Broadband internet is the new electricity

[kage69]

Bravo Joe Biden, keep it up

""The president believes we can bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American through a historic investment of $100 billion," the fact sheet said. The $100 billion in broadband funding would be spread out over a number of years, as the entire jobs plan is slated to "invest about $2 trillion this decade."

Great to have this kind of drive back to the White House. It's a plan, not a collection of passed bills, but I still applaud the Biden folks for having a damn plan - one that doesn't screw consumers. Little bummed no min speeds designated, but the rest pretty much means a possible hastening of fiber rollout soon. We simply cannot expect rural areas to thrive without real broadband. Period.

Comcast, AT&T, Cox, etc will be upset, and uh well, anyway...

 

[Zorba]

Hopefully this isn't just going to be money given to the majors for them to waste and buyback stocks. It should be done like rural electric and set up public/private corporations. Should also come with net neutrality and requirements to share/lease the last mile and classification of broadband as a utility.

 

[IronWing]

Does the plan cover include urban areas as well or is this yet another massive subsidy of the rural lifestyle at the expense of urban dwellers?

 

[blackangst1]

Im fine with it as long as its treated like electricity. Pay for what you use.

 

[UNCjigga]

Bravo Joe Biden, keep it up

Little bummed no min speeds designated, but the rest pretty much means a possible hastening of fiber rollout soon. We simply cannot expect rural areas to thrive without real broadband. Period.

Comcast, AT&T, Cox, etc will be upset, and uh well, anyway...

I believe I read elsewhere that the Biden Admin definition of broadband is 100mbps down/100mbps up. This is higher than initially expected (especially the up part) but was adjusted to accommodate post-pandemic work from home.

It’s the synchronous speed requirement that has AT&T and cable MSOs in a tizzy. AT&T still wants old and busted VDSL copper tech to qualify for rural broadband. 5G wireless is a farce when it comes to rural coverage away from major interstates.

 

[nickqt]

The entire electrical grid of the country needs to be made more redundant, buried almost everywhere, transformers shielded from EMPS/CMEs, and did I say made more redundant. It also needs to be made more redundant. Am I being redundant? Because it's important for any electrical grid to be more redundant.

Along with doing all of that, high-speed internet can be put down and, you guessed it, made more redundant. Redundancy is pretty important for stable transferring of electric and internet.

Additionally, Electric and Internet should be picked up as essential utilities with public option plans where people can opt right the fuck in and right the fuck out of private electric/internet providers. Talk about anti-monopoly and anti-corruption all rolled into one, a soft break-up of electric and internet providers by fracturing their god damn monopolies would be great too.

Also, make the electric grid more redundant.

 

[fskimospy]

Im fine with it as long as its treated like electricity. Pay for what you use.

But ‘pay for what you use’ makes no sense, assuming you mean pay $X/GB or whatever. This is why data caps are such a scam.

People should pay for bandwidth and prioritization, not the amount of data they use.

 

[IronWing]

Opting in and out of electric providers has been a disaster as a model for electric service.

 

[nickqt]

Opting in and out of electric providers has been a disaster as a model for electric service.

Are there a lot of public electric providers that people can opt in and out of, because if so, I'm unaware of it.

 

[hal2kilo]

Bravo Joe Biden, keep it up

""The president believes we can bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American through a historic investment of $100 billion," the fact sheet said. The $100 billion in broadband funding would be spread out over a number of years, as the entire jobs plan is slated to "invest about $2 trillion this decade."

Great to have this kind of drive back to the White House. It's a plan, not a collection of passed bills, but I still applaud the Biden folks for having a damn plan - one that doesn't screw consumers. Little bummed no min speeds designated, but the rest pretty much means a possible hastening of fiber rollout soon. We simply cannot expect rural areas to thrive without real broadband. Period.

Comcast, AT&T, Cox, etc will be upset, and uh well, anyway...

About time the Democrats get back to their most successful period of politics. Moving away from FDR and no real support for unions, while getting friendly with Wall Street was not a good look (cough SLC, Clintons).

