‘There are about 23 million rural Americans who lack basic fixed broadband service in their homes. They are angry at the FCC decision on delaying the deployment of broadband in their rural communities to prioritizes the needs of the well-heeled mobile industry.’
The FCC has no responsibility to deploy broadband service.
If providing such service is profitable, a private interest will step in and provide service.
Putting cable in my area would cost a fortune for the number of customers, so i stopped worrying about that years ago. I use mobile wifi from att. Works like a charm
Some wireless broad band is availabe.
Line of sight, works ok, up to 5 MBS
The charter of the FCC is not to deploy anything. From the FCC's own webpage:
The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the commission is the United States' primary authority for communications law, regulation and technological innovation. In its work facing economic opportunities and challenges associated with rapidly evolving advances in global communications, the agency capitalizes on its competencies in:
As someone who's followed this issue pretty closely, the balancing act here is in line items #1 and #3 above and this is where the debate has been.
IMO, the Wireless Carriers have far too much power and influence into the use of broadband OTA (Over The Air) radio spectrum. The 3.5GHz band really needs to be opened up to competition. There's a shit-ton of innovation happening in this space that will dramatically improve access and speed to everyone across America, independent of where they live.
Legacy landlines, hard-wired cable (Comcast for example) services and others have a vested interest in stifling this innovation because they'll lose money. If you look at the wireless innovations that happen in Asia/Pacific for example, their wireless speeds, bandwidth and capabilities are light years ahead of ours in the U.S. and they pay FAR LESS than we do by comparison.
The FCC has an obligation here to pull back the curtain and expose these new innovations so that they get tried, validated and implemented (or not) to bolster competition and also, improve our country's communications infrastructure.
Just my humble opinion of course.
There is already a well-proven model....it is called the "Rural Electrification Association". Has and is working VERY well to provide electric service in rural areas.
We have rural property. For a mere $10 a gig AT&T provides broadband through a hotspot. Could get it for $1 a gig through Metro PCS but their signal doesn’t reach.
These rule changes sound like AT&T will be locked in.
You're fumbling over your ideology.
I’m rural and don’t hate Trump. I had a land line (POTS) that was so bad I couldn’t even use dial-up internet. Even cellular coverage is unreliable out here. Exede satellite broadband was the answer for me and it covers the entire continental USA.
A local company put up a WiFi tower in my vicinity and my internet got a lot faster and cheaper. But I refuse to listen to a bunch of whiners when satellite broadband is available to them.