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Solve : US plans to give high-speed broadband to every American?

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US regulators have UNVEILED the nation's first plan to give every American super-fast broadband by 2020.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has submitted the plan to Congress, said broadband was the "greatest infrastructure challenge".

It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home.

The FCC's goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8569157.stmHard to believe. But they will do it. The technology is already there. It has been a question of business practice and trhe limited vision of those in power. The leaders now see the technology that was available twenty years ago.

Personal note. Just talked to a family member that lives in a small rural town in the north cost of California. It is near an important military place and there was fiber cable laid there years ago. He says they have just laid another better cable that comes withing a mile of his house. Yet he only has had dial-up and there is no DSL service in his area. So he just went with Verizon Wi-Fi. Is not dot absurd?

Also, a few years back the FCC forced a Cable company to offer cable service in that town of less that a thousand people;. It was a deal whee they could use point-to-point microwave in that area if they would also run a cable service for the town. The company went bankrupt. The new digital TV rules ruing they local TV translator reception, so the locals now all use satellite or nothing.

So this just shows how much power the FCC can have in some areas. They ruined a private provider. The locals still do not have high=speed internet at a fair proce. The Wi-Fi in that area goes for $60 a month with metered bandwidth.

Now the FCC and the rest of the government sees thet digital communicati0n for everyone is the way to go. More economical and better end results..

Don't believe those stories people tell about how hard it is to get digital service into remove areas. Not true. If your can drive to it in a Jeep, you can drag a cable to it. It does not cost more than putting up a fence. Except of course, the cost of labor. A farmer puts up fences with three workers at minimum wage. But a cable you do with five men. One to drive the truck, two digging the ditch, one splicing the cable and one to supervise! Other than that, the cost of materials is about the same.Quote

Don't believe those stories people tell about how hard it is to get digital service into remove areas. Not true. If your can drive to it in a Jeep, you can drag a cable to it. It does not cost more than putting up a fence. Except of course, the cost of labor. A farmer puts up fences with three workers at minimum wage. But a cable you do with five men. One to drive the truck, two digging the ditch, one splicing the cable and one to supervise! Other than that, the cost of materials is about the same.
Yeah, and the rest of the network automatically knows how to deal with the new cable.

We're not talking about a simple power cord here. You can't do that with a telephone cable- there is still a lot of housekeeping to be done on both sides for the phone numbers of the new phone lines. Same goes for Internet connections; difference is it's IP addresses and the equipment is a lot more expensive. You cannot graft a new DSL or Cable line onto an existing line any more then you can graft an extra head on a possum.BC programmer, you are wrong on this.We have been in the Age of Silicon from the mid 70's. Thirty or forty years ago interface equipment was expensive. Now it is cheaper that a meal at McDonald;'s
AT&T has the technology to hook both rural and urban customers for a very low-cost insulation and easily maintainable. This issues are NOT technical. That have to do with business models and Politics. And labor costs, as I mentioned.

"Grafting" a new customer into the network matrix is as easy as plugging in a cord. And it some cases you do not even plug anything in. It just works.

The same technologies that is used for Wi-Fi, Blue tooth, CB Radio, Weather radar, Sat elite TV, Digital TV , Deep Space probes, GPS, Grange Door openers, Remote security systems, Police Radio, Microwave Telephony, Industrial Telemetry and other communications are and have been used for rural telephone service.

Adding a new customer to the digital network is not more difficult that the WI-FI you get when you sigh up with Verizon or an of the others. It is only as difficult as they want it to be. Yo pay the money and if becomes very easy.

By the way, one of my relatives has to pay $60 a month for the a internet service that has less performance that what I have here. I pay $10 a month became I found out that they can do it for that if you want it. Also, I get cable TV for $10 a month because I asked for it. I get 22 analog and 8 Digital.

