ISP Admits Lying To FCC About Size of Network To Block Funding To Rivals (arstechnica.com) 88
Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, last month received an email that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies. From a report: Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, had heard from some of his customers that the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map falsely claimed fiber Internet service was available at their homes from another company called Jefferson County Cable. Those customer reports spurred Grewell to submit a number of challenges to the FCC in an attempt to correct errors in Smart Way's service area.
One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor. "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."
The email is reminiscent of our November 2022 article about a cable company accidentally telling a rival about its plan to block government grants to competitors. Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve." It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions. Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.
One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor. "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."
The email is reminiscent of our November 2022 article about a cable company accidentally telling a rival about its plan to block government grants to competitors. Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve." It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions. Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.
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You're fighting a losing battle trying to change that. Ubiquitously around the world, every single human on the planet, even those born and raised in any other part of North or South America know "American" refers to someone in the USA. You are are Mexican or Brazilian or what every country you are from in the region know as "Latin America". There is not one single Mexican or Canadian national who seriously ever refers to themselves as "American" and you are or someone else you is, you're just confusing
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Have you considered the possibility that your point of view on this is actually US-centric?
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It may be US-Centric, but it is also the truth.
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It may be US-Centric, but it is also the truth.
It's not actually the truth. Many people in other parts of the world think that "American" refers to more than just people from the US. The same is true in the US itself if you look back in the past.
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I am Canadian, so not "US-centric" at all and I agree with the AC's statement above 100%. I used to work overseas with plenty of Brits, Germans, other Europeans, Koreans, Thai, etc: everyone who said "American" meant something or someone from the USofA.
Always.
No exception.
Mind you, I don't know what they might say in their home kitchen with their own family.
No Canadian ever considers themselves to be "American" unless they want a bloody minded argument and just to be a contrarian.
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But have you worked with a lot of South Americans? The entire world is not defined by your personal experience. Consider this, do you think it is "incorrect" for North to be represented as anything other than up on a map as well? Why or why not?
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Oh please. Equating this with a flat Earth viewpoint is just silly. I simply have a different experience of the world than you. Whether it's that I have more experience or just experience with different people than you or perhaps my experience spans a greater time period than yours, I have encountered plenty of people who are not from the US who call themselves Americans.
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If you're wanting to go by continent...you can go by North American, Central American and South American.
North or South. There is no Central American continent.
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Shouldn't you be a United States of American then, by your own logic? Honestly, what makes you think that you think you have the right to dictate this based on what you think is "correct" based only on your own experience? Also, what's with the "feel free not to cross our border..." crap? It makes you sound foolish.
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Where the fuck did you get this? Or, are you just trolling?
We've been happy calling ourselves "Americans" for well over 200+ years.
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I got from my feeling: I'm offended (why not to use "Yankee"?)
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Many tribal groups's names have a meaning in their language as "the people". Outsiders are often named "not the people". It's a language thing. But it also means that when you try to claim "but we're people too!" they may just respond "we've been happily calling ourselves The People for 2000+ years, so get lost you non-person!"
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The word "American" to reference to a US citizen is very offensive
The fact that you want to take offense over this is all on you. No one else cares or has any responsibility to change to address your sensitivity. The USA is the only country with the name America in it. We call ourselves American, and we expect everyone else to as well. Get over it.
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It's not only me: have read many "Americans" that aren't from USA talking about this (even here, on /.)
Nah it usually just Europeans whining about it. I've been all over South America and have never met anyone who calls themselves American unless they're from the US. But while we're on the subject, is anyone who is of Latin descent, as in Spanish, Italian, Romanian, etc and living in the Western hemisphere a Latin American?
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No: "Latin America" is reference to the part of American continent which was colonized by Latin descendant countries (mostly Spain and Portugal)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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No: "Latin America" is reference to the part of American continent which was colonized by Latin descendant countries (mostly Spain and Portugal) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By your same logic though, why can't people from Spain or Italy identify as Latin? They all speak Romance languages and are from Latin descendant countries. And if they're in the western hemisphere, they're American.
