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FCC chair: Speed standard of 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up isn’t good enough anymore (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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FCC chair: Speed standard of 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up isn’t good enough anymore::Chair proposes 100Mbps national standard and an evaluation of broadband prices.

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[–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

People in rural areas can have problems getting service because there has not been enough government subsidy to deploy infrastructure.

Technically the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allocated a ton of money for fiber infrastructure, but telecom providers rolled it out in dense urban areas with a lot of customers, bought each other up and then pocketed the extra cash.

Fiber to the premise in rural areas is insanely expensive but I see it like a modern version of the post office. If you want to be able to write a letter to anyone and have it be delivered you need to set the price so that rural customers aren't paying costs that are orders of magnitude higher.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    Let me fix that;

    People in rural areas can have problems getting service because there has not been enough proper government subsidy to deploy infrastructure.

    I mean if the feds just toss money at these providers they'll use it how they please. It should be a matter of government doing what it is necessary to deploy service as widely as possible. Without oversight it's just giving them free money.

    I suppose now that the cell network is able to provide "hotspot" service that could be an out for subsidy, but it sure won't make a 100Mbps standard. On 4G the best my phone can do is 50Mbps when close to a tower, less when signal strength is lower. You can get much higher speeds on 5G, but it's even more affected by tower distance. You're not going to get that in a rural area, same infrastructure problem.

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