
- bdcravens 1y ago> With satellite internet from starlink (and I think amazon is attempting their own version?) I don't see how running internet over wires to rural housing could ever be seen as a good expenditure of money. Couldn't the same be said of expanding the electrical grid, when solar panels and batteries are an option?
- tracker1 1y agoDepending on where you are, that's an entirely valid option IMO... There are lots of houses with septic tanks without centralized sewers.
- LocalH 1y agoSatellite has a lower cap on latency, until we figure out faster-than-lightspeed radio transmission (if that's even possible)
- mxuribe 1y agoUpon reading the latter portion of your comment, a potential story for XKCD comic immediately sprang to mind...something along the lines of a tech person or team invent faster-than-lightspeed technology, but abandon their work on a spacecraft warp-style engines to improve satellite internet....because its just so much easier to make tons of money doing barely the minimum within the ISP monopoly business. lol :-D
- josefritzishere 1y agoThat's par for the course with this administration.
- phkahler 1y agoCan we stop paying those fees for companies to expand broadband since it's not needed any more?
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoNews from 2 weeks ago, lots of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44641464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44641464
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ashwinaj 1y agoContrarian opinion: What exactly is the point of "fast" internet? Most people use the internet for entertainment, people can survive watching Netflix at 1080p/720p, it isn't debilitating. If I'm wrong in my assessment, give me use cases where you require fast internet in a rural area. If the question is cost, I don't see how laying fiber and equipment for hundreds, if not, thousands of miles is a solution to reducing cost (unless it's subsidized by the government). Spending billions on mostly "entertainment" is a waste.
- lenerdenator 1y ago> Most people use the internet for entertainment, people can survive watching Netflix at 1080p/720p, it isn't debilitating. If I'm wrong in my assessment, give me use cases where you require fast internet in a rural area. Lots of desire for more automation and data surrounding agriculture, for starters. More generally, people work through internet applications. If you want to check your email, type up a document, have Zoom calls, etc., you need to do so through the internet. If you don't have fast internet, you can count on being less productive.
- wyre 1y agoNone of those things you listed require internet faster than required to stream Netflix at 1080p.
- lenerdenator 1y agoThat still would be faster than dialup, older generations of satellite internet, and some tiers of DSL service can provide, and there are still areas where those are the options.
- Larrikin 1y agoPeople were perfectly fine with 56k when most of the Internet was just text. Stalling the internet at that speed could have been argued for by saying anyone who wants DSL/Cable at home just wants it for Napster. Fast Internet speeds allow for unthought of innovations. If we get up to terabyte speeds, maybe nobody cares about watching Netflix if we can now have holodecks that become fully immersible experiences that allow for educational training and, to your chagrin, entertainment as well. Maybe LLMs are basically free because everyone can just have all of human content constantly updated. Letting speeds stall stifles innovation and let's Netflix just continually up their prices for the same 720p content you refer to.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- micromacrofoot 1y agonow the regional broadband monopolies can become a global space monopoly
- consumer451 1y agoI am currently on a farm in a very rural area, in a central EU country. 900mbps symmetric, $25/month fiber. The fiber run was subsidized/possibly entirely funded by EU money. > EU support to rural revitalisation through broadband roll-out and smart solutions https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-support-rural-revitalisation-through-broadband-roll-out-and-smart-solutions https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-support-rur...
- msgodel 1y agoIn the US fiber has started to show up in very rural areas now as well. My parents got it last year and I never thought that would happen in my hometown. It's some small company I never heard of before, back when I lived there Verizon got a ton of government money to do this and just never did, everyone was pissed about that.
- consumer451 1y agoIt's a huge difference isn't it? When I used to stay here in the past, the DSL was awful. It made it very annoying to work online. Now, it's as good as back in Seattle.
- msgodel 1y agoOh lol there wasn't even DSL, everyone wanted that. The options were dialup (over ISDN for a while which was one of the best options until that went away), geosynchronous satellite, or LTE if you're even near a tower. That's why I'm so surprised they have fiber all of a sudden.
