FCC To Eliminate Gigabit Speed Goal, Scrap Analysis of Broadband Prices (arstechnica.com) 59
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is proposing (PDF) to roll back key Biden-era broadband policies, scrapping the long-term gigabit speed goal, halting analysis of broadband affordability, and reinterpreting deployment standards in a way that favors industry metrics over consumer access. The proposal, which is scheduled for a vote on August 7, narrows the scope of Section 706 evaluations to focus on whether broadband is being deployed rather than whether it's affordable or universally accessible. Ars Technica reports: The changes will make it easier for the FCC to give the broadband industry a passing grade in an annual progress report. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal would give the industry a thumbs-up even if it falls short of 100 percent deployment, eliminate a long-term goal of gigabit broadband speeds, and abandon a new effort to track the affordability of broadband.
Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed "on a reasonable and timely basis" to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market."
Generally, Democratic-led commissions have found that the industry isn't doing enough to make broadband universally available, while Republican-led commissions have found the opposite. Democratic-led commissions have also periodically increased the speeds used to determine whether advanced telecommunications capabilities are widely available, while Republican-led commissioners have kept the speed standards the same.
Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed "on a reasonable and timely basis" to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market."
Generally, Democratic-led commissions have found that the industry isn't doing enough to make broadband universally available, while Republican-led commissions have found the opposite. Democratic-led commissions have also periodically increased the speeds used to determine whether advanced telecommunications capabilities are widely available, while Republican-led commissioners have kept the speed standards the same.
No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the goals of Project 2025 and the expressed intent of effectively gutting any service provided by the federal government to the population at large, this scrapping of FCC policy goals meant to aid the public by constraining corporations from offering the bare minimum of service for the maximum of money, without regard for any other goals whatsoever, falls firmly into the "No shit, Sherlock" category of disappointing but unsurprising news.
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Interesting)
Orange Jesus: Slow internet is good!
MAGA: Slow internet is good!
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Funny)
Orange Jesus: Slow brainz is good!
MAGA: Slow brainz is good!
Orange Jesus: I be very stable geeniuz!
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he thinks fast internet connections are like dolls, we should get less and pay more.
Just s/dolls/megabits/ and I'm sure you
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Orange Jesus: Slow internet is good!
MAGA: Slow internet is good!
It helps keep the people poorly educated and Trump loves the poorly educated [youtube.com] -- which, ironically, he literally next goes on to say, "we're the smartest people".
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:1)
Sorry kamala lost, my little farm town in southern Kansas with only 2000 people has fiber to every house.
Re: (Score:2)
Slow internet IS good.
Remember a key Project 2025 goal is to ban pornography. What use is high speed internet but a way to consume more and more pornography? Thus, slowing down the internet is a great way to restrict the use of porn - first by getting rid of videos, then they'll bring us back to the wonderful world of dialup where even images were minutes to disappointment.
Considering how a key part of Project 2025 wasn't even close to being ac
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing is sure : whataboutism never accomplished anything.
And you certainly wouldn't very able to know, anyway, if all the analysis is scrapped.
Re: (Score:1)
I think the parent's original point is this. Was the policy working and was it fiscally wise? Did the policy have positive impact? If the policy under Biden was not working, not being implemented, or was not fiscally wise, then why continue it? If it was working and was having a positive impact, then it should have been continued. Maybe I am wrong in my interpretation.
I don't have an answer either way. I don't know enough about what policies were in place and what policies were specifically ended. I have fo
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, but poster you're replying to was specifically stating that you're not going to know if Biden's policies were helping because you've stopped analysis which is exactly why this is silly.
So the reality is as follows: broadband subsidies continue giving telecoms billions of dollars every single year but now we don't care if they spent the money on yachts or actual telecom infrastructure. Biden's policies were trying to help them accountable for our tax dollars, something you would think we would be important in the age of DOGE.
Re: (Score:3)
I think the parent's original point is this. Was the policy working and was it fiscally wise?
A policy of setting goals for the industry and rating them based on how well they met those goals? Well, I can't say for sure whether it was working, but putting blinders on and saying things are going great sure can't work better than having actual data, that's for sure.
Did the policy have positive impact?
To a limited extent, sure. The problem is that as long as the FCC is a political football — as long as Republicans don't actually care whether the poor have access to acceptably fast Internet service — the industry will genera
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Interesting)
What did you think we were going to take this bullshit seriously? Back in my day trolls were better than this. We had Hot grits and then we Portman and greased up Yoda dolls.
Now all we've got is the same Russian botnets spewing the same talking points. Sad. Low energy.
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The changes will make it easier for the FCC to give the broadband industry a passing grade in an annual progress report.
he said:
The secret to success is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met
. Watterson then presciently ends the strip with the comment "Remind me to invest overseas".
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Informative)
Posting this as Anon as possible since it's insider info.