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Latin American don't reference this people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Americans [wikipedia.org]
But if they or their descendants live in America, why are they not Latin and American? If someone from South Africa moves to America, are they not African American?
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It's not the way 8 billion other people see it though. Most of them don't care. They certainly don't get triggered if someone not from the US calls themselves "American"
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The fact that you want to take offense over this is all on you. No one else cares or has any responsibility to change to address your sensitivity. The USA is the only country with the name America in it. We call ourselves American, and we expect everyone else to as well. Get over it.
I should point out that the poster you responded to was clearly being facetious.
Aside from that, I also have to note the hypocrisy in your reply. In virtually the same breath, you decry someone getting offended over someone having preferences about who gets called an "American" and then you turn around and act offended that anyone else would call themselves "American" other than people from the US. Please tell me you see that?
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The fact that you want to take offense over this is all on you. No one else cares or has any responsibility to change to address your sensitivity. The USA is the only country with the name America in it. We call ourselves American, and we expect everyone else to as well. Get over it.
I should point out that the poster you responded to was clearly being facetious.
Aside from that, I also have to note the hypocrisy in your reply. In virtually the same breath, you decry someone getting offended over someone having preferences about who gets called an "American" and then you turn around and act offended that anyone else would call themselves "American" other than people from the US. Please tell me you see that?
No, I'm not offended. Just tired of the same stupid conversation.
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No, I'm not offended. Just tired of the same stupid conversation.
That functionally works out to the same thing. Both imply a negative judgement of the intrinsic worth of the other opinion. Your position is ultimately hypocritical no matter what semantic framing you want to use: you want your opinion and convention to be respected and won't respect other people's opinions and conventions regarding a cultural artifact (the name America) that you have no real claim to.
I have to be clear here that I don't think there's much of a prize to be won here. The name America stems f
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No, I'm not offended. Just tired of the same stupid conversation.
That functionally works out to the same thing. Both imply a negative judgement of the intrinsic worth of the other opinion. Your position is ultimately hypocritical no matter what semantic framing you want to use: you want your opinion and convention to be respected and won't respect other people's opinions and conventions regarding a cultural artifact (the name America) that you have no real claim to.
I have to be clear here that I don't think there's much of a prize to be won here. The name America stems from some mapmakers engaging in some self-congratulation several hundred years ago. They applied blanket, narcissistic names to massive landmasses they had only skimmed the contours of. Perhaps it's not much worse than most other place names. Still it's kind of absurd.
They're not the same. Maybe if you had 320 million people from Canada and South America clamoring to be called American you'd have a point. Instead you're comparing the opinions of a tiny minority of people, most of which don't even live on the continent, with the population of an entire country.
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They're not the same. Maybe if you had 320 million people from Canada and South America clamoring to be called American you'd have a point. Instead you're comparing the opinions of a tiny minority of people, most of which don't even live on the continent, with the population of an entire country.
Ah, the majority rules argument. So, if the people of India decided to start calling themselves Americans then you would accept that they're Americans and you aren't? No, of course you wouldn't. You would, I am quite certain, fall back on history. That would not be a bad argument, but it's also the exact same argument that people in South America can fall back on because it was _South_ America that was first called America in maps.
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They're not the same. Maybe if you had 320 million people from Canada and South America clamoring to be called American you'd have a point. Instead you're comparing the opinions of a tiny minority of people, most of which don't even live on the continent, with the population of an entire country.
Ah, the majority rules argument. So, if the people of India decided to start calling themselves Americans then you would accept that they're Americans and you aren't? No, of course you wouldn't. You would, I am quite certain, fall back on history. That would not be a bad argument, but it's also the exact same argument that people in South America can fall back on because it was _South_ America that was first called America in maps.