- connicpu 1y agoStarlink is now kind of a global baseline that ISPs have to compete against regardless of location. In rural areas it's very reasonable to expect 200-400mbps downloads and 20-40mbps uploads for $120/month. A bit pricey but it's a level of service that DSL and GEO sats can't even think about matching, so companies have to build cable, fiber, or 5G towers if they want to have a comparable offering.
- stego-tech 1y agoYou mean the FCC was actually trying before? /sarcasm In all seriousness, we’ve poured billions of dollars into broadband expansion efforts since the early 2000s. Every single time it’s been largely hoovered up by Big Telecoms, failed to expand broadband/improve speeds/lower prices, and basically just gone right to their bottom line as a subsidy. The solution all along has been funding municipal broadband as the baseline for private enterprise to compete against and surpass, but lobbyists have all but killed that dead up until the past ten years or so. You can’t treat broadband as a utility in legal language but not in practice, yet the USA seems perfectly fine with their status quo leaving them a laughing stock of the developed world.
- quantified 1y agoUSA believes it's better than everyone else, it's very inward-looking. It's been quite striking.
- bdamm 1y agoIt really is. I keep wondering when some tiny bit of humility will show up, but it is increasingly like asking Russians to have some humility. Not likely, and sometimes, not possible.
- quantified 1y agoThere is too much religion in the states for the people to be humble.
- deepsun 1y agoYep. As an american I keep giving WTFs every time media discuss potential solutions to problems without even considering how other places solved them. It's like other countries don't exist, or hide their secrets. Not just broadband, but same with healthcare, homelessness, gerrymandering etc. Just copy-paste little by little.
- socalgal2 1y ago
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoI would expect that we can get some press releases that U.S broadband is the fastest and most affordable in the world though.
- db48x 1y agoNo, they didn’t. They decided not to raise the definition of broadband from 100×20 Mbps up to 1Gps. And that’s simply because 100Mbps is actually a lot of bandwidth. We just don’t have any killer applications that need more than 20Mbps. 4K streaming on Netflix, to pick one salient example, only requires 16Mbps. At 100Mbps you can download a 50GB game in just 80 minutes. Sure, it would be nice to have 1Gbps and download the game in 8 minutes, but the definition is about _minimum requirements_, not things that are _nice to have_. As such the definition we have is actually a good one! If every American had broadband according to this definition we will have actually made real progress. Nobody would be stuck on DSL any more, let alone dialup. The FCC is still giving grants to anyone who is installing actual broadband in unserved areas, which means anyone installing cable or fiber in areas that don’t have them. It’s just not requiring that every customer have 1Gbps service in order to qualify.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoAnother side of the coin is no one will ever serve you content at 1gbps. It just won’t happen. I get 500mb down on speedtests and netflix et al regularly throttle me to like 144p quality with constant buffering. I download a game on steam and it throttles to nothing for hours after making some initial good progress.
- saagarjha 1y agoI regularly get software to download at that speed.
- strongpigeon 1y agoI manage to download entire Steam games at 1 gbps just fine. There might be something going on with your ISP.
- assword 1y agoInteresting. Are ISPs known to throttle steam or something. I’ve noticed that steam almost never downloads at the same speed of get doing a speed test. I’ve noticed it many times through out my life, though admittedly I’ve been stuck either way the same ISP across many states.
- Andrex 1y agoThat's fine as long as they unshackle the rules around municipal internet. Get out of our way and we'll build a way better system. Instead it's rules for thee and not for shitty massive telecoms. Hypocrisy is too light a word.
- wnevets 1y agoWith everything that has been happening maybe that is a good thing. We don't need even more people becoming radicalized, becoming flat earthers or pushing raw milk in public schools.
- BlarfMcFlarf 1y agoTalk radio reaches well past broadband. These problems aren’t new, they are just social problems from decades ago finally surfacing.
- wnevets 1y agoThese problems may not be new but they have reached levels this country hasn't seen in decades and there is no sign of slowing down. The availability of cheap AI on the internet isn't going improve anything anytime soon.
