Almost a trillion dollars. It was like 980 billion…yea…
Comment on ISPs seeking government handouts try to avoid offering low-cost broadband
db2@lemmy.world 1 month ago
In the early 2000s iirc they were given billions to build out rural broadband. They kept it. Rural broadband still doesn’t exist to speak of.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 month ago
seaQueue@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yup, they took the 90s era broadband grants and just pocketed them because they knew that the Bush era FCC wouldn’t pursue the matter.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And in the late 2000’s. And again a few years later. And as of last year they FCC is once again throwing money at them without any real oversight. I worked for a ISP in 2010 and we couldn’t get any of the money because a bank had first lean on the company USDA demanded that before any money could be approved. AT&T got money for our area and their footprint shrank the next year when they cut off dial-up customers in the area.
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 1 month ago
These bills have been passed multiple times over the last couple decades and the result is always the same. In places like NY, they claimed to have run fiber to millions of homes but they never actually connected it to any of these homes, it just runs along under the street out in front of them, therefore they can claim these homes are “covered by fiber.”
db2@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And the fuckers want ten grand from the homeowner to jack it in. The drop won’t even be owned by the homeowner afterward either. It’s literally criminal.
Facebones@reddthat.com 1 month ago
To boot, Thats happened like at least 3 times now. Lmao
SirDerpy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
We did the same for urban fiber. It’s never materialized, either. And, the USDA has been providing funding and loans for quite awhile.
db2@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s almost like the foxes are running the hen house, as the old saying goes.
SirDerpy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Hamilton built the framework. It’s been foxes since John Adams.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
This guy?
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’ve read there’s lots of “dark” fiber in cities, but I don’t know if it’s true. I do know that AT&T has a fiber line that runs through my neighborhood, yet I can’t get fiber internet. Really stupid.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 month ago
“Whats this?”
“Thats the fiber line.”
“Oh, cool. Can I get fiber?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We’d need some federal grants to run some fiber first.”
“But the fiber is right here.”
“We need that for other people to get fiber.”
“Well, why can’t I access it too?”
“Ugh! I told you! We need public money to our multibillion dollar company to use this fiber line thats already here!”
“I don’t understand…”
“You wouldn’t.”
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
AT&T has a copper wire connected to my house but they refuse to offer me any service at all because they “dOnT oFfEr DsL aNyMoRe.” Shitty DSL is shitty DSL but it’s better than nothing. At least I have access to Cable but ai knows plenty of people who don’t. That shit should be illegal.
amanda@aggregatet.org 1 month ago
I have the same situation almost. We have fiber from Telia delivered to the basement of our apartment building where it’s converted to cable by Tele2, who rents access to Telia’s fiber. Neither of them were willing to sell me or the organisation that owns the building access to fiber, even though it would have required only activating an outlet on whatever fiber switch thing they have in the basement.
Tele2 also has a monopoly on internet access; it’s that or 4G/5G.
SirDerpy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The local exchange carriers (LECs) typically change from plain olds telephone system (POTS) to fiber at the neighborhood level. Coax carriers also.
Fiber to the neighborhood is already there. It’s not hard to run a line across a neighborhood to connect whatever on either side.
The difficult part is getting from a neighborhood connection to each individual home. It’s a flower pot install on each property, all connected together underground, and it can’t fuck with gas, water, sewer, etc.
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Seems like they could connect something wireless to the fiber to provide internet to the home.
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 month ago
It’s also not hard to use that fibre connection to the neighbourhood to provide DSL. That’s precisely what it’s made for: Use that copper last mile and have whatever on the upstream side. And there’s plenty of DSL hardware that doubles as POTS and/or ISDN hardware, you can upgrade the whole neighbourhood to “DSL available” by installing such a thing, connecting all the lines to it, and then remotely activating DSL when people sign up.
Over here they’re actually moving away from that, opting for voip instead and using DSL over the whole frequency spectrum.
tal@lemmy.today 1 month ago
I don’t think that the United States Department of Agriculture is involved in subsidizing urban fiber.
SirDerpy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah. That’s wasn’t very clear. The USDA has been funding and providing loans for rural fiber. About $1b, IIRC.