Bringing gigabit internet to Rural America requires equitable spectrum access, claims industry body America is big. Really big. And for those living in the most rural parts, finding solid broadband can be an uphill struggle, with many opting to ditch fixed-line connections for wireless equivalents. Hoping to improve the situation, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) has proposed a set of changes to …
Sorry WISPA, but you're asking for fairly sane stuff, and that won't fly. Come back to the FCC when you've convinced congress to pay you to put access to a robust wireless system to every home across America two times over and haven't done any of the promised work, then maybe they'll have serious talks with you.
Most WISPs in the USA are outcompeted by 4g signals if reports are correct
Starlink is universally cheaper even now and WISPs are resorting to comparson of their cheapest plans (usually capped at 10GB) to Starlink to make themselves look good.
It's been proving a self-defeating move once commenters pile into the various adverts pointing out the disparity in pricing and the best thing most WISPs can sensibly do now is set themselves up as Starlink installers/resellers because the exodus from terrestrial wireless connections is simply growing in volume across coverage areas
Agree that its probably insufficient, but the idea that WISPs are not competitive has not been my experience... as someone who used a WISP in the early 2000s and am looking at doing so again, they're still competitive in a lot of areas.
"Old" style satellite is obviously a non-starter given the garbage latency.
Starlink still has a ways to go before it has the kind of uptime and low-jitter for all areas needed for remote work. Until the constellation is a lot more dense, mountainous/tree-filled areas are challenging....
4G internet availability is problematic given the relative monopoly providers have in a lot of areas, for example where I am your choice is "Surprise! Verizon!" for that, and its insanely expensive with a very low data cap and speeds are no better than competing WISPs for BW (~15-20 mbps down for 150 a month for 100 Gig cap with something like 30 bucks for every additional 10 GB).
The wired connections are a joke. I've got the best in the neighborhood with *two* DSL links at 5ish down and 0.5 up a piece. (Both spouse and I remote work even pre-covid so sharing lines was just a non-starter with those speeds). Most of the neighborhood is capped at around 1-2 MBPS per househould.
Compare this to the WISPS in the area which for "nice" plans have 3 up, 20 down, no caps at ~100 a month. Is this ideal? Hell no, but it *is* competitive with the alternatives and will likely be so for at least the mid-term.
As a life-long resident of the rural western US, my cynical self believes that we rural residents will have competitive broadband internet access along about the same time that we also have affordable universal health care services in rural America: in short, the day after Hell freezes over. Nowhere in the US are the rural regions seen as sufficiently rich markets. The FCC priority is not service to the people; it keeps score by the Billion$.
*Hands you a pint & toasts in commisseration*
I'm in a "cow town" a stone's throw from California's Silicon Valley where gigabit fiber is as common as Starbucks, but out here "in the sticks" we get SFA for bandwidth. Gigabit? Maybe once Satan has to wear multiple layers of thermal underwear. =-(
If The Phone Company could bring landline to all of those rural customers, and I believe they did; it should be possible to run fiber to them.
If the corporations won't do it, perhaps it's time for government to step up. We are supposed to be one of the technology leaders...time we started acting like it.
Wrong. The world changed. State governments require like for like. So if the copper POTS was originally installed 50 years ago when they could dig a trench without an environmental impact study, then the state requires them to also put the replacement fiber in the ground. They cannot switch to stringing it on existing power poles - which is much cheaper.
This is the crux of the battle between states and telcos - and is the reason why the telcos are asking the government for money if they want it done. The money isn't for the telco's infrastructure (fiber, wires, cables, etc). It is for the compliance with all the government permits, policies, and regulations that keep them from simply digging a trench, laying cable, and pushing the dirt back in.
Meanwhile, the blame game will continue with fingers pointing and both sides shouting "It's not me". It all falls on deaf ears....because, well, those of us in the sticks don't have enough bandwidth to hear the audio....
Good lord, no. Government absolutely screws up everything it touches.
I do not need them more involved in my internet than they already are. That would just lead to no-bid contracts and greasy palms. We just need competition. Many municipalities have signed agreements to only allow certain providers. It would be the same thing, but on a much grander scale. Get rid of those agreements and watch prices fall.
Starlink. I signed up. It blows the rest of this garbage out of the water and it's nonly getting better (instead of steadily worse.) I'm not even in a rural area and there's one privider that HAD the area pretty well locked down and could charge whatever they wanted (my bill went up $80 over the last year for awful service.)
I'll be so happy to call my ISP and tell them to pound sand. Supposed to have everything this summer. Can't freaking wait.
>"will extend gigabit connectivity to the seven million people who rely on wireless connections to get online."
That is such a false assumption. Crappy Internet service & crappy cell service go hand in hand. This is a wireless spectrum grab. It is a fallacy to think this additional spectrum will suddenly fix the lousy wired Internet service when no nearby transmission towers exist in the first place.
I've repeatedly proposed that the utility services share the cost of burying a 6 foot high, oval shaped pipeline along the right-of-way for rural roads. One side would carry electrical service, The other side would carry phone, fiber, and cable lines. A platform in the bottom of the pipe would provide a protected area for gas pipelines.
Similar underground pipelines could carry the high tension lines.
This would negate the need for telephone poles (actually misnamed since most are owned by the power companies), high tension tower lines, and power poles used to tie the houses into the power lines.
One upside to the underground infrastructure would be that the utilities would be protected from disasters like the outbreak of tornadoes we have had here in the southeast US, the damage done by ice storms and broken branches, and the never ending problem of some drivers who for different reasons go "Off-roading" and knock down the poles. Knocked down poles usually get fixed in a day. Problems like the tornado outbreak, blizzards, and hurricanes sometimes take weeks with crews from several states called in to help do the repairs. In 2017 we had part of a hurricane come through mid-Georgia and power was out four days. For two days our area was shut off due to the large number of trees blocking roads. If the underground utility pipeline had been in use, power, phone, and internet would have still been available.
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