Plans for the U.S. government to build a national 5G network secured against China appear to have been quashed following intense telecom industry lobbying:
The Trump Administration made a few announcements about building super-fast 5G wireless networks on Friday, but the real purpose of the White House event was buried beneath the headlines.
On the surface, President Trump and Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai were promoting the schedule for a new spectrum auction and funds for extending faster Internet service to rural areas. But the auction, now slated to start on December 10, has been on tap for the "second half of 2019" since last year. And the funds for rural Internet connections, which don't have to use 5G technology or even wireless, were just an extension of a long-existing program.
Instead, the real agenda was to try and kill a well-funded lobbying effort to convince the federal government to take over 5G airwaves and build a nationalized network that private carriers would have to lease from the government. Supporters included prominent Republicans Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, as well as Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale.
But the idea has driven the U.S. telecommunications industry, which is spending tens of billions of dollars to build private 5G networks, bonkers.
Ajit Pai talked about "up to" gigabit connections for rural homes.
Also at Engadget.
See also: FCC "consumer advisory" panel includes ALEC, big foe of municipal broadband
Related: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Proposes Raising Rural Broadband Speeds
Ajit Pai's Rosy Broadband Deployment Claim May be Based on Gigantic Error
Ajit Pai Wants to Cap Spending on Broadband for Poor People and Rural Areas
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Trump security team sees building U.S. 5G network as option
President Donald Trump's national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on U.S. phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network, a senior administration official said on Sunday. The official, confirming the gist of a report from Axios.com, said the option was being debated at a low level in the administration and was six to eight months away from being considered by the president himself.
The 5G network concept is aimed at addressing what officials see as China's threat to U.S. cyber security and economic security. [...] "We want to build a network so the Chinese can't listen to your calls," the senior official told Reuters. "We have to have a secure network that doesn't allow bad actors to get in. We also have to ensure the Chinese don't take over the market and put every non-5G network out of business."
[...] Major wireless carriers have spent billions of dollars buying spectrum to launch 5G networks, and it is unclear if the U.S. government would have enough spectrum to build its own 5G network. [...] Another option includes having a 5G network built by a consortium of wireless carriers, the U.S. official said. "We want to build a secure 5G network and we have to work with industry to figure out the best way to do it," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Axios published documents it said were from a presentation from a National Security Council official. If the government built the network, it would rent access to carriers, Axios said.
Will it include "responsible encryption"?
Related: U.S. Lawmakers Urge AT&T to Cut Ties With Huawei
Ajit Pai wants to raise rural broadband speeds from 10Mbps to 25Mbps
The Federal Communications Commission is planning to raise the rural broadband standard from 10Mbps to 25Mbps in a move that would require faster Internet speeds in certain government-subsidized networks.
The FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF) distributes more than $1.5 billion a year to AT&T, CenturyLink, and other carriers to bring broadband to sparsely populated areas. Carriers that use CAF money to build networks must provide speeds of at least 10Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps for uploads. The minimum speed requirement was last raised in December 2014.
Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he's proposing raising that standard from 10Mbps/1Mbps to 25Mbps/3Mbps. "[W]'re recognizing that rural Americans need and deserve high-quality services by increasing the target speeds for subsidized deployments from 10/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps," Pai wrote in a blog post that describes agenda items for the FCC's December 12 meeting.
[...] The new 25Mbps/3Mbps standard will apply to future projects but won't necessarily apply to broadband projects that are already receiving funding. For ongoing projects, the FCC will use incentives to try to raise speeds. More money will be offered to carriers that agree to upgrade speeds to 25Mbps/3Mbps, a senior FCC official said in a conference call with reporters.
[...] When Democrat Tom Wheeler was FCC chair, Pai supported the commission's 2014 decision to raise the speed benchmark from 4Mbps/1Mbps to 10Mbps/1Mbps but said that the FCC should have also provided carriers with more years of funding to account for the upgrade. Pai opposed Wheeler's 2015 decision to raise a nationwide broadband standard to 25Mbps/3Mbps. Pai said at the time that 25/3Mbps was too high and criticized the Wheeler-led majority for using different standards, namely the 25Mbps/3Mbps standard for judging nationwide broadband deployment progress and the lower standard in rural projects subsidized by the government. As chair, Pai in 2017 floated a proposal that would lower broadband standards, but he changed course after a backlash.