Most people in South America don't care to identify as simply "American". That was my point. They typically identify with their country or call themselves Latin American. Even people in North American outside of the USA don't typically refer to themselves by continent, but by country or culture. Your analogy about India has nothing to do with this because India doesn't have America in its name and it isn't on an American continent, so its asinine.
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Most people in South America don't care to identify as simply "American". That was my point. They typically identify with their country or call themselves Latin American
See, this sort of thing is why it seems likely to me that your opinion on this is colored too much by your own US-centric biases. It's like tying to deal with someone who simply can't wrap their head around metric units because they're "just not on the right scale to measure real-world things", when the actual problem is that they're just used to imperial units and they think about measurements on a scale that is mentally adjusted for imperial units. To be more clear, you said that they typically identify w
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Honestly, aside from Slashdot I've never once heard anyone refer to themselves as American, unless they were born or residing in the US. And I have actually traveled pretty thoroughly throughout Mexico, South America, and Canada. My point is simply that, at least in the western hemisphere, people tend to identify more with their culture/country than their continent. And if they want to call themselves American, thats honestly fine. But people from the US will continue to refer to themselves as Americans and not USians or USers or whatever other names people outside the country come up with - because it is a unique piece of the name of the country
By and large nothing to agree with here. I certainly don't see any real issue with people from the US calling themselves American. There's a minor concern about namespace overlap but pretty much everyone, everywhere will know what you mean from context anyway, so not really an issue. The only problem I had was with the "American means this, precisely this, only this and never anything else in any other context ever" argument, which is just a special case of the "Word X means this, precisely this, only this
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Honestly, aside from Slashdot I've never once heard anyone refer to themselves as American, unless they were born or residing in the US. And I have actually traveled pretty thoroughly throughout Mexico, South America, and Canada. My point is simply that, at least in the western hemisphere, people tend to identify more with their culture/country than their continent. And if they want to call themselves American, thats honestly fine. But people from the US will continue to refer to themselves as Americans and not USians or USers or whatever other names people outside the country come up with - because it is a unique piece of the name of the country
By and large nothing to agree with here. I certainly don't see any real issue with people from the US calling themselves American. There's a minor concern about namespace overlap but pretty much everyone, everywhere will know what you mean from context anyway, so not really an issue. The only problem I had was with the "American means this, precisely this, only this and never anything else in any other context ever" argument, which is just a special case of the "Word X means this, precisely this, only this and never anything else in any other context ever" argument that I pretty much always argue against when I see it because it is often ignoring a lot of history and information from other contexts, places and times.
Technically, Aluminum was first. Alumunium only came about because the British decided that Aluminum wasn't fancy enough. But yes people in the UK call it Aluminium and Americans call it Aluminum. The difference is they both refer to the same element. People in the US will keep referring to themselves as Americans, and if people from elsewhere on the continent start doing the same, it would be much more confusing since one is a subset of the other.
Actually, aluminium was named by Sir Humphrey Davy, who did actually write it as "aluminium" first, but then he started using "aluminum" and then, only later, changed back to using aluminium. It makes sense with ium, of course, since it is a suffix usually used when denoting a metallic element but that also just means to be derived from and is used in many element names. Examples of ium elements: Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium, Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Gallium, Germanium, Selenium, Rubidium, Strontium, Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Technetium, Ruthenium, Rhodium,Palladium,Cadmium,Indium,Tellurium,Cesium,Barium,Cerium,Praseodymium,Neodymium,Promethium,Samarium,Europium,Gadolinium,Terbium,Dysprosium,Holmium,Erbium,Thulium,Ytterbium,Lutetium,Hafnium,Rhenium,Osmium,Iridium,Thallium,Polonium,Francium,Radium,Actinium,Thorium,Protactinium,Uranium,Neptunium,Plutonium,Americium,Curium,Berkelium,Californium,Einsteinium,Fermium,Mendelevium,Nobelium,Lawerencium,Rutherforium,Dubnium,Seaborgium,Bohrium,Hassium,Meitnerium,Darmstadtium,Roentgenium,Copernicium,Nihonium,Flerovium,Moscovium,Livermorium. So that's 78 elements out of 116 that end with ium. That's fully 2/3rds of them and more if you include Aluminium with the ium prefix instead of um. There seems to be a pattern there. There are some um elements too though. Molybdenum, Lanthanum, Tantalum and Platinum. Then there are the rest without suffixes. Now, there are some others that, in their Latin names, do end with um, such as aurum, but clearly most elements end in ium. In terms of actual scientific standards, aluminium is considered correct. So aluminum is just a US colloquialism.
