Posted on 11/05/2017 8:13:50 AM PST by Kaslin
Donald J. Trump spoke to rural voters in a way that launched him into the presidency. His soaring rhetoric and no-nonsense promises to stand up against corruption were exactly what his constituents voted for.
Say it ain’t so, but now, his own Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing a rule that will hurt the very voters who put him in the White House. The swamp has overtaken the FCC and President Trump’s Make America Great Again motto is in jeopardy.
Will the Trump Administration stand up to the big mobile carriers or will it cave just like every Administration before it?
Many Trump supporting rural voters are upset that they are going to get wronged by a new FCC rule that will make it harder for rural consumers and providers to receive broadband services. This idea is being pushed by lobbying interests with deep pockets for big corporate mobile carrier providers in a way that helps them buy up spectrum for the profitable urban areas to the detriment of rural areas. This is not what Trump supporting rural Americans voted for.
The FCC adopted a rule a few years ago that was intended to stimulate investment in rural broadband networks. These are now at risk after a 4 to 1 vote to redraft the rules at the behest of mobile carriers. It is a bit complicated, but the rules for 3.5 GHz “Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS)” spectrum band has been changed at the urging and lobbying of the mobile industry that massive geographical areas known as PEA’s, add an undefined “renewal expectancy” and extending license terms from 3 to 10 years. These three new changes hurt the small rural providers. These new proposed rules would benefit the large mobile carriers because it would preclude independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from using this spectrum for rural areas.
The power lies in the current FCC Commissioners to do what’s right by rural America. The Commissioners are Ajit Pai (Chairman), Mignon Clyburn, Michael O’Reilly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel. They should come together and make this rule more balanced between the needs of rural consumers and the big mobile carrier industry.
This is a battle between rural America versus the big corporate interests in the mobile carrier industry. There are about 23 million rural Americans who lack basic fixed broadband service in their homes. They are angry at the FCC decision on delaying the deployment of broadband in their rural communities to prioritizes the needs of the well-heeled mobile industry.These are the same core Trump supporters who the president will need if he wants a second term in office.
Trump’s idea of draining the swamp was powerful imagery. The FCC is at the center of those croc-infested waters as the FCC has become a vehicle for special interests to get what they want. This valuable transfer of wealth from the little guys to the big mobile carriers is cronyism at its worst. The FCC should not be allowed to be used for competitive advantage.
The current rules don’t need to be changed. The status quo is fair and existing rules are flexible enough to enable many different business models. small rural ISP’s, National wire carriers, small mobile providers, industrial companies, universities, sports arenas, building managers and others are relying on the current rules. The FCC should not change them at all, and if they do the signal will be loud and clear...the Trump Administration has no intention of draining the swamp…they’re just becoming part of it.
Trump supporting voters in rural areas are hoping and watching to see what Trump's FCC will do. This a fantastic opportunity for the Administration to step in and make sure that the swamp does not win again.
“If you think that $80 a month for a service with a 30 GB per month cap is “comparable to wireline” then your local wireline service must really, really suck.”
I haven’t looked into it in that detail because I don’t need it. Whether or not it’s competitive with wireline internet service or not is irrelevant. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that sparsely settled rural America should somehow get the same deal as places where a sufficient customer base exists to warrant the installation of a higher capacity system. Next you will be telling me that it doesn’t matter if you live by yourself on a mountain top miles from any significant population center, you should still “be given” cheap internet service. Bet you can’t get water, electricity, natural gas, and a sewer there for the same reasons that you won’t get the internet you thing you are owed.
Hubert Humphrey was a big proponent of giving rural America the same airline services as the big population centers, and charging the big city passengers extra on their tickets to pay for it. Is that what you think we should be doing? As part of this nonsense, there was an “airline” that flew between Ely and Las Vegas, NV. “Scheduled Air Service with a timetable wherein nearly every flight flew empty and we paid for it.
Actually a vast majority of the nations landlines built and installed in homes prior to the AT&T break up were in fact done on a one price service connection policy no matter if the line was one pole length to your home or they had to bury a cable for a mile to your house. That was policy before HHH. Some homes especially in rural areas had a phone but no electricity. But the power company could make you pay for each pole beyond two poles from the powerline.
Yes, and it was markets driven by government manipulation then just as it is markets attempting to be driven by the major telecoms now. Just as I’d end the government manipulation in the housing market, I’d end the ability of the telecoms to skew the auctioning of the public airwaves in their favor.
One word...
My water comes from the ground and my sewage gets treated on-site.
True, my electric is a bit higher and propane is higher cost than natural gas.
Wanna know my property tax bill? ;^)
My home is 287 feet from the highway pole; and I had one pole in the middle of that distance on my land.
The elec company was coming thru the area replacing old, suspect poles a few years ago.
Before they got to working on mine, I asked them about replacing it with underground. The fella replied that ALL new services go underground and mine could be placed there as well. There needs to be a trench dug between the road and the house and if I'd get that done, then they'd drop me a new service to the house at no cost to me.
While I was pondering that info, he said, "Or we will dig it for a dollar a foot."
said the dude with the gimme hat.
I've MUCH better service now, due to the fact of much bigger gauge wire. No more light dimming when the furnace blower kicks in!
I have always had electricity and water. No sewer, but my septic system provides totally comparable service at a low operating cost.
Did not get landline internet until three years ago. It's 5mbps and no caps, so I'm okay with it (not enough bandwidth for streaming, but fast enough for overnight torrent session to catch up with what I missed).
My problem there is not with the FCC so much as it is with my @&$@*!@# county government that gave the local cable a company a monopoly which exempted them from having to run service any further than 150' from the road. I've been working on that without success.