I work for a county IT dept that was working on getting broadband to the underserved. The amount of bureaucracy involved in this initiative is absolutely insane to the point that our state is still trying to divvy out COVID broadband money in 2025.
The way Biden did it was give money directly to the states, who then made committees to divvy out where the fed money goes. these commissions had to pick and choose who gets what based on the fed requirements as well as who needs the money the most. As you can imagine, Politics got involved.
At first, we had just about everyone from every Major Telco ISP's to Mom and Pop WISP's bidding out underserved areas. then the rules change so that it could only be 1GBPS fiber to the home to qualify. This kills Starlink, the Cell Providers and all of the WISP's. Then the commission required that all bidders must hire union labor and pay a prevailing wage, which killed all of the cable Co's willing to run fiber and all but the most determined Telco's who were already paying union wages. Then once the first round of winning bids came through, it was blatantly obvious that the counties with the most politicians sucking the commission's lower appendage got the most successful bids.
Then Trump gets elected and the commission panics, So all of the rules change again. All of a sudden the FTTP provision gets axed. Now all of the Cell providers are back in bidding for areas and are undercutting the Telco's which now bail because of all the BS, Then the Union and 1GBPS requirement gets rescinded, which now brings Starlink, CableCo's and every Mom and Pop Wisp's back into bidding. Telco's then rebid now that the prevailing wage is gone and they can contract out all the digging, So now everything's in chaos a few months before the second round of winning bids needs submitted.
Meanwhile, we get a call from a consortium of counties that wants to start a municipal fiber initiative because they think it will look better to the commission (IE attract more politicians to suck the commission's lower appendage harder) and get approved faster. We ask who is going to maintain it. We get shrugs and then "Well, all of the ISPs who will flock to sell service on it that we contract!", then shrugs again. Ultimately it falls through once they realize that maintenance is expensive and no one wants to be on the hook for it.
And don't even get me started with pole rights. If you always wondered why every FiberCo and CableCo use Ditch Witches and Lawn Fridges instead of pole lines, It's because its much MUCH cheaper and faster. You can literally dig ditches faster then putting cable on a pole because of all the BS bureaucracy. It literally takes at least 6 months minimum to get a pole line approved, and that depends on who owns the poles from one destination to another and what they do with it. From extorting the line runner for anything such as you must replace every pole on the run because they're too old, to your competitors purposely dragging their feet to move lines on the pole just so you can put your line on. This is the #1 reason why the broadband industry is so stagnant in the US and why there are so many WISP's and Cell Providers offering broadband service because no company wants to deal with this Pole rights BS.
Re: (Score:2)
At first, we had just about everyone from every Major Telco ISP's to Mom and Pop WISP's bidding out underserved areas. then the rules change so that it could only be 1GBPS fiber to the home to qualify. This kills Starlink, the Cell Providers and all of the WISP's.
For good reason, to be fair. Starlink is able to pay for itself, and doesn't need subsidies to provide service. Wireless ISPs are going to suck no matter what, and no amount of subsidization will make it not suck. If you want bang-for-the-buck, you want fiber, because that can keep being pushed to faster and faster limits as technology improves, without changing the fundamental medium. Right now, I think the state of the art over a single fiber is one terabit [fierce-network.com]. So we have three orders of magnitude of gr
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Given the goals of Project 2025 and the expressed intent of effectively gutting any service provided by the federal government to the population at large, this scrapping of FCC policy goals meant to aid the public by constraining corporations from offering the bare minimum of service for the maximum of money, without regard for any other goals whatsoever, falls firmly into the "No shit, Sherlock" category of disappointing but unsurprising news.
Based on how many times taxpayers have paid for a broadband rollout initiative for all, this likely has fuck all to do with Project 2025 and far more to do with cutting funding that ends up in executive pockets instead of broadband connections.
Stop it. Stop funding ALL of it until the fucking corruption stops. We’ve been watching providers lie to the FCC and take taxpayer money for literally decades. Keep up the Us vs. Them political shitslinging, and idiot voters will give the politicians enough t
Re: (Score:3)
Any public service that can be privatized and profited-from, they seek to privatize. Regulations that hinder profit, are being eliminated. Good for the business-owner class, not so much for the consumer.
"If money is speech, the wealthy have a lot more of it than you."
I think Citizens United was a disastrous decision. Instead of saying only physical persons could contribute to politicians, they went the opposite direction and said any logical construct, union or business, could contribute. Perhaps it was con
Re: (Score:1)
Most regulation does not accomplish what you think it does. Most government regulation of industry helps protect the existing, large incumbents and places hefty barriers of entry to new comers. While the regulation has some benefits to consumers, it ultimately serves to protect the entrenched, slows innovation, and ultimately stagnates or increases prices because new competition does not enter the market and create either surplus or price pressures.
I'm not wanting zero regulation, but there's a turning po
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not wanting zero regulation, but there's a turning point of negative return
And in between these two points is every regulation that has ever existed.