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

The entire electrical grid of the country needs to be made more redundant, buried almost everywhere, transformers shielded from EMPS/CMEs, and did I say made more redundant. It also needs to be made more redundant. Am I being redundant? Because it's important for any electrical grid to be more redundant.

Along with doing all of that, high-speed internet can be put down and, you guessed it, made more redundant. Redundancy is pretty important for stable transferring of electric and internet.

Additionally, Electric and Internet should be picked up as essential utilities with public option plans where people can opt right the fuck in and right the fuck out of private electric/internet providers. Talk about anti-monopoly and anti-corruption all rolled into one, a soft break-up of electric and internet providers by fracturing their god damn monopolies would be great too.

Also, make the electric grid more redundant.

Uh, yeah dude. You're redundant in your redundancy.

 

[ElFenix]

This thread brought to you by the department of redundancy department

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

The thread itself is redundantly redundant:

AT&T against better internet for underserved Americans

and Dems want rural America to get better internet, even though they constantly vote against their own self-interests and hate Dems who want to bring them things like better access to healthcare, infrastructure and education...

forums.anandtech.com

 

[blackangst1]

But ‘pay for what you use’ makes no sense, assuming you mean pay $X/GB or whatever. This is why data caps are such a scam.

People should pay for bandwidth and prioritization, not the amount of data they use.

That's what i meant

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Hopefully this isn't just going to be money given to the majors for them to waste and buyback stocks. It should be done like rural electric and set up public/private corporations. Should also come with net neutrality and requirements to share/lease the last mile and classification of broadband as a utility.

Ive thought the solution should be like long distance decades ago.
Provider is required to sell lines to virtual operators for cost plus a reasonable x%
Total spitball here so costs are likely off.
Let’s say it costs xfinity or whomever $20 per line to provide internet. Allow Zobra/Meat Communications to “rent” that line for let’s say $26 per month. Zobra/Meat Com then bill the customer let’s say $50 per month. Zobra/Meat Com could handle billing and support or contract to xfinity to do it for additional $y per month.
Admittedly this sucks for the incumbent carrier but they’ve had a great thing for a long time and this model guarantees them a profit, just not an excessive profit.
Brings competition into areas without competition.

 

[PowerEngineer]

The entire electrical grid of the country needs to be made more redundant, buried almost everywhere, transformers shielded from EMPS/CMEs, and did I say made more redundant. It also needs to be made more redundant. Am I being redundant? Because it's important for any electrical grid to be more redundant.

More redundant? Do you know how redundant the electrical grid already is? How much more redundant do you think it should be? And how much are you (and other customers) willing to pay for that additional redundancy?

FWIW, it is the electronics (i.e. control and relay equipment) that are most susceptible to EMPs, not the transformers or transmission lines. The cost of burying electrical lines increases dramatically with their voltage level, and is usually judged to be cost prohibitive for anything above 13 kV. But if cost is no object...

Additionally, Electric and Internet should be picked up as essential utilities with public option plans where people can opt right the fuck in and right the fuck out of private electric/internet providers. Talk about anti-monopoly and anti-corruption all rolled into one, a soft break-up of electric and internet providers by fracturing their god damn monopolies would be great too.

Electric utilities are monopolies that are heavily regulated by state or local governments with rates set based on their cost of providing electric service rather than the market value of that service to their customers. There aren't many other industries that are required to sell their product for less than the market would bear.

Enron tried to sell the idea that the "power of the market" would lower customer rates, and we all (should) know how well that worked out. Of course, Texas (in its cantankerous nature) stayed the Enron course, and we all know how well that worked out this winter (including the sky high bills that some customers received because they picked the wrong provider).

But, yeah, let's go through that again.

Also, make the electric grid more redundant.

Yes, you are being redundant, and simplistic.

 

[zinfamous]

More redundant? Do you know how redundant the electrical grid already is? How much more redundant do you think it should be? And how much are you (and other customers) willing to pay for that additional redundancy?

