"All support/subsidy for traditional dial-tone from the USF should be redirected to voip and internet."
Given that the government has been terrible at picking winner and losers, we're better off just shutting the whole thing down than expanding it.
"grantees are not required to serve an entire FCC census tract"
Most of the funding mechanisms have required recipients to serve any and all customers in the area they are funded for. You are right, though, in that process is used to determine eligible areas. The FCC is reforming that aspect as we speak. Needless to say, the big operators are fighting that tooth and nail.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX
http://www.midwest-ix.com
From: "heasley" <heas@shrubbery.net>
To: "Josh Luthman" <josh@imaginenetworksllc.com>
Cc: "NANOG Operators' Group" <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 2:18:04 PM
Subject: Re: New minimum speed for US broadband connections
Wed, Jun 02, 2021 at 01:02:00PM -0400, Josh Luthman:
> Phone is telecom. Internet is not telecom. Generally speaking.
>
> If you think both of those services are US funded, why do you think we have
> this current situation where not everyone has fiber?
>
> To answer your question, there is some assistance to those big companies
> (AT&T, Frontier, CenturyLink). Did you notice that two of them have filed
> bankruptcy recently? They also wrote letters apologizing they didn't
> deploy the services they were paid to do.
>
> USF is for phone. Not internet.
I believe that is incorrect. afaik, 4 Internet connectivity programs have
been created within the USF. iirc, that occured 7 - 10 years ago. I think
CAF granted ~1.5T in its last phase.
All support/subsidy for traditional dial-tone from the USF should be
redirected to voip and internet.
A significant problem with USF grants is that grantees are not required
to serve an entire FCC census tract (an area much smaller than a USPS
zip code) when they accept a grant to service it. Meaning that if just a
portion, the most convenient portion, of a census tract is serviced, the
FCC is satisfied and then considers the entire tract served. Which is
exactly what happened to my area, thanks FCC & Comcast - who also will not
discuss extending it the ~.5 mile to reach me and neighbors.
I'd be delighted to have 25M symmetrical. What I can buy at consumer
prices (~$55 MRC) is .8M/.8M DSL (MTR > 30 days for a few neighbors after
the last storm). If I were located about 1.5 in any direction, I could
buy 100M/100M or 1G/100M. No viable 4G or 5G options. There is Sprint
fiber about 300 feet away, but I'm told it is voice only. There is
Zayo fiber about .5 miles away, 100M for ~$1k MRC lit or ~$4k dark to
the telco hotel, but it also has other challanges.