FCC Plans National Broadband by 2020

[Professor S]

FCC will be presenting a plan to bring broadband internet to 100 million people by 2020. My first reaction is "What the f&^K?"

Here's why: Broadband exposure is growing by leaps and bounds on its own.



With double digit expansion all of last decade.



Why would the FCC get in the business of supplying broadband internet, especially when private industry are on track to actually beat them to the punch with no cost to taxpayers and no government interference?

Can someone explain how any of this makes sense?

[Typhoid]

Can someone explain how any of this makes sense?

One step closer to censoring the internet.

[thatmariolover]

The private industry is not even coming close to what this plan hopes to achieve.

The quality of our broadband market is poor. We average 18th in terms of broadband speeds as a country and huge portions of rural America have no options (or if you’re like my dad, resort to something like Clearwave, $34.99 a month for 256k internet or up to 768k for $99).



Regardless, the cost to taxpayers should be minimal. The FCC plans to auction off 500 mhz of radio spectrum, which alone could generate more income than the cost of the plan. The last such auction was for a smaller spectrum and raised 19.6 billion dollars (mostly from Verizon and AT&T).

The plan sounds a good one to me. But I can elaborate if you still don't get it.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

The private industry is not even coming close to what this plan hopes to achieve.

The quality of our broadband market is poor. We average 18th in terms of broadband speeds as a country and huge portions of rural America have no options (or if you’re like my dad, resort to something like Clearwave, $34.99 a month for 256k internet or up to 768k for $99).



Regardless, the cost to taxpayers should be minimal. The FCC plans to auction off 500 mhz of radio spectrum, which alone could generate more income than the cost of the plan. The last such auction was for a smaller spectrum and raised 19.6 billion dollars (mostly from Verizon and AT&T).

The plan sounds a good one to me. But I can elaborate if you still don't get it.

That actually explains the thinking quite nicely. I suppose my only remaining concern would be 1) The fact that the US is likely larger than all those countries combined, so the logistics are quite different and 2) Whether or not there will be content and use strings attached.

Also, looking at the rate of growth of broadband, it still looks like private industry would still beat the government to the punch at reaching 100% (a mythical number) saturation. If the rate of growth was leveling, then perhaps I'd see the need, but its not leveling.

In any case, thanks for the info. I find the initiative far less puzzling than before.

[manasecret]

This is a complex issue, and I don't know all that much about it except from the consumer side. But I'm not going to let that stop me from getting my foot halfway to my mouth.

Most broadband internet markets are essentially monopolized by one provider, or at most two. Now, how that happened, through regulation or just plain it being expensive to roll out a grid, I don't really know.

I do know that made innovation in both internet and tv for the past 15 years or so, slow to a crawl.

Recently, though, AT&T and apparently Verizon are rolling fiber optic solutions (for gobs of money). And with it, I have seen by far the biggest innovation in both broadband and tv. With AT&T, I can now get up to some 20 Mbps I think it is (about three times faster than cable I believe), and the tv is leaps and bounds better than Comcast. That is, the visual quality is much better, but also the remote-control to tv-box interface is so much better than Comcast that I would never go back just for the damn interface.

So, I'm happy with the private competition here, and I don't see how the government getting involved would improve things here.

More rural areas, though, and even smaller cities than Houston, who are still monopolized or close to it, I think would love to have government rollout.

[Professor S]

Reading Mana's post, perhaps I am being parochial. I live in the Philly area and there is a ton of competition, but then again, I don't know how it is in Kansas, only nationally. If this can increase competition, and does not over regulate, them I'm all for it. As I've said before, I am not a 100% free-marketer. I am a 100% competition...er.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Reading Mana's post, perhaps I am being parochial. I live in the Philly area and there is a ton of competition, but then again, I don't know how it is in Kansas, only nationally. If this can increase competition, and does not over regulate, them I'm all for it. As I've said before, I am not a 100% free-marketer. I am a 100% competition...er.

Well I grew up in a rural area, Broadband wasn't even offered inside the town part of our county until 2002. When I left for college Mid-2004 broadband still wasn't offered in my part of the county. Even when it was offered everyone said it wasn't much faster than dial-up, and I'm not sure it still is. I remember being at a friend's house in 2006 when I visited, and he was connecting at like 100k and was paying 59.99 a month for the pleasure. We couldn't even playing Halo online really without serious lag. (Well he couldn't, I was just watching).

It's still a ridiculous price in the county from what I hear, something upwards of 55ish for a plan I got for 19.99 a month in the county that was 20 miles away. Often in places like that there is either no broadband, or no competition for the one ISP, so it's either pay them a stupid amount of money or don't get high speed internet at all. I see this as quite the good thing.