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posted by chromas on Friday August 24 2018, @03:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

In a report [PDF] put together by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, investigators looked at real-world internet offerings within a 30-mile radius of Rochester in Minnesota.

Rochester provides a useful contrast in that it has a heavily built-up center with a spread-out urban space surrounding it. It also claims to have no less than 19 companies that provide residents with broadband internet access – something that its local council has boasted about – and exists in a state whose leaders have set some ambitious broadband goals: 25Mbps for everyone by 2022; and 100Mbps by 2026.

However, as the investigation revealed this month, competition is something available only to a minority of people who live in the most dense areas, and access to fast internet access above federal minimums remains a virtual monopoly.

"We have 19 local broadband providers and, of those, we have two cable providers, six DSL providers, four fiber providers, three fixed wireless providers and four mobile providers," the report quotes City Council member Ed Hruska as saying.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/23/rochester_broadband/


Original Submission

Related Stories

Ajit Pai's Rosy Broadband Deployment Claim May be Based on Gigantic Error 9 comments

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Ajit Pai's rosy broadband deployment claim may be based on gigantic error

Ajit Pai's latest claim that his deregulatory policies have increased broadband deployment may be based in part on a gigantic error. Pai's claim was questionable from the beginning, as we detailed last month. The Federal Communications Commission data cited by Chairman Pai merely showed that deployment continued at about the same rate seen during the Obama administration. Despite that, Pai claimed that new broadband deployed in 2017 was made possible by the FCC "removing barriers to infrastructure investment."

But even the modest gains cited by Pai rely partly on the implausible claims of one ISP that apparently submitted false broadband coverage data to the FCC, advocacy group Free Press told the FCC in a filing this week. Further Reading Ajit Pai says broadband access is soaring—and that he's the one to thank

The FCC data is based on Form 477 filings made by ISPs from around the country. A new Form 477 filer called Barrier Communications Corporation, doing business as BarrierFree, suddenly "claimed deployment of fiber-to-the-home and fixed wireless services (each at downstream/upstream speeds of 940mbps/880mbps) to census blocks containing nearly 62 million persons," Free Press Research Director Derek Turner wrote.

"This claimed level of deployment stood out to us for numerous reasons, including the impossibility of a new entrant going from serving zero census blocks as of June 30, 2017, to serving nearly 1.5 million blocks containing nearly 20 percent of the US population in just six months time," Turner wrote. "We further examined the underlying Form 477 data and discovered that BarrierFree appears to have simply submitted as its coverage area a list of every single census block in each of eight states in which it claimed service: CT, DC, MD, NJ, NY, PA, RI, and VA."

In reality, BarrierFree's website doesn't market any fiber-to-the-home service, and it advertises wireless home Internet speeds of up to just 25mbps, Free Press noted.

Related: Just How Rigged is America's Broadband World? A Deep Dive Into One US City Reveals All
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Proposes Raising Rural Broadband Speeds
Speedtest.net Report Concludes That Broadband Speeds in U.S. Are Improving
It's Now Clear None of the Supposed Benefits of Killing Net Neutrality Are Real
FCC Struggles to Convince Judge That Broadband Isn't "Telecommunications"
Democrats To Push To Reinstate Repealed 'Net Neutrality' Rules


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @04:08PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 24 2018, @04:08PM (#725873) Journal

    Download the PDF. It's only 18 pages. As a "read", it's only five minutes or less. There are more maps than anything in the PDF. Grab the PDF, read what little there is to read, then just kinda scroll up and down to see what the various maps are.

    It's pretty shocking, unless you've followed this nonsense in the past.

    Oh yeah. Blame the U.S. Census for a lot of this mess.

    The information in this policy brief is based on the FCC Form 477.
    Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
    are required to
    report where they
    offer Internet service and their maximum advertised speeds in each
    census block. Census blocks are the smallest unit of measurement in
    the U.S. Census, and they do not represent a consistent amount of
    land area or population. Rural census blocks tend to be larger than
    urban census blocks. If an ISP can provide Internet service to at least
    one premise in a census block, the FCC marks that entire census
    block as having access to Internet service at the speed the ISP claims
    is available.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday August 24 2018, @04:47PM (1 child)

      by vux984 (5045) on Friday August 24 2018, @04:47PM (#725898)

      It seems the problem is the FCC

      "If an ISP can provide Internet service to at least
      one premise in a census block, the FCC marks that entire census
      block as having access to Internet service at the speed the ISP claims
      is available."

      The FCC should re-define service as being available only once its available to the majority of premises; 51%, or perhaps even 75% or 90%. I wouldn't push for 100% because there's always going to be areas where some guy has a shack on an island in a lake who doesn't even WANT internet access there, and that shouldn't prevent the area from being marked as serviced. But yeah, 1 address is nonsense.

      I know around here its just as bad, I just heard about a lawsuit where a town is suing the telco -- the city council put up several hundred thousand of tax payer money into funding and wanted high speed coverage to the majority of the town, including the hospital, fire department, and police station. So the telco ran fibre to the hospital, fire department, and police station. And that's it. Three buildings have fibre. The rest of the town still has ADSL 5/1. The telco is arguing that it met is obligation by servicing the 3 named buildings. I haven't seen the contract of course, and its entirely possible some small town city council signed off on a contract worded ambiguously enough for the telco to make this claim. But the telco's conduct is simply ridiculous -- there's simply no way they didn't damned well know that the town wanted fibre service to be available to as many residents as possible as part of the project.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday August 24 2018, @05:04PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Friday August 24 2018, @05:04PM (#725909)

        Ajit Pai is working on a directive stating that a State has sufficient broadband coverage if at least one person in the State has 5/1 access. The Twitter-in-chief will then announce that his administration has brought Broadband to all Americans, and Fox News will repeat that until the elections.

  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday August 24 2018, @07:36PM (1 child)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Friday August 24 2018, @07:36PM (#725990)

    How do other countries handle this? I hear stuff about universal high speed access, but all traffic is metered ... ?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @05:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @05:59PM (#726278)

      In Australia you can get unlimited DSL DSL2 or NBN fiber depending on where you live.
      Expect to pay $60 to $80 depending on telco and connectivity.
      Speed for DSL ranges on DSLAM availability but in most cities DSL2 is $60 / month unlimited connecting at 8 to 18Mbps down.
      See Exetel and TPG websites for info. They even have coverage maps.

  • (Score: 2) by Shimitar on Saturday August 25 2018, @08:40AM

    by Shimitar (4208) on Saturday August 25 2018, @08:40AM (#726176) Homepage

    In italy each provider advertise both land coverage and people coverage. For example, 90% land and 95% people.

    I live in the countryside 30km from a big city, i am covered by LTE ad mobile and by WiMax (300mbps simmetrical). I have at least three WiMAX providers i can choose from. I might also be in range for ADSL but i never checked as i dont care.

    --
    Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
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