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> You don't need fiber to access Wikipedia, submit job applications, etc. You do need a decent, reliable connection to access video-based educational materials

> You don't need fiber to access Wikipedia, submit job applications, etc. You do need a decent, reliable connection to access video-based educational materials (which form the bulk of many MOOCs), and more so to watch livestreamed conferences and tutorials. Do you plan to force mobile phone networks to provide virtually-unlimited bandwidth on top of supporting tethering when they're already struggling with physical bandwidth issues as it stands? The rest of the developed world manages to provide high-speed (>50Mbps) Internet to at least almost the full population of their major cities (ignoring rural areas for now), with plenty of competition, so I don't really see why the US can't.

rayiner 12y ago
The bandwidth used by a whiteboard + audio stream is minimal. The government could easily pay market rates for the requisite wireless bandwidth.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > The bandwidth used by a whiteboard + audio stream is minimal. Might be the case in theory, but I've yet to get a WebEx or Youtube live stream working reliably over 3G from my own home. Paying market rates doesn't help when the infrastructure is already struggling to deal with current, unsubsidised load. 3G/4G based Internet is a dead end in reality, barring huge technical leaps.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Existing 4G networks are plenty fast for educational streaming, and the additional load from a few subsidized users watching MOOCs isn't going to break the bank. Take a place like downtown Wilmington, DE, the kind of city that would be a key target for such a program. On T-Mobile, I'd regularly get 8-15 mbps. Your argument ignores a key demographic statistic: 80% of people below the poverty level already have cell phones, while under 60% have computers.[1] Given trends in PC-use, that disparity is going to increase, not decrease. Subsidizing cell phones is a much better fit for the social trends in poor communities. [1] http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-americans-poverty-typically-have-cell-phones-computers-tvs http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census....

rayiner 12y ago

The bandwidth used by a whiteboard + audio stream is minimal. The government could easily pay market rates for the requisite wireless bandwidth.

vertex-four 12y ago
> The bandwidth used by a whiteboard + audio stream is minimal. Might be the case in theory, but I've yet to get a WebEx or Youtube live stream working reliably over 3G from my own home. Paying market rates doesn't help when the infrastructure is already struggling to deal with current, unsubsidised load. 3G/4G based Internet is a dead end in reality, barring huge technical leaps.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Existing 4G networks are plenty fast for educational streaming, and the additional load from a few subsidized users watching MOOCs isn't going to break the bank. Take a place like downtown Wilmington, DE, the kind of city that would be a key target for such a program. On T-Mobile, I'd regularly get 8-15 mbps. Your argument ignores a key demographic statistic: 80% of people below the poverty level already have cell phones, while under 60% have computers.[1] Given trends in PC-use, that disparity is going to increase, not decrease. Subsidizing cell phones is a much better fit for the social trends in poor communities. [1] http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-americans-poverty-typically-have-cell-phones-computers-tvs http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census....