In other words, more money will be given to established ISPs in order to improve rural service, but the improvements probably won't be verified.
In the continuing confusion over 5G mobile phone networks, it appears that someone wants to make something Great!
From Politico:
President Donald Trump's reelection team is backing a controversial plan to give the government a role in managing America's next-generation 5G wireless networks — bucking the free market consensus view of his own administration and sparking wireless industry fears of nationalization.
The plan — embraced by Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and adviser Newt Gingrich — would involve the government taking 5G airwaves and designing a system to allow for sharing them on a wholesale basis with wireless providers. The idea is also being pushed by a politically connected wireless company backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel that could stand to benefit.
It's already getting pushback from industry, which dismisses the concept as untested and unworkable.
But the Trump campaign is now fully embracing the model in a bid to woo rural voters who have long lacked decent internet service because wireless companies don't have a financial incentive to offer affordable broadband to all Americans, including those outside the biggest cities.
“A 5G wholesale market would drive down costs and provide access to millions of Americans who are currently underserved,” Kayleigh McEnany, national press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign, told POLITICO. “This is in line with President Trump’s agenda to benefit all Americans, regardless of geography."
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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.
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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed a new spending cap on the FCC's Universal Service programs that deploy broadband to poor people and to rural and other underserved areas.
Pai reportedly circulated the proposal to fellow commissioners on Tuesday, meaning it will be voted upon behind closed doors instead of in an open meeting. Pai has not released the proposal publicly, but it was described in a Politico report Wednesday, and an FCC official confirmed the proposal's details to Ars. Democratic FCC commissioners and consumer advocacy groups have criticized Pai's plan, saying it could harm the FCC's efforts to expand broadband access.
The FCC's Universal Service system's purpose is to bring communications service access to all Americans and consists of four programs: The Connect America Fund, which gives ISPs money to deploy broadband in rural areas; Lifeline, which provides discounts on phone and broadband service to low-income consumers; the E-Rate broadband program for schools and libraries; and a telecom access program for rural health care providers.
Pai's plan suggests an $11.4 billion annual cap on the total cost of the four programs, which is more than current spending but would put an upper bound on what the program could spend in the future. The cap would be indexed for inflation, FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly wrote on Twitter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:10PM (7 children)
This is the same stuff they use at the airport to see through your clothes. Watch out for health and privacy issues.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 15 2019, @07:57PM (6 children)
If you fear the electromagnetic specrtrum so much, I've come across critical information for you.
YOUR VERY DNA IS NOW HELD TOGETHER WITH ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE. The only known cure is to lower your body temperature to -273.15 C.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:04PM (3 children)
mm wave != entire electromagnetic spectrum
Where do all you idiots come from who call other people dumb while not having the first clue about what you are talking about?
The "issues" (or features, depending on your goals) with mm wave have been known since snowcrash was written decades ago.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Monday April 15 2019, @09:14PM (2 children)
Touché what? Who says "good point" to the notion that wavelengths with magnitude 1000-2000x below the ranges that cause harm to cells are dangerous?
Is bullshit. That's fiction, you're citing fiction. The scientific literature on it is incredibly clear, it's harmless unless the total energy gets high enough to literally cook you. You're exactly as crazy as the people who insist that wifi routers give them headaches.
And the idea that it reflects a privacy intrusion because it's also used in scanners is also really dumb. It doesn't penetrate glass, metal, wood, brick, foliage. Back-scatter techniques require knowing very precise relationship between transmitter and receiver location. It's like thinking that because black holes emit x-rays they'll produce those neat photographs you get from your radiologist. It's so incredibly asinine that you deign in your extraordinary and profound ignorance, you have the fucking gall to say anyone else doesn't know what they're talking about.
