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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
(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.Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.
(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.)
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(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.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(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
Stupid people exist because nothing in the food chain eats them anymore.