FCC Rural Internet plan

[jp1]

Apparently the white announced that the FCC wants to use $20 billion from the Universal Service Charge fund to build broadband infrastructure in rural areas. This seems to conflict with the FCC's previous decision regarding net neutrality that ISP's are not telecoms, since the Universal Service Charge is supposed to be use deodorant to bring telecom services to rural areas. Hmmmm.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/12/1...ve-fcc-funding

[Alan]

Telecoms are being replaced by broadband providers. I haven't used a traditional telecom for any purpose what-so-ever in over a year and wonder if they will continue to exist as anything other than broadband providers once 5G is fully implemented.

[jp1]

We haven't had a landline in 14 years. Once cell service started including unlimited talk for reasonable prices it didn't make sense. I assume my cell bill includes the universal service charge though.

Due the the fact that the towers have to be so close together I'll be surprised if 5g ever covers more than urban/suburban areas and busy highway routes in rural areas. Something else will probably need to be used for the rest of rural America if it's ever going to have broadband. I do agree though that the government will have to subsidize it just like they did with electrification. There just aren't enough customers to make it viable from a profitability standpoint.

[bae]

Something else will probably need to be used for the rest of rural America if it's ever going to have broadband. I do agree though that the government will have to subsidize it just like they did with electrification. There just aren't enough customers to make it viable from a profitability standpoint.

My rural community is rapidly moving along with broadband deployment. Through our rural electrical cooperative.

The for-profit providers are lining up to grab the Federal money, but aren't promising us here anything but high prices and uncertain availability of service. And based on how those players have mistreated us so far for traditional telcomm and internet services, nobody really wants to talk to them anymore.

So we're doing it ourselves.

[iris lilies]

We still have a landline because I want a reliable way to transmit Voice communications when I need to do that. I am completely unhappy with cell phone transmission.


Certainly the landline causes me a lot of grief because I get a lot of crappy useless calls, somewhere between 2 to 5 a day.


But here’s the thing – it exists because sometimes we need it. Let me paint for you the scenario that took place at my house just last week:


DH was talking to our investment guy about taking out a sum of money from an account. The investment company was planning to write a check to our bank account. DH needed to transmit important information but his cell service was going in and out. This is what I observed, it was just mindlessly crazy —he was standing right by the landline and he repeated the same information 5 times into his cell phone.

wtf

...and then he needed to tell them the routing number for our checking account. That would have been appropriately handled by snapping a photo of deposit slip and conveying it via email to our investment guy. I dont think he did that, I think he sent one via snail mail, dont remember.

But that entire exchange of information seemed to me to be handled with inappropriate technology.

we have so many choices of technology—choose the best one!

[nswef]

Living in an area where cell phone connections are bad, we still have a phone line through Comcast. It goes out when the power goes out, but is otherwise very reliable. We have 3 trac phones....1 that works at our house and every where except the western areas of Maryland which we frequent...had to get a little trac phone- not a smart one- to access that area..then my husband has one. Any real calls are made on the land line and the cell is used when traveling or on errands. I for one would be happy if cell towers were all the same, like electricity!

[ToomuchStuff]

I could see this happen in part because of the defense nature of the thing. (read about 5G and the security threat that it is believed to be)
However I could see the money being non existent or it not happening (didn't we pass some 87 Billion dollar thing to provide nationwide "high speed" internet access a few years back).
I thought part of this was in the farm bill that passed last year.

That said, I have friends that live and family that live in the country, that cannot get reliable POTS, let alone broadband, and the one I visit the most, my cell is dead out there.

I only got rid of my POTS, after an elderly neighbor passed, who would need to reach me occasionally. My bill was 50% taxes, when my needs/wants were actual lifeline service. My cell service, costs me just a bit more then 2 months of my old home service, for the year. If it was back to what it was supposed to be, I would still have a home line. (eliminates dead spots for cell phone reception, that happen as service changes) At some point I might look into VOIP, I just would rather not do it through Google and become one of their products.

[JaneV2.0]

They'll get my land line when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I have a smart phone, a flip phone, and an uber-reliable land line that I don't have to recharge or worry about. I like the flip phone, which I use as a pager and keep close by in case of emergencies, but I can't really justify the smart phone.

[jp1]

Part of the reason we gave up the landline was that we moved to a new building and trying to get te monopoly phone company to install it was a headache. Worse than dealing with comcast if you can believe it. Outside the office i never talk on the phone anyway, so there’s nothing to miss.