Actually, in 1808 he suggested calling it alumium, then in 1812 he named it aluminum.
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Actually, in 1808 he suggested calling it alumium, then in 1812 he named it aluminum.
I looked it up because I remembered the details differently. It looks like he did use the ium prefix first, but he actually called it "alumium" first. Then he did change it to aluminum and then editors changed it to aluminium to keep it consistent with other element names. So, my bad there. It wasn't really about it not being fancy enough though, just about keeping it consistent. It is interesting actually, the US does seem to have a thing for enthusiastically dodging scientific standards. Whether it is abo
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Ok, then call it a 200+ year old tradition, eh?
That's what we call ourselves and until extremely recently....everyone else in the world called us Americans too.
So, why not stick with tradition
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Ok, then call it a 200+ year old tradition, eh?
Well, in fact, it goes back more like 450 years or so and referred to anyone from the Americas. Originally, it especially meant native Americans. If you're going to rely on history to make your point, actually look at history.
That's what we call ourselves and until extremely recently....everyone else in the world called us Americans too.
Also not really that historically accurate. Have you ever seen the movie _A League of Their Own_ about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. Notable there is that no-one seems to have a problem with them being called "All American" even though some of them are Canadian.
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Being a citizen of the US of A, this is just the local culture. We are indoctrinated from birth that we are better than everyone else, and everyone else is extremely jealous of how awesome we are. Claiming that others are also "American" is just a lot of griping we are told.
Look, if our country had been called The United Former States of England, it would be stupid to claim we were the only "English". We mostly got stuck with an ambiguous name and the extra helping of jingoism makes many refuse to acknow
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I have encountered US Southerners who like to call people from the "North" "Yankees", but swear up and down that they mean no insult by it. What I find really telling is when someone from the Southern hemisphere calls them Northerners and Yankees (or, usually just Yanks). They tend to get _extremely_ upset being called something they insist is not an insult.
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US Southerners are interesting creatures. They can insult someone viciously and then end with "bless her heart" and it's all forgiven and ok. Just like going to confession.
Re: US is a mess (Score:2)
Shouldn't you be a United States of American then, by your own logic? Honestly, what makes you think that you think you have the right to dictate this
People tend to shorten long names in casual conversation. That's why everyone calls us the USA or America most of the time. Just like how they say "Mexico" instead of "United Mexican States." The only people trying to "dictate" language are the ones trying to make you stop referring to us as Americans.
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People tend to shorten long names in casual conversation. That's why everyone calls us the USA or America most of the time. Just like how they say "Mexico" instead of "United Mexican States."
Or "American" instead of "North American" or "South American". Good rule of thumb. Thanks. Works well.
The only people trying to "dictate" language are the ones trying to make you stop referring to us as Americans.
Well, funny, I thought the person saying "And no, if you are from Brazil, you are Brazilian, if you're from Mexico, you're Mexican." was trying to dictate to the person saying "I'm American too." At the same time I didn't read that first post as trying to dictate what anyone else could call themselves. They certainly were not saying not to refer to people from the US as "Americans", they were just saying th
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What about the United Mexican States? Should we say that all people who are currently calling themselves Mexicans when speaking in English should now refer to themselves as United Mexicans or United Mexican Staters?
That would be the direct analogy if people believe that citizens of a country that has "United" and "States" in its name should always use that designator.
Since we have a USA and a UMS, we'll just use the differentiators. Hence, Americans and Mexicans.
