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John Brodkin over at Ars Technica is reporting on a House bill which would allocate USD$100 billion for high speed (100mb/sec or higher) fiber to the home (FTTH) infrastructure.
The bill also addresses state laws blocking municipal and public/private broadband.
From the article:
House Democrats yesterday unveiled a $100 billion broadband plan that's gaining quick support from consumer advocates.
"The House has a universal fiber broadband plan we should get behind," Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon wrote in a blog post. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) announced the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, saying it has more than 30 co-sponsors and "invests $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities and ensure that the resulting Internet service is affordable." The bill text is available here [PDF].
In addition to federal funding for broadband networks with speeds of at least 100Mbps downstream and upstream, the bill would eliminate state laws that prevent the growth of municipal broadband. There are currently 19 states [PDF] with such laws. The Clyburn legislation targets those states with this provision:
No State statute, regulation, or other State legal requirement may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting any public provider, public-private partnership provider, or cooperatively organized provider from providing, to any person or any public or private entity, advanced telecommunications capability or any service that utilizes the advanced telecommunications capability provided by such provider.
The bill also has a Dig Once requirement that says fiber or fiber conduit must be installed "as part of any covered highway construction project" in states that receive federal highway funding. Similar Dig Once mandates have been proposed repeatedly over the years and gotten close to becoming US law, but never quite made it past the finish line.
So Soylentils, Do you have high-speed (100+mb/sec) broadband in your area? If not, what steps have your state/local government taken to get it or, alternatively, block it?
Should the Senate majority support legislation like this? If so, why? If not, why not?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 28 2020, @03:29PM (6 children)
IIUC, many places that have tried to put in locally supported fiber have failed. Perhaps it's easier these days, though...or there are more people around that know how to do it properly.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Sunday June 28 2020, @04:06PM (5 children)
It's not that community networks fail, it's that the community networks are usually blocked at the state level [broadbandnow.com]. The telcos are pretty quick to get word of when and where and get there ahead of the groundbreaking and get ahold of the politicians. After some quick work they end up banning community fibre for the whole stat. Yes, they make some weak promises to upgrade and expand the existing commercial options but everyone knows now, after all these decades, that that's not even lip service.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 28 2020, @08:22PM (2 children)
The ones I was thinking of failed. I realize that those blocked are also real, and perhaps they are currently more common. Back when I was paying attention they weren't being blocked, but they were attempts to expand a CATV system that failed. Often because they couldn't manage to get reliable fiber connections to work. (There were also some economic failures, but I'm counting those separately.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @11:54PM
Sounds like they underspent on hardware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @02:07AM
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday June 29 2020, @02:03AM
Which is the *best* part of this bill.
From TFS:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday June 29 2020, @02:39AM
And ahead of Google Fiber -- a lucky friend whose neighborhood they're currently putting it in, talked to some of the workers. He got the impression that as soon as Google announces they're installing fiber in a neighborhood, the cable providers call up everyone in that neighborhood and offer them a steep discount on cable Internet for the next year (or longer).
That way by the time Google Fiber's in place, nobody signs up for it. As a result, Google apparently stopped announcing ahead of time where they were planning to install fiber.