> over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served
This doesn't seem very efficient to me.
replies(13):
This doesn't seem very efficient to me.
One of the first thing the US's founders did was create the postal service, which was to provide mail service to everyone, regardless of location; it literally costs the same to mail a letter across the street as to send it to some house in Whoknowswhere, Alaska. This provides a minimum communications infrastructure.
One of the best things that were done in the New Deal was the Rural Electrification Act, which ensured that electrical service was provided to everyone, providing a minimum availability of a critical energy source.
Also essential was the initial telecommunications acts, which required providing telephone service at the same rates to all addresses. Again, providing this service universally ensures that the entire country has a baseline communications infrastructure.
This is why the telecomm companies have been aggressively stripping copper telephone wires from their system and replacing everything with fiber or coax — because the laws requiring universal service are tied to phone service and copper wires. This is why we wind up with companies like Comcast saying "F*$k-You - $50,000 for 500m of wire" to to everyone that isn't instantly profitable.
These universal service mandates are not to benefit each individual living on some remote farm or homestead, or just more remote suburbs/exurbs.
They are to benefit THE ENTIRE NATION. Everyone benefits from infrastructure, and benefits most when the infrastructure is more universal, when everyone can has power, can communicate and can transport goods.
You live in an advanced society with advanced infrastructure. When that infrastructure gets built out, perhaps notice that it is a good thing, instead of thinking of only your own petty concerns.
Or, go find someplace where there are no taxes and you get to do everything yourself (hey, if you want it done right, do it yourself, right?) - see what you can find and how well you can live with no roads, comms, power, security, etc. Report back.
Yes it's nicer to have optic fiber, but this is somewhat luxury if Starlink exists, and if the gov funds it already.
I'm sure some other people in the US need more these 30'000 USD than optic fiber to watch Netflix with a little less buffering.
Budget could be used somewhere else (to build roads, or to support medicine/health, education, animal welfare, etc).
So it's not about refusing to help rural / remote people, but rather about optimising allocation in order to support as much people as possible.
There's no ISDN, no DSL, no Starlink yet, no 5G fixed, no 4G fixed, no power-line Internet. They are not watching any Netflix, and things like Social Security and Medicare are increasingly accessed through poorly performing, bloated websites. They paid taxes more than five decades of full-time work. There's fiber within two miles of them, but nobody's used it to extend what's becoming a modern necessity to their house.
If they lived on the other side of the road, they'd have the area's rural electric cooperative. Then they could get at least 10 Mbps over the power lines. However, they're on a corporate power provider that has 4 to 12 hour outages 3 to 4 times a year besides not offering similar additional services.
With the right negotiations and a few hundred thousand dollars, their moderately densely populated unincorporated area could serve hundreds of homes with broadband. The cable and phone companies were given millions upon millions of subsidies every month for decades now for rural phone and Internet access, but have not served this area. It's time something else is done in these areas to give them the same access to the modern marketplace and to government services as everyone else.