FWIW, it is the electronics (i.e. control and relay equipment) that are most susceptible to EMPs, not the transformers or transmission lines. The cost of burying electrical lines increases dramatically with their voltage level, and is usually judged to be cost prohibitive for anything above 13 kV. But if cost is no object...



Electric utilities are monopolies that are heavily regulated by state or local governments with rates set based on their cost of providing electric service rather than the market value of that service to their customers. There aren't many other industries that are required to sell their product for less than the market would bear.

Enron tried to sell the idea that the "power of the market" would lower customer rates, and we all (should) know how well that worked out. Of course, Texas (in its cantankerous nature) stayed the Enron course, and we all know how well that worked out this winter (including the sky high bills that some customers received because they picked the wrong provider).

But, yeah, let's go through that again.



Yes, you are being redundant, and simplistic.

Texas

 

[Paratus]

More redundant? Do you know how redundant the electrical grid already is? How much more redundant do you think it should be? And how much are you (and other customers) willing to pay for that additional redundancy?

FWIW, it is the electronics (i.e. control and relay equipment) that are most susceptible to EMPs, not the transformers or transmission lines. The cost of burying electrical lines increases dramatically with their voltage level, and is usually judged to be cost prohibitive for anything above 13 kV. But if cost is no object...



Electric utilities are monopolies that are heavily regulated by state or local governments with rates set based on their cost of providing electric service rather than the market value of that service to their customers. There aren't many other industries that are required to sell their product for less than the market would bear.

Enron tried to sell the idea that the "power of the market" would lower customer rates, and we all (should) know how well that worked out. Of course, Texas (in its cantankerous nature) stayed the Enron course, and we all know how well that worked out this winter (including the sky high bills that some customers received because they picked the wrong provider).

But, yeah, let's go through that again.



Yes, you are being redundant, and simplistic.

Reading through how our Texas grid problems during the winter storm, I was shocked to find out we were within about 4 minutes of losing the entire grid. I was even more shocked to find out if that had happened it could have been months to recover it.

Apparently as power generating facilities went off-line due to the cold the electrical frequency began deviating from 60HZ down to 59.4HZ at which point circuit breakers give about 10 minutes to load shed and recover the frequency. I think this is to protect the generators from permanent damage. This would have cascaded to all generators on the Texas grid at which point they would have had to try recovery from an entirely dead system.

I’ve had to take a day to recover about half of our DC system via remote control after a distribution box spontaneously reset itself so I understand it can take awhile but I wasn’t expecting this type of cascade to take weeks to months.

I’d like to see more redundancy or controls to prevent this type of black swan event.

 

[Homerboy]

Im fine with it as long as its treated like electricity. Pay for what you use.

Except that's pretty much not how bandwidth works.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Comcast, AT&T, Cox, etc will be upset, and uh well, anyway...

No, they creamed their corporate pants when they heard that, because they know it will go down just like it did the last few times we did something like this. The Government will give them billions, they will use those billions to upgrade the services in their most competitive markets (what few of them are left) and will keep telling the government that they will get around to those rural communities that the billions were actually for, then they will bribe the FCC to change how they measure broadband so that whatever outdated technology that those rural areas managed to get together mostly on their own fits the requirements, and they will have basically pocketed the billions without having to do anything at all.

Ever notice how the big cable companies basically always get their way? No matter how unpopular their demands?

 

[kage69]

No, they creamed their corporate pants when they heard that, because they know it will go down just like it did the last few times we did something like this. The Government will give them billions, they will use those billions to upgrade the services in their most competitive markets (what few of them are left) and will keep telling the government that they will get around to those rural communities that the billions were actually for, then they will bribe the FCC to change how they measure broadband so that whatever outdated technology that those rural areas managed to get together mostly on their own fits the requirements, and they will have basically pocketed the billions without having to do anything at all.

Ever notice how the big cable companies basically always get their way? No matter how unpopular their demands?