And, if you haven't been tracking official
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What about the United Mexican States? Should we say that all people who are currently calling themselves Mexicans when speaking in English should now refer to themselves as United Mexicans or United Mexican Staters?
Going by Cayenne8's logic, I suppose you should. However, if you go by my logic, then no you shouldn't because, as I hope you will note, I was criticizing Cayenne8's logic. Why would I be beholden to a bad rule specifically because I criticized it for being bad.
Since we have a USA and a UMS, we'll just use the differentiators. Hence, Americans and Mexicans.
Look, I can't help it a country picked a bad name for itself that does not convert easily into a unique name for its people. I mean, the details behind the continents being called North and South America in the first place are pretty ridiculous. Do y
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Then feel free not to cross our border...and pass that around to all around that area.
And no, if you are from Brazil, you are Brazilian, if you're from Mexico, you're Mexican.
See how that works...it's the name of your country.
If from the United States of America, you are American, and it has been that way pretty much since inception of our country up here.
If you're wanting to go by continent [like terms]...yo
Re: US is a mess - but mess misuse is not one of t (Score:1)
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That made no sense whatsoever.
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>China wrecked the economy to rake profits on mass COVID testing
That isn't a thing that happened. Where do people get this misinformation from? That is 100% utter BS.
Lies, lies, and more lies. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're hands are tied (Score:2, Troll)
Biden will likely win in 2024 (Trump is rising in the primary polls rapidly but can't win in the general after Jan 6th, and if he loses he's likely to do a 3rd party run so that he can use his candidacy to shield himself legally). Assuming he lives, but given the quality of
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I wouldn't downplay Trump. Trump has one asset that Biden has, the same asset which got Bush Jr. the Oval Office: The Supreme Court. If the election count is anywhere near close, they will get Trump in. If there are issues with a state election or Republican gerrymandering fails, it will be appealed to SCOTUS which will hand Trump a victory.
Trump may not be a day to day item, but he still has the Republican party under his thumb, because all the people that were not, were primaried out, perhaps via anon
It won't be close (Score:2)
And the economy's doing fine. 2.9% GDP growth and low unemployment. Yeah, lower paid workers are still getting screwed, but they don't vote, on either side. Average Trump voter made $71k/yr average Hilary voter $61
And this behavior won't stop (Score:2)
And this behavior won't stop until people at the top get punished for it. And by "punished" I don't mean "get fired with a golden parachute"
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! (Score:4, Insightful)
A company wants to hobble it's competitors and uses government influence to do so? Who'da thunk it!
Seriously, with subsidy money flying around, no kidding people will lie to get it or lie to keep their competitors from getting it. Lying is bad and ought to have consequences when discovered. But perhaps we should also consider reducing the incentive to lie?
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More like company does not want to see its competitors gifted tax payer funds to strength their market positions.
I am not excusing the lying but this isnt a leveraging government to create entry barriers thing. Which is not say government has not done exactly that too, granting them rights of way to the exclusion of others in the past etc.
However the fact that we have all these federal, state, county broadband build out programs running we are already well and truly down the path of government picking winn
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Ask yourself, if you spent decades building an organically funded network in a region how would feel about the government coming by and handing a potential rival millions of dollars to expand into your territory or even adjacent areas you'd had designs on? Would you feel that its fair? Remember you took the risk building without supports should not be able to reap the rewards of higher prices and your *natural* monopoly?
Firstly, if you don't have fiber service in those areas deployed, functional and serving customers then it is by the rules "not your territory" as it states you can't claim future areas. Just like I can't claim territory in a war without putting troops there. I can say whatever I want belongs to me (I personally claim all of Ohio belongs to me) but it doesn't mean anything. The government here is not giving one companies customers to another company, they are looking at an unserved area and allocating it
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Its your territory if for example you have some kind of service offering there, even if its crappy point to point radio, or ADSL.
it is by the rules
Rules government entities 'made up' for how they wanted to tamper with the market place, certainly not any natural rules.