Go back to complaining that wifi gives you a headache.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @09:36PM
You are basing this on studies that only look at the expected acute damage from thermal and ionization effects... I haven't read them but if they are of typical medical research quality are likely to be very crappy as well. But besides, they don't even know what type of stuff to look for.. but some possibilities are intermittent porifying of the plasma membrane, increased/decreased rate of microtuble construction, denaturing hydrogen bonds, etc.
Besides "back-scatter techniques", I would expect looking for characteristic "shadows" to be easier. But also could imagine being able to triangulate a "very precise relationship" and combine with other info to do whatever privacy invading stuff our friends in the intelligence, marketing, and social media industries desire.
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:31PM
I don't know about them, but WiFi routers usually give me headaches. The UI on them is almost always miserable, causing me to bang my head on the desk while trying to configure them.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 15 2019, @09:40PM (1 child)
I've got some other critical information.
If
you don'the doesn't like EM radiation at airports to see under your clothes, the TSA agents can pat you down and feel under your clothes instead.To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @09:48PM
They also stick their fingers down your pants now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:31PM (3 children)
Fuck that noise. He's lying. Major telecoms will never offer gigabit rural connections, no matter how subsidized.
Meanwhile, I already have gigabit fiber to the house from a nonprofit-owned isp. Completely unsubsidized. I live in Lake City, MN, population 5000.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:37PM (1 child)
How much does it cost?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:16PM
I dunno about Minnesota, but in BFE Utah it's about $50 give or take https://www.utopiafiber.com/residential-pricing/ [utopiafiber.com]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday April 16 2019, @04:45AM
Recently got fiber too. 1Gb down and up is 100$ per month. 100Mbit was like 45$? The local phone company rolled through and had it all done within 4-5 months. It seems like big ISPs (cable companies really) are just blind to rural and small towns. I'm on the edge of a town of 30,000 people. It's mostly forest out here.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @07:51PM (2 children)
The US rural broadband plan that's been in place since the late 1990's, as I understand it:
1. The US federal government gives a bunch of money to the telecoms to build rural broadband capacity.
2. The telecoms build basically nothing.
3. A small portion of the money they received in step 1 goes to bribing both the bureaucrats and the elected officials to maintain this system. The remainder is booked as profits.
Everybody is happy! (Well, except for those poor saps in rural areas who have laughably bad Internet service by international standards, but that will just discourage them from getting information from any source other than the currently approved propaganda outlets (a.k.a. network TV). But everybody whose opinion matters is happy.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @09:23PM (1 child)
Why is it red counties don't seem to know or care when they screw themselves by supporting corporate kissing idiots?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @09:49PM
For largely the same reason many of the blue counties don't seem to know or care when they screw themselves by supporting corporate kissing idiots, as they generally have since at least 1990 or so. When your choice is between corporate-kissing idiot A and corporate-kissing idiot B, you make the decision based on issues other than corporate-kissing.
There are some players on team blue that currently look like they aren't corporate-kissers and have been getting in trouble for that. The corporate-kissers on both team red and team blue are doing what they can to run them out of Washington on a rail.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday April 15 2019, @07:53PM (3 children)
I hadn't pegged Newt as a socialist. But apparently he and a bunch of other Republicans want to nationalize the cell network.
Can somebody with a better understanding of the internals of the Republican party please tell me how this shit gets past all the anti-socialists?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:00PM
The republicrat party is one party whose goal is to make money and accumulate power/influence via insider trading, cronyism, and outright corruption while distracting you with issues they could care less about.
Once you see the world in those terms it will all make sense.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:19PM (1 child)
Yeah the plan is as socialist as those interstate highways, but slightly less so since you get the pipe from the govt and the data from any number of commercial ISPs who are now forced to compete on a level playing field. Darn those socialists!!!
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday April 16 2019, @04:50AM
That would make sense if my public built roads had privately owned commerical tollbooths installed on everyone's driveway.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday April 15 2019, @08:50PM
First
And
Conclusion:
China paid for to have this happen:
* no new network that is secured against China
* existing insecure network expanded to make more rural people available for China to spy on
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.