My issue with the FCC is anything they do which puts more bandwidth under the control of the current mobile industry cronies rather than opening up more competition and better cheaper service.
Yeah, and look how AT&T, Comcast etc., throw armies of lobbyists against local broadband co-ops all over the country.
What is you experience with advertised versus actual speed?
laissez-faire
“My problem there is not with the FCC so much as it is with my @&$@*!@# county government that gave the local cable a company a monopoly which exempted them from having to run service any further than 150’ from the road. I’ve been working on that without success.
My issue with the FCC is anything they do which puts more bandwidth under the control of the current mobile industry cronies rather than opening up more competition and better cheaper service.
So cutting to the chase, your problem is with “the government,” at two levels. I am seriously perturbed by the lack of action on the part of the FCC with respect to telemarketers. They make my land-line phone ( which is actually now VOIP ) nearly unusable, or more correctly unanswerable. Plus, unlike my cell phone, blocking calls is difficult enough so as to make it a non-issue. The telcos don’t give a $hit about the individual subscriber (ditto for the cable companies), as they go about making money selling access to telemarketers which allows them to abuse their customers. So they are making money both ways while they leave the individual subscriber with a phone that is ringing constantly. With robo dialers and the ability to “create” phone numbers to use to call you, there isn’t even a mechanism to report the abuses. I’ve written to this FCC Head Commissioner, Agit Pai ( a Trump Appointee I might ad) about the issue but get no response. So we might as well ask for the FCC to be disbanded and save the money they consume.
You would be better off saying that the people buying the spectrum can’t be a major player in the local market already to improve competition than limiting it to 3 years.
I agree, it seems like the telemarketer calls are coming in faster than I can get them programmed into the call blocker. And I’m on the supposed “no call list”.
I had an opposite issue. The utility upgraded my area with a new sub-station of which it's feeder crosses my land to the station 2 miles away. When they put in the new substation the voltage went from 120/240 to 130/260 and stuff started smoking including my pump buried in my well. They finally came out and put a transformer set for 115/230 volts on the service for my house and it stopped.
The utility also began a right of way maintenance program on their lines cutting problem trees down and keeping underbrush controlled. That made outage from from 2-4 times a year to once every two years or so.
Like all service providers it depends on when I'd say. The other night at about midnight EDT it was at 22mbps. I just tested it a minute ago at http://www.zdnet.com/broadband-speedtest/ and averaged 15 mbps download.
After installation I also had to re-load all W/8 updates due to corrupt files from several years of dial up downloads and doing a W/8 system refresh which I knew was coming before upgrading. Even the 2GB download went reasonably fast. It took far longer to install than the actual download. One download was 500MB it had it downloaded in 12-15 minutes or so. Oh and I am also using WIFI & not hard wire cable from unit which I can do either way.
I'm a new user on this as I was stuck on dial up since 1999 due to lack of any other choice. So in my experience it is thousands of times faster. I've used public WIFI many times and this is much faster. If someone is used to a system say that was fed by fiber optics they may say slow but to be honest other than having to do one reset of the modem since installation it's worked fine. It is also at at high elevation angle which in some cases helps clear ground obstructions better.
Just the cable. Xformer stayed the same.
I've some transmission lines that cross my land and that company cuts back away from them a certain distance.
They pay me for the trees that they have to remove.
What a deal!!
;^)
My local provider also cuts bad trees along the road, but all I get from them is, "Where do you want this wood?"
I am waiting for another hand to scribe onto the wall... Daniel 5
Psalm 110:6 NIV
He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
I had a major fight with TVA aka Tennessee Valley Authority over the transmission lines. I'm not anti progress nor a earth worshiper but I do have common sense and as well I demand honesty from government.
TVA proposed along with our local utility a new substation to serve our rural area. That meant TVA running a 2.5 mile 180,000 volt transmission line from the main 500K line. They bought a 1200' long by 100' wide right of way across my land on the ridge behind my house. I was fine with it. They came in and began cutting an almost 500' wide path cutting valuable Oaks and hauling them out. They were trying to go within 100' behind me on a steep ridge. I went up to the crew with a witness who had a camcorder going. I asked what are you doing cutting outside of the 100' line they said danger tress and were going further toward you. I said leave now get off my land and don't come back without a supervisor two grades above yours. They said it's ours now we'll bring a US Marshall with us.
They left and I went in the house and called my congressman, my neighbors who were on the route the line was going, and the media. I got a call the next day that the TVA real estate purchasing agent and a forestry expert was coming out to assess the damages and talk about what happened. They showed up and I told both of them you are cutting trees that are far off our contracted purchase agreement and their removal will endanger my home due to flooding and erosion and I wanted the cut stopped where they were at. They agreed and then paid for the land taken plus the forestry expert counted all the stumps and estimated timber loss and added that to it. Then he asked what do with the trees we cut outside the R.O.W. we said they will stay where they are to prevent erosion. The crew cutting the Right Of Way were contractors who were selling the timber.
They were supposed to reclaim the cut but didn't. Next Spring we had a 100 year flood caused solely by that cut. Springs shot out mud, streams flooded at record levels, and two persons died downstream. I called the right of way department and said get up here and reclaim this they said that's your problem not ours. I drove into Knoxville where the TVA HQ is and went to the Inspector Generals Office and made a complain. A couple days later the seeding truck was out there spraying the high dollar liquid seeds.
Like I said I didn't have issue about a power line but how they did it was wrong all the way around. They had go back and renegotiate with the other landowners over a mile of the Right Of Way.
Wow!
What a story!
So glad you were able to get such good response times and action on your problem there.
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