Posted on 05/21/2021 9:16:54 AM PDT by Renfrew
Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday proposed a three-year program with $7.35 billion in funding to bring broadband access to rural America. The bill would focus on the most remote and least served areas.
More than 20% of rural Americans lack access to high-speed internet service, says the Center for Rural Innovation.
(Excerpt) Read more at agriculture.com ...
Rural Broadband may be supplanted by satellite broadband as Elon Musk is building.
Yup—Congress just wants to throw money around and have talking points.
They couldn’t care less if real world technology makes their expeditures obsolete.
But, but, but, but... What about G5?
I live in rural America will limited broadband. There are solutions in progress like StarLink and government involvement is not appropriate. The money should not be spent.
I’m rural and I’d love broadband. But it’s not the place of taxpayers who won’t benefit to pay for my broadband. Also, it makes no financial sense to have infrastructure like that when the density of potential users is so small. Follow the money. Who benefits? I’d say all those streaming companies like Disney and Netflix. (Neither of which I’d pay ten cents to keep out of bankruptcy.)
It is not the government’s job to provide people with broadband or any other type of internet service.
Correct. They cant even fix the roads and highways.
Uhh...
Hughesnet, Starlink, OneWeb, ViaSat, Kuiper, etc etc
Lotsa people throwin billions at coverage for internet
No need for da govamint to be the venture capitalists
I pay 178.00 a month with hughesnet. I get two days before all mine is used up. I work from home 4 days a week and live stream about 15 hours a week. That’s it. Then it comes to a crawl asking me to buy tokens. 178.00 a month!!!
The money won’t go into these communities.
“I live in rural America will limited broadband. There are solutions in progress like StarLink and government involvement is not appropriate. The money should not be spent.”
I agree 100% with this comment.
“ Rural Broadband may be supplanted by satellite broadband as Elon Musk is building.”
Yes, that’s the logical, cheaper way to do this, but this is about throwing money at local governments and unions, not about high-speed internet access.
$7,000,000,000 will buy 14,000,000 Starlink base stations for those too poor for that entry point. $99/month after that gives excellent internet connectivity from ANYWHERE.
Our electric COOP is finally providing broadband with fiber to the home. COOPS have access to very cheap money and can legally do all sorts of things including sewers, water, trash, just about anything rural people need that is currently underserved and the coop can set up a corporation to do it with very cheap money.
I thought dumbo was going to do this? Money was appropriated and nothing ever happened. The money went somewhere.
Proposes? Rubber stamped and done. Money wasted.
Major crock of crap.
Is it going to be free for POCs and expensive for Whitey?
USDA Rural Development has been struggling to expand broadband coverage to rural areas at least since 2005. As you correctly stated, Gen.Blather, it makes no financial sense to have infrastructure like that when the density of potential users is so small.
The Dems just can't beak the "Santa Claus" habit. They are running the country to the poor house with all of the "generosity" financed on the taxpayer "credit card".
This rural American had to shell out just under $10K to have Comcast string 4/10 mile of cable.
I just wish it was cheaper. $100/mth is a little steep. We're paying $50/mth for the second fastest DSL plan our phone company has. Satellite is about the only other thing that's going to work where I live in the Ozarks. We barely get a cell phone signal at home and only if we stand outside in a certain spot. They would have to put many thousands of cell towers in to cover everyone in the Ozarks with 5G. They ran fiber optic cable when they installed our phone service but they haven't gotten more than a mile radius from town with the fiber service/cable and it's another 20 miles to here across rocky hilly terrain. The phone guys that installed our service said I probably wouldn't see fiber optic in my lifetime.
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