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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday June 28 2020, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the let-them-have-bits dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:18PM (5 children)

    by inertnet (4071) on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:18PM (#1013792) Journal

    You're way behind, in the Netherlands I have 500 mbit/s up and down speed since 2014, no caps. Very complete with a number of email accounts, hosting, backup, etc, and DNS without funny business. For a reasonable price of just under 100 euro's including an extended television package and 2 telephone lines. The connection has well over 99% up time, in fact I can't even remember when it was down last, happened maybe once or twice in the last ten years.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:23PM (4 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:23PM (#1013795)

    If we only had to provide Internet service to 1/3 of the state of North Carolina, then I'm sure we could be right there with you.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:12PM (1 child)

      by inertnet (4071) on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:12PM (#1013856) Journal

      You're absolutely right, our soil is almost entirely sand and clay so rolling out this network was probably even easier than you thought. It didn't start out with the major providers but with small groups of subsidized enthusiasts. They began slowly but once the providers saw the potential profits and understood that they needed to get on board or get left behind, things picked up quickly. My advice is, don't hand over that $100 billion directly to your major providers, but find a way to force them to tag along.

      • (Score: 2) by EJ on Monday June 29 2020, @01:51AM

        by EJ (2452) on Monday June 29 2020, @01:51AM (#1013937)

        It would also help a little if all of our politicians weren't too busy stabbing each other in the back to do any actual work.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:37PM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:37PM (#1013873)

      You've already paid for high speed Internet to every American household, multiple times, you should already have it.

    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday June 29 2020, @12:32PM

      by TheRaven (270) on Monday June 29 2020, @12:32PM (#1014033) Journal
      It's not a matter of size, it's a matter of population density. It doesn't matter if the area is ten times as big if the cost is amortised over ten times as many people. The USA likes to use the low mean population density as an excuse for being behind other countries in broadband roll out. I'd accept that excuse, except that the median population density in the USA is actually quite high. 82% of the population live in dense urban areas. Even if you only look at the densest 50% of these areas, the USA is still pretty far behind.
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