Like i said I am actually not against the policy here, in terms of supporting broad band build out. All I was saying is if I was an incumbent local telecom owner, and the government was literally handing other people money to compete with me I would probably f
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Its your territory if for example you have some kind of service offering there, even if its crappy point to point radio, or ADSL.
FIber exists alongside those. If i have a bunch of shitty legacy DSL lines and have no installed fiber to replace that should I be allowed to block all competitors from installing fiber if they are ready and able to? I can still sell my DSL lines, the other company is not ripping those out as far as I am aware. If the goal is "more fiber for more residents" then that makes sense. I don't think the goal should be "make sure entrenched company remains sheltered"
certainly not any natural rules.
What are the natural rules? Corporate enti
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Hyperbolic but this ISP in question can't hire 8 year olds to climb poles and replace wires.
No obviously because, minimum working ages apply to all companies across all industries. So it does not trample on the ISPs market. It does certainly trample on the ability to market ones labor if you are 8.
If i have a bunch of shitty legacy DSL lines and have no installed fiber to replace that should I be allowed to block all competitors from installing fiber if they are ready and able to
Of course not absolutely not - but that is 100% not what we are talking about here. We are talking about trying to block SUBSIDIES going to others to do it.
What are the natural rules?
Come now you know what rule, supply, demand, freedom to make agreements, etc. Government is DIRECTLY tampering with the curves here.
If there were pe
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I'm normally on the "free market" side of things, but "I'll build my monopoly when I get around to it someday, and don't you dare serve those people sooner" is just plain offensive and indefensible. Also, "fraud" is not "gaming the system."
Is there any industry worse than Telecoms? (Score:2)
It seems to me the telecom industry collectively is terrible. The question is "why is this industry so bad?" We know about the customer service problems, the pricing deception, the reporting issues. Is this due to managers just assuming "this is how the game is played, and we have to be as bad as everyone else to compete?" Is it due to the semi-utility nature of the industry, where there are local monopolies or duopolies, with less oversight and accountability of other utilities (e.g. electric power?)
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Sure. Fossile fuels.
Prison? (Score:5, Insightful)
And who is going to prison over this multi-million dollar fraud? Nobody? Oh yeah, I'm sure that will stop it from happening again...
Re:Prison? (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly hope it does happen. Lying (not just being wrong) to a federal agency (even though it is not not a law enforcement agency I think) seems like the kind of thing you should go to prison for.
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I can't imagine why this would be the first time...
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Here in the US, fraud is okay. Look how a bunch of convicted people got pardoned under 45. Now, possessing a joint, shoplifting to feed family, being homeless(especially in Tennessee where camping was made a felony), or a child with lunch debt... now THOSE are crimes that end up being be punished by long stays in private prisons. Some guy bilking the government of millions? That's just business as usual.
Wireless will help consumers a lot. (Score:2)
As 5g rolls out things will get better and more competition will exist. In San Diego, there is a big push by T-Mobile and Verizon to offer 5g home Internet service. They provide a wireless router that connects to their service and acts as a hotspot for your home. Most of these services start around $50 and provide a 100mb down (forget the up stream), which is extremely comparable to what Cox Communications (cable ISP) charges for stand alone 100/25 service.
Some areas also have ATT serving the same area as C
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Correct me if I'm wrong but on their site it says that Verizon is the parent company of Visible so they do not appear to be a typical MVNO like Ting, etc. As a matter of fact it looks like direct competition against the traditional MVNOs that have catered to people who want an alternative to the big 3 (i.e. 4-line plans for $150/mo), albeit still using the big 3 infrastructure.
https://www.visible.com/about-... [visible.com]
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Oh okay cool. I'd go Verizon direct but they seem to think everyone needs 4 lines... Visible, one line, $30 out the door and unlimted talk, text, data and hotspot (5mb down but that's enough to stream and most sites don't let me download even close to that anyway). I'm very satisfied. If I get other people to sign up with my reference link, I get $10 off for the next month, though I haven't bothered to do this yet.
No punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest issues with this is that the only punishment is that they had to submit a correction to the FCC. That means they basically got away with it and there is zero incentive to stop them for doing it again. If rules are put in place, there needs to be punishments corresponding with the severity of the rule breaking, or there might as well not be any rules at all.
Re: (Score:3)
You or I commit fraud, we go to jail.
CEO commits fraud, he gets a massive bonus.
And so it goes.
Re: (Score:2)
They issued a correction for that one address the neighboring house and others in the area are still listed in their coverage zone.
No punishment today (Score:2)
The best way to fix this is to fine both the company and the C-Levels directly.
The company is fined a 20% of gross income before any taxes (et al.) for the scheme. That fine is not able to be used to offset any taxes.
The C-Levels are personally fined a 20% of total compensation (direct pay, stock options, e
Need some teeth for truth in advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
If a resident tries to subscribe for service that has been advertised at their address, a failure to provide that service seems to me to be a breach of truth in advertising law. Put the company on the hook for it by fining them the price of whatever they advertised and paying it out to the affected resident as a "finder's fee" for the false advertising. Oh, and make it recurring: if the company fails to correct the false advertising, that resident is entitled to point it out again once the initial term ends (e.g. a resident would be entitled to receive $30 every month if they continue reporting an ISP that continues to falsely advertise a $30/mo. service at their address).
Re:Need some teeth for truth in advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
If a resident tries to subscribe for service that has been advertised at their address, a failure to provide that service seems to me to be a breach of truth in advertising law. Put the company on the hook for it by fining them the price of whatever they advertised and paying it out to the affected resident as a "finder's fee" for the false advertising. Oh, and make it recurring: if the company fails to correct the false advertising, that resident is entitled to point it out again once the initial term ends (e.g. a resident would be entitled to receive $30 every month if they continue reporting an ISP that continues to falsely advertise a $30/mo. service at their address).
A better penalty would be to require the ISP to provide the advertised service at the advertised price. Don't let the ISP say it is impossible: they can reach anywhere on the Earth's surface by laying fibre and installing microwave links. If it takes time to get the service installed, fine them per day for non-performance, and if the fine isn't enough to motivate them, increase it.
Eliminate Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC should not only require ISP's to return funding received by the government based on lies; but should disqualify them from future funding. Absolute corrupt anti-competitive behavior should come with actual consequences.
FCC Broadband Map challenge process is flawed (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the best parts about the FCC Broadband Map in my opinion was the idea that it was essentially "crowd-sourced" in that users could file challenges to the data and fix mistakes. But I was surprised to discover recently that there are huge limitations on the challenge process.
A month ago, I was interested in purchasing a property and one of my criteria was having fiber service available. The FCC Broadband Map showed fiber being available there, but before placing an offer, I called the broadband provider to confirm. The representative on the phone apologized and said that no service was available at that address, nor did the system show it becoming available soon. I mentioned that the info at the FCC Broadband Map was incorrect for this address and needed to be corrected, but she did not know what to do about that, but she would "make a note about it" and pass it along. I happened to check the map again about 30 days later, but it was still listed incorrectly. I decided to be helpful and file a challenge myself directly via the FCC website.
Unfortunately, before clicking on "submit" you are required to certify that you are either a current resident at the address or are the legal owner/manager of the property. No one else is permitted to file a challenge, based on the current website language. That's a significant hindrance in this case, because the current owner of the property obviously has no incentive to update the map to make the property look worse to prospective buyers, and obviously the provider here can't be bothered to fix it either. If interested 3rd parties are not allowed to file challenges on behalf of others when they have evidence, then the entire challenge process is sadly flawed and strongly designed to favor the status quo.
In fact, based on the OP, it sounds like this challenge which came from a competing ISP was actually against the FCC's own challenge policy, and I'm pleasantly surprised it went anywhere without simply being tossed/ignored.