- ethagknight 1y agoIt seems like an increased executive mandate on the telcos is an odd thing to cheer for, and im not convinced a mandate from FCC is really necessary any more. The fiber installation (networking, boring, marketing) industry has dramatically expanded, and I would expect telcos to continue installation of fiber to new markets since it's so much cheaper to manage than copper. with the ubiquity of 5g cell networks, the amount of fiber extended in the last decade, and the vast improvements of sat-net... is there a need for every property in the US to receive a fiber connection? FCC isnt giving on up broadband, its cancelling its mandate for expansion, and likely going to delete the cash payouts to telcos as well? The FCC never delivered on AFFORDABLE... telcos have raked it in on that front. In other words, seems like a non-event?
- vondur 1y agoWell, they weren't exactly doing a bang up job with it.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tb_technical 1y agoThe FCC wasn't trying before. We need to put down a law to force network infrastructure companies to compete, like European nations, if we truly want change.
- user94wjwuid 1y agoSooner manned trip to mars than break up the telco monopolies
- lbcadden3 1y agoIt hasn’t been working anyway. It was just more corporate welfare.
- jdhawk 1y agoI have family in very rural east texas. They have 1Gps bidirectional at the hands of EasTex Co-Op spending federal dollars to actually lay fiber across their service area. Lots of them took the money and ran, some jammed it into real infrastructure.
- paul7986 1y agoThere's finally competition in the US home broadband market... *Fixed Wireless players* T-Mobile, Verizon and ATT (tho later two isn't widely available) *Low Orbit Satellite Internet* Starlink *Home Wired Connections* Comcast, Charter, etc I've been bouncing my cell phone service and home broadband around every year per the all the good promotions. Recently on a $40 a month Comcast home broadband (300Mbps) with one free line of unlimited data cell/data service promo. Previously was paying $100 to T-Mobile for Unlimited cell/data service and their fixed wireless service. We are much better nowadays for affordability then a few years ago!
- mlindner 1y ago[flagged]
- BrenBarn 1y ago> Even under an ideal situation where Trump authoritarianism is conquered and some sort of sensible alternative takes office, restoring oversight of companies like Comcast and AT&T — both bone-grafted to our domestic surveillance networks — is never going to be a priority in a Congress that’s now too corrupt to function, under a broken court system that treats corporate power as an unimpeachable deity. Well, that's not the ideal situation. The ideal situation is a wholesale countervailing takeover of power that destroys the broken congress and courts, replaces them with a genuinely responsive government, conducts a large-scale seizure of the assets of the entities and individuals who have profited from this debacle, throws many of them in jail for decades if not life, and then begins to use those assets to rebuild things on a more equitable footing. Now that's less likely than the scenario described in the quote, but the scenario described in the quote is far from "ideal".
- delta_p_delta_x 1y agoThis is hilarious. Just 3 weeks ago I signed up for 10 Gbps symmetrical fibre to the home with XGS-PON, and it costs me US$23/month (naturally, this is not in the US). The only US argument I hear with respect to fibre broadband internet, high-speed rail, good healthcare, and more is 'we're too big!'. At some point it starts being genuinely funny.
- EasyMark 1y agoIf you want to get inside the mind of "Why do this?" for the current administration all you really need to do is ask yourself 2 questions. "Does the right consider this woke?" and "If I was a libertarian billionaire looking out for no one but myself, whatever the price to the public good, what would I decide?" and you will be able to predict with 80% accuracy what they are going to do and their stance on any given situation.
- gtirloni 1y agoI can get 1Gbps up/down in a remote area (close to the fields) in a mid-sized city in Brazil with _zero_ government subsidies. The energy company that owns the poles was required to offer it to anyone that wanted to rent space on them and a dozen different fiber-only ISP's came to life. I understand the US has a lot of pre-existing infrastructure and it's hard to move on (sunk costs) but.. the situation is just insane. If the government just stopped getting bribed and allowed competition, it seems this situation would be solved in a couple of years.