5 ms·
You mean the FCC was actually trying before? /sarcasm In all seriousness, we’ve poured billions of dollars into broadband expansion efforts since the early 200
by stego-tech 1y ago
You 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 agoAs an HN viewer I keep giving WTFs every time HNers discuss potential solutions to problems without even considering how other places solved them. It's not just an american media problem. Plenty of people here calling for municipal broadband ignoring what worked in other countries.
- deburo 1y agoI was thinking the same thing until I learned about the high speed train plans California had (and still have?) and just how much of a disaster it is. It’s a red tape issue and nobody at the policy level seems to care to fix it.
- rsynnott 1y agoAmerican exceptionalism is odd, in that sometimes it is "we are better than everyone else", but sometimes it is "we can't have the nice things that all other rich countries have, because [nonsense reason]". A popular one is 'density', and, okay, maybe this is somewhat true if you're talking about, say, Wyoming (though I think not as true as people often think), but California, for instance, has an only slightly lower population density than _France_, and at that point "we can't have proper transport/telecoms/whatever because density" is just an excuse, and not a convincing one.
- vondur 1y agoThere are vast parts of California that are pretty much empty. However, the lack of competition in broadband at the consumer level does suck.
- rsynnott 1y agoI mean, same goes for France, tho.
- genewitch 1y agocalifornia is ~160,000mi^2 and france is ~244,000mi^2 (423 megameters squared, 632 megameters squared, metric), the population density, respectively, is 251/mi^2 and 281/mi^2. You're comparing an entire country to a single state (2% of the US states, in fact.) I like to point stuff like this out whenever someone compares an entire EU country to some US state. note: i edited the france density, as i did accidentally transcribe the wrong value. France is slightly denser per sqkm.
- gotoeleven 1y agoSorry can't hear you over my air conditioner.
- glzone1 1y agoThe billions spent on rural broadband excluded Starlink as not technically feasible. Many other billions have the same issues - I think no one knows how to actually hoover this the way the big co's do? We've had much faster broadband happening because of commercial competition from scrappy startups and WISPS and fiber folks (think sonic) I think something like 94% of RDOF/BEAD locations in california were defaulted (ie, awarded but customer actually never got service)? It's crazy given the 100+ billion or so spent on USF / RDOF / BEAD / etc that they couldn't do $5b - $10b for something like starlink which at least in rural areas is able to serve folks pretty quickly and push hard on that for a bit. The unsubsidized commercial starklink services is already outcompeting the insanely subsidized buildouts (that cost insane amounts per person). Starlink was awarded the funds but then they were revoked.
- tzs 1y agoStarlink didn't get RDOF funding because RDOF required a minimum of 100/20 Mbps, and Starlink failed to meet that in too many rural locations.
- NegativeLatency 1y agoAlso community/municipal owned broadband is illegal in many places thanks to lobbying from the big telcos: https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...
- josefritzishere 1y agoThis is almost the greater crime. Federal action on this should protect municipal wifi. Instead we get... this.
- thesuitonym 1y agoI live in a place with a municipal telco, and let me tell you, it is night and day. The service is top notch, and it always just works to the point where on the rare occasion that they do have a problem, I spend hours trying to figure out what's wrong with my equipment, because it happens so rarely. It costs more than the local cable company, because the price you pay is actually what it costs to deliver the service, but there are never any wild swings in prices, and when service gets cheaper, you just get upgraded for no additional cost. I wish all companies worked this way.
- jorts 1y agoSonic in the Bay Area is similar and provides amazing quality and customer service. They also support net neutrality. I hate the big telcos.
- db48x 1y agoYea, Sonic.net is amazing. I definitely recommend them if you are in their service area. Sadly they have been really slow to expand their fiber service, probably because they started in San Francisco, home of the NIMBY. Ziply Fiber is another ISP that I can wholeheartedly recommend. They have service all over the north west states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho (though still not _everywhere_). Like Sonic.net, their quality of service is excellent. No congestion, very limited downtime, no bandwidth caps. They’ve even posted pictures of the accidents that have caused downtime. Most recently that was damaged battery banks that released enough hydrogen gas to shut down and evacuate a central office. Before that it was a drill that took out a fiber bundle; cue pictures of the engineers splicing all the individual fibers back together. We need more local ISPs, municipal or otherwise.
- tb_technical 1y agoMunicipal broadband is such a great idea - but it's as hard, if not harder, to convince a city council to pursue this over adding a simple bicycle lane to a small street downtown.
- SoftTalker 1y agoCities know how to build roads. They don't know shit about operating high speed broadband. My taxes keep going up because the city keeps taking on more and more responsibilities that (a) they don't know how to provide and (b) isn't really their responsibility to provide.
- HWR_14 1y agoMany states forbid municipalities from offering broadband without approval from the legislature.
- Figs 1y agoIf I've learned anything from the last decade of politics, the proper solution to that nonsense is to give them the middle finger and do it anyway.
- wmf 1y agoAFAIK most of the RDOF money was awarded to smaller ISPs and there are supposed to be penalties for not delivering.
- lbcadden3 1y agoCan’t penalize a company that disappears.
- imglorp 1y agoRural broadband mandates were just welfare for the big carriers. There was never intended to be any results or accountability. Consumers have been paying into the fund since 1997 and for that we got richer carriers and a pocketful of bupkiss.