The idea that it is harder in rural areas is hogwash. Over 15 years ago I was living in one of the poorest countries in the world. To save money I would travel a 12 hour bus trip between the major cites. I took may analog cell phone with me. Half way into the trip there was a rest stop with a cell tower that provided rural service of the few people out in the vast empty plain. I could call either the Main city or the place where I lived with my cell phone. Or even call my stock broker in the USA. Out in the middle of nowhere. The analog cell phone then had a base cost of $10 a month. Which I gladly paid.

Here is why I tell this true story. The privates sector had already tried to bring rial telephone service into this area. The government stalled it. The private firm finally gave up. The cell phone system was later installed by the government controlled telephone service.

So don't give me that "its too expensive to do rural service" chant.

What they really mean is that they want to make better profit margin by refusing to give service to a few needy customers. That is way rural servicee has to be mandated by law.

For years we have been paying a surcharge to provided needed voice service to rural areas. Now the money is to be used for digital service to those areas.

About time. With present technology, digital service is more cos-defective. Ask a telephone engineer.
OK First off, whatever your getting from Verizon, is NOT Wifi. Wi fi operates over relatively short distances.

"Mobile Broadband" is what you get. Not Wifi. Wifi is implemented by wireless routers, not by internet providers.

I never said it was TOO EXPENSIVE to provide rural service. I said it's MORE expensive. big difference.

Anyway, I'm off to graft a new head on a possum, since obviously that's possible.Geek, it's obvious that you have never worked for a phone or cable company and you have never worked in phone or cable CONSTRUCTION or activation.

The reason that almost all of the USA is wired for phone and power is because for almost 100 years the government gave tax breaks, subsidies, and a guaranteed rate of return when both industries were still fairly new. That ended roughly 30 years ago. Electric Co-ops generally have done fine and are self supporting. Since then the phone companies have laid off hundreds of thousands of people while they adjust to the new economic realities.

Part of that reality was that is cheaper on a per subscriber basis to upgrade plant in high density than in rural areas. That's why big and medium cities have high speed DSL and many rural areas don't.

When the phone companies lost their guaranteed rate of return and actually had to make a profit things changed drastically for them. A lot of the phone lines installed in rural areas were designed long before DSL was ever THOUGHT of. Some of the phone lines are 50 years old, and generally work fine for voice, but were never designed for DSL.

With DSL, it's not just having a twisted pair copper wire coming into your home, but where the nearest central office or nearest fiber termination is. Voice runs more than twice as far as a DSL signal since a voice signal is a lower frequency than the DSL, and has much lower attenuation.Your post is well thought out.
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Part of that reality was that is cheaper on a per subscriber basis to upgrade plant in high density than in rural areas. That's why big and medium cities have high speed DSL and many rural areas don't.

Yes, this is a key issue. And as you also said, the big companies want some grantee that they will get a good return on the underinvestment.

Here is the main point I want to make. The government was very slow in understand the digital communications should have been the priority. And much of the issue is more of choices made because of weak minds of a few men.

It has been know in the earlier 50s that installing voice only telephone CIRCUITS was a dead-end. But the industry wanted to pretend it was more cost-effective to install vinyl-cover copper trash that even Alexander Bell would have rejected. (OK, I am exaggerating a bit. But not much.)

DSL works just fine over real voice grade circuits.

In our neighbor the problem with going DSL is that the voice grade circuits had already fallen below voice grades standards. I have had a long standing issue with the phone company over this. They know exactly what is wrong. They do not want to bring their equipment up to to voice grade standards. As you mentioned, they want a guarantee that their investment will turn a profit. A profit return of 100% is not good enough if you can do 200% in the same time frame. Profit before progress.

And yes, I am familiar with working for a large company. And I am familiar with going out and digging a trench and watching a phone technician waste three hours splicing an old analog 24 pair twisted write cable and putting the thing back under PRESSURE. If it had been a T1 cable it would not have taken so long.( Please see this reference . http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-t1-line.htm )

For some reason people thing that more sophisticated technology is harder to implement. No, it is not. It is hard to retro fit into a system that was a bad design to begin with. The reason for new technology is to make things much better and more cost-effective.

Now with the change in the outlook of the FCC, we shall see how long it takes to make the whole country digital.


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