Did you even read the article?

Probably the first time I've ever heard someone submit that Comcast and others were orgasmic over non profit co-ops and municipal networks joining the party. You know Ajit Pai is gone, right?

 

[Zorba]

Ive thought the solution should be like long distance decades ago.
Provider is required to sell lines to virtual operators for cost plus a reasonable x%
Total spitball here so costs are likely off.
Let’s say it costs xfinity or whomever $20 per line to provide internet. Allow Zobra/Meat Communications to “rent” that line for let’s say $26 per month. Zobra/Meat Com then bill the customer let’s say $50 per month. Zobra/Meat Com could handle billing and support or contract to xfinity to do it for additional $y per month.
Admittedly this sucks for the incumbent carrier but they’ve had a great thing for a long time and this model guarantees them a profit, just not an excessive profit.
Brings competition into areas without competition.

Yeah, basically the same with local telephone in the late 90s too. Having multiple companies lay the last mile of infrastructure makes no sense.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Did you even read the article?

Probably the first time I've ever heard someone submit that Comcast and others were orgasmic over non profit co-ops and municipal networks joining the party. You know Ajit Pai is gone, right?

I have, and it basically says that Joe Biden dreams of a country where such a thing could happen, but has not real plans that could make that true.
I know Ajit is gone, I also know he was but one person on a committee that makes the choices. Not that any of that matters, it will never get past Congress without the majority of the money going straight to AT&T and friends, for them to once again cash the check and then give America the middle finger when it comes time to do their part.

The broadband industry and Republicans have been fighting city-owned networks for years, and nearly 20 states have laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband. While Democrats have proposed eliminating those state laws, congressional Republicans last month proposed a nationwide ban on municipal broadband.

It could only ever pass if we scrap the filibuster altogether, and It does not look like Democrats are willing to do that to save our democracy much less improve our internet.

 

[NWRMidnight]

But ‘pay for what you use’ makes no sense, assuming you mean pay $X/GB or whatever. This is why data caps are such a scam.

People should pay for bandwidth and prioritization, not the amount of data they use.

We already pay for bandwidth, but because of caps, the bandwidth we pay for means nothing other than the faster speeds means we hit our cap faster. Paying for prioritization would be used for anti competitive reasons, and go against net neutrality. AKA, since your plan doesn't include prioritization to Netflix, you can't connect because your connection times out because you are low priority, or it reduces your speeds down to a snails pace and you get to watch 60 seconds of your movie to every 60 seconds of buffering. Or you can't connect to XBOX to download your games/updates because you don't pay for that prioritization and it times out, or takes you weeks to download a 50GB game, again because you are low priority.

 

[kage69]

I have, and it basically says that Joe Biden dreams of a country where such a thing could happen, but has not real plans that could make that true.
I know Ajit is gone, I also know he was but one person on a committee that makes the choices. Not that any of that matters, it will never get past Congress without the majority of the money going straight to AT&T and friends, for them to once again cash the check and then give America the middle finger when it comes time to do their part.



It could only ever pass if we scrap the filibuster altogether, and It does not look like Democrats are willing to do that to save our democracy much less improve our internet.

My opening post specifically acknowledged this is a plan, not legislation or agreed upon framework. Not having republican stooges and yesmen in control improves the odds of a decent outcome. Didn't New England states sue the companies that tried to take dev money and walk away with it? I know NY gave Charter/Spectrum 30 days to wrap up business and GTFO if they weren't going to honor agreements on a merger. That changed their tune. I don't think it's going to be same ol same ol this time around, but regardless, I'm not seeing the hungry drooling you are. These companies want co-ops and municipal ISPs gaining footholds like you or I want a sledgehammer to the nuts. The people I know who work for Comcast and a couple small CLECs aren't happy at all.

But the filibuster? Absolutely. That Jim Crow relic needs to go ASAP. It's not in the Constitution and repugs abuse it to implement minority rule. We'll see.