- complianceowl 1y agoThe lobbyists shutting down any attempts at municipal broadband development for so many years is such a catastrophe. 1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is the root of all evil []"
- apex3stoker 1y agoYes. When Democratic Party controlled the federal government, they tried to. It is generally hard to do because it requires funding and passing laws. Another difficulty is that voters don’t reward Democratic Party for their efforts. It is very easy for Republican Party to revert the changes. Moreover their donors reward the republican politicians for their efforts and their voters don’t punish them for their efforts.
- RRWagner 1y ago+1 and more to this. Democrats are not good at all at letting voters know what they have done for them. In California that Republicans love to hate, we have clean air, free beaches, more protections from corporate predation, and so much more. Republicans are better at complaining and spreading fear, which sadly is a lower-energy and more effective method for getting votes.
- SR2Z 1y ago> Another difficulty is that voters don’t reward Democratic Party for their efforts. It is worth noting that the Biden admin passed a $42B package of broadband rollout funds in 2021, and then connected ZERO people over the next few years. This is because special interest groups saddled it with environmental, union, and DEI requirements that were so onerous that nobody was able to actually get/use the funds. Yes, Democrats plan to do the right thing, but frankly they should be penalized for boondoggles like this. Until the party can sideline its special interest groups to get things done, it's not as simple as "Democrats good, GOP bad." [1] https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-42-billion-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-42-...
- apex3stoker 1y agoThat was an illegal move done by Trump. Biden administration proposed regulations for the conditions of the funding and allow states to apply for it. The regulations went through the necessary process to become final and the states went through the work to fulfill the requirements and the fundings were approved to go out of the door based on the trenches. Trump administration illegally impounded the funding. This has been disallowed for decades but sadly the republican political appointees at the supreme court is allowing him.
- Yeul 1y agoOther countries have private enterprises rolling out broadband so I think the difference here is good old fashioned corruption.
- dsr_ 1y agoIf you're planning on moving, this list might influence where you want to go: https://broadbandnow.com/municipal-providers https://broadbandnow.com/municipal-providers
- cogman10 1y agoThe rural telco situation is pretty good. In fact, better in many cases than what you get in larger cities. The issue is there's some perverse incentives at play with the grant monies. For brand new neighborhoods you can expect state of the art internet being available. However, after it's installed, you can expect it to be simply locked in place with no upgrades. A major problem comes down to easements. If there's a utility pole nearby then some federal regulations make it super easy for a utility to just add their line onto the existing pole. There are access guarantees. However, if no pole exists then you are looking at buried lines. That means each time you want to cross someone's driveway or property you need to reach out to the existing owner to negotiate access. Some people are easy to work with, others will just flat out deny access. (The BLM, for example, is notoriously hard to work with for placing underground utilities. As are a few big churches). The US, frankly, has the wrong model. Leaving everything up to private companies is what creates all these problems. The companies have absolutely no way to guarantee a route for service and they have little skin in the game to run an update. At a bare minimum, the better model is to make utilities public (at very least the lines themselves.) That gives the government a powerful ability, the ability to claim eminent domain to cram through any improvement they need. You could still have private ISPs, but you can relegate their roles to just running the equipment (switches, routers, etc) rather than doing all the additional line management work.
- socalgal2 1y agoIn Japan it was competition that fixed this. The government did something (not sure what) but it was not "funding municipal broadband". I'd say one thing to do is outlaw the contracts that let governments only approve a single provider. It was Softbank that brought the competition. In 2001 they started offering 1meg connections for $20 a month. The competition cost 10x. Softbank had aggressive marketing too, putting up booths at neighborhood train stations where they could sign you up and hand you a device on your way home. The competition lowered their prices to match within a couple of months. Softbank doubled the speed to 2meg, same price. The same pattern. The competition matched price within a few weeks. Softbank raised their speed to 8meg. repeat. AFAICT it all finally settled (25 years later). Currently $40 for 1gig fiber or $60 for 10gig fiber or $50 for https://www.softbank.jp/internet/sbhikari/ https://www.softbank.jp/internet/sbhikari/ And NTT is competitive https://flets.com/ https://flets.com/
- quickthrowman 1y agoIt’s probably important to mention that Japan is half the size of Texas, or roughly 5% of the area of the lower 48 states. Japan has a population density that is 8 times higher than the lower 48 states.
- db48x 1y agoIrrelevant. Competition fixes everything, and local monopolies prevent that competition.
- spauldo 1y agoCompetition is great except when it isn't. Rural customers get screwed because they're not worth the effort. You'll spend more money running fiber to them than you'll ever get back, and that's before you take competition into consideration. Back when we had the AT&T monopoly the government forced them to serve rural customers. It was subsided by a small fee on every phone bill. That carried over to the baby Bells because they were local monopolies. The problem is, no one has land lines anymore and no companies are willing to take on the last mile problem without a hefty incentive. Being the broadband monopoly is part of that incentive. I argued for years that the AT&T breakup was done in the stupidest way possible. Put the natural monopoly - the last mile - on its own and regulate the hell out of it like we did AT&T. Then allow competition to run the service on top of those connections. We started in that direction but lost our way somewhere.