Case by case, no more broad strokes "regulations good or bad". Most regulations exist for a reason, you change them without eliminating them.
have to hire entire teams of lawyers and accountants to understand and audit regulations
They're likely to get involved in your system as well but for different reasons.
Re: Lets all welcome the USA (Score:4, Informative)
Much farther. The Dobbs decision that ended the right to abortion referenced medieval texts.
Re: (Score:2)
Read the OP. If you still can't figure out the point, that's on you.
Re: Lets all welcome the USA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The Roe ruling was so convoluted and had no real basis in law. All Dobbs did was throw out a politically contrived decision and sent the matter back to politicians in every state. Putting the moral decision of abortion in the hands of voters. Something that's actually about democracy which I'd expect the party that keeps screaming about democracy being at risk to be all for.
Re: (Score:2)
However- Dobbs is a whole new and different kind of fucked. Dobbs is going to be the Dred Scott of the 21st century.
It essentially allows for the deconstitutionalizing of anything that doesn't have a historical precedent that is, to quote- "deeply rooted in American history".
It can be used to get rid of Loving, Dred Scott, and others. It's
Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]
The first countries to commercialize 6G will enjoy overwhelming advantages over those who are left on 5G protocols and technologies.
6G represents a 1000-times increase in transmission speeds, with latency falling by similar orders of magnitude. . .
Much of the developed world is on 5G telecommunications networks, and the race is on now to build 6G. The difference between 5G and 6, is orders of magnitude increases in speed and applications. 1 terabyte per second is a thousand
Re: (Score:3)
Wireless is NOT the answer
We need fiber
Re: (Score:2)
We definitely need something wired, and if any new investment is going to be made in 2025, it should be nothing less than fiber.
Re: (Score:2)
Wireless is NOT the answer
We need fiber
I can agree with that.
Wireless communications means being line-of-sight, open to easy interception, greater vulnerability to weather such as towers blown over or hit with lightning, more easily jammed or spoofed, and limited by the available RF spectrum in the area.
Re: Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
Re: Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
5G still delivers only 0.2 Mbps where I live. Will 6G do any better in non-urban environments? I have my doubts. I would take a few Mbps over what 5G can do today, though. Without a wired connection and Wifi AP, I cannot even make any calls. Cell network is unsuitable, as my phone constantly switches between 4G and 5G every few seconds.
Re: (Score:2)
What happens if you just disable 5G on your phone?
Re: (Score:1)
Porn downloads 1000x faster. Hurray!
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you realize that what you quoted from the article is mostly rubbish regarding the technology improvements 6G is bringing? For example latency, 5G has that already well below 10ms (in some applications closer to 1ms to the tower), and now 6G promises several orders of magnitude better?
Furthermore most of internet latency (tens of milliseconds) comes from the fact that the server you are connecting to is NOT in that cell tower, but far, far away, and in any case, that traffic is going over the fiber b
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe those other people can pay market rates like the rest of us.
Affordable is not the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Available is
Our local ISP tried for years to install fiber in our area and was blocked by the telcos
They didn't serve out area, but used every dirty trick in the book to make sure that nobody else could serve us
We don't need any government rules except one. The rule that telcos can't block private efforts to install fiber
Re: (Score:3)
It's not just other telcos. Also electric companies, or whoever owns the poles, or dug the trenches. The regulations we do have are just insufficient. The Telecommunications act of 1996 is very outdated. It was OK for sharing DSLAMs with the ILEC, and not much else.
Re: (Score:1)
It's the actual regulations that are preventing new providers. The issue is over regulation which protects the incumbents.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll just leave this here. https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Our local ISP tried for years to install fiber in our area and was blocked by the telcos
Bespoke fiber is the very definition of vendor lock-in, and should be banned. The last mile should be government-run, and then the telcos attach to standard points of interconnect, and compete together on a level playing field with equal access. This is what they do in Australia, and it has vastly improved telco competition, and eliminated unnecessary and expensive last-mile fibre runs.
I predict Republicans will avoid this thread (Score:5, Interesting)
Because, and here's the trick, if they don't go running the safe spaces they stop being Republicans.
Do you need gigabit to a household? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm paying for 100 Mbit, and am getting 90 up and down at 8 PM, (I just checked). When things are draggy it's the server at the other end. What advantage would I get from faster? I have one TV and it's not 4K.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm paying for 100 Mbit, and am getting 90 up and down at 8 PM, (I just checked). When things are draggy it's the server at the other end. What advantage would I get from faster? I have one TV and it's not 4K.
We probably don't need gigabit, but we do need a reasonable lower limit to officially be "broadband" and to measure what counts as "Internet being available to everyone". I have a house where the best internet you can get is a dual bonded DSL connection that totals 12MB down and 2MB up. I don't count that as broadband as while its okay for basic video consumption when I am there, it's not enough for video conferencing, and it is certainly not enough for remote security cameras. There are lots of folks where
Re: (Score:2)
Making ameriga (Score:3)