Private industry handling a public utility is never a good idea, see: Texas power grid
internet should be treated like water and power and handled by the city.
The biggest problem in Texas is greedy politicians (Republicans) making it worse.
The government should never be in control of a means of free speech. You know who has Government-controlled internet?
Russia Iran China N Korea India Some EU countries Turkey Etc.
Which eu countries ?
Now I’m curious too
Right because having private companies in control of a means of free speech has always worked out fine
Aren’t local ISPs essentially banned in a lot of places due to lobbying from the big players? Less abandoned and more actively stomping on its throat.
It was like that in all of Washington State from 1999 until it was repealed in 2021.
Vermont has several towns with as little as a thousand people that have fiber internet thanks to municipal cooperatives like ECFiber. Much of the state is a connectivity wasteland but it’s really cool to see some towns working together to sort it out.
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Because usable cellular Internet is relatively new, the cable/dsl/etc providers should have upgraded their systems literally decades ago and didn’t, funneling federal money intended for that purpose to CEO bonuses instead.
cable/dsl/etc providers should have upgraded their systems literally decades ago and didn’t, funneling federal money intended for that purpose to CEO bonuses instead.
So why look to them now like the other person was downvoted for asking? Nothing has changed and they still have no reason to run cable out to these communities.
The short answer is lobbyists.
If they are so rural ISPs won’t take them, why would a cell company deploy 5G in a super sparse area?
For example TMO and VZW will only hand out home cell modem if you live within half mile of a major interstate. If not out of luck aside from Starlink.
Well I tried it for home Internet and it was mostly fine but was a little less reliable than wired. I think reliability is important.
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Yeah, same
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the absence of service from companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter, counties and small towns in rural America could build broadband networks for their residents themselves, which can make the difference between prosperity and poverty.
A historic provision in the 2021 infrastructure act upholds this tenet of digital democracy: $65bn under the broadband equity, access and deployment – or Bead – program to connect rural America to the world.
Clyburn, wide awake with an opportunity before him, asked Bailey to donate 100 tickets to a tournament for local kids and a couple hundred laptops he could give to students in rural Clarendon county, near Orangeburg.
Sanford Bishop, who represents rural south Georgia, told him about football players taking the team bus to McDonald’s after practice because they could get wifi in the parking lot, Clyburn said.
Barriers in South Carolina resemble those in at least 16 other states today, which, in the name of a “level playing field” – a term coopted by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) in draft language – keeps government entities from competing with private carriers, even in rural broadband deserts.
South Carolina hired Stritzinger away from running Revolution D, a rural broadband consultancy with a legacy of using real-world data to puncture questionable coverage maps promoted by internet carriers.
The original article contains 2,197 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I thought this was just a bad attempt at cutting down the content, but the original article is just as abrupt and stilted.
I skip these summaries entirely. Are they ever any good? I just slipped over them and assume it’s bullshit Ai I don’t care to read. I’ll just read the article if I really care.
I find them useful for skimming articles, but when it’s “saved 90%” like this they tend to be somewhat disjointed.
Where I live in Canada everyone thinks they need gigabit internet. My internet sales person was so sure that I needed at least 1 gig internet because I work from home and have a couple of people using YouTube at the same time . But I haven’t had a single issue with my 500 megabit internet . That was the lowest I could go , probably would of been fine with 200 - 300 .
