this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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I object to your editorial post title on the grounds that it trivializes a real issue: rural broadband access in the US just SUCKS.
Rural America is a LOT of miles of nothing with a critical minimum of subscribers. Federal subsidies make DSL available to these households while the cities enjoy unfettered access to Gigabit speeds and faster. It's hardly fair access when most of those DSL providers are Sinclair affiliates.
It's an uncanny divide just from the standpoint of access-to-internet-media, but rural communities generate a TREMENDOUS amounts of data that the Dept of Commerce, USDA and FDA all could use to track US cattle herds, crop health, soil health fertilizer use and pest controls. Backhaul is key here, and the telcos resent being paid to run miles of fiber to cover pastures with LoRA or 5G.
I forget whatever my point was, but everyone should have good Internet access.
I am with you on rural America getting the short end of the Internet stick! It's just that historically we've given ISPs over $400 billion dollars and they didn't hold up their end of the bargain:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394
Giving them more money isn't going to solve the problem. We're at that phase of the game where we need to stop letting them scam us and just do it ourselves. We already build our own roads which is vastly more complicated and requires much more money than laying fiber. If we can make interstates we can lay down fiber optic cable.
We can charge ISPs for the privilege to use it and make different ISPs compete on the same physical network. That's how it works in many countries and it's a perfectly legitimate way to make ISPs incredibly angry which I think we can all agree would be an ideal outcome. If they don't like it we can set up a time next week between 10AM and 4PM to wait for us to show up to discuss. When we don't show up we will make them call to reschedule ๐
Community-owned broadband is a fun legal zone. Some States are moving to dismantle it, some others to protect it, all while most are mute on it.
Is a muninipality legally entitled to set up its own broadband network? Doesn't matter what you think, the telcos are spending their lobby dollars to prevent it where it has traction. Same for Tribal areas too.
We can talk about "incredibly angry" here: the telco isn't the internet I worked a lifetime to build. Demand more. #
Here in #FascistFlorida, municipal broadband is prohibited by state law.