SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
This story is part of Crossing the Broadband Divide, CNET's coverage of how the country is working toward making broadband access universal.
The US Federal Communications Commission wants to make it easier for tribal communities to get access to wireless spectrum to provide broadband and mobile service in areas where traditional broadband and wireless providers don't offer it.
On Thursday, the agency voted unanimously to establish the Enhanced Competition Incentive Program, or ECIP, which will offer incentives to large carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to make their unused wireless spectrum available to small carriers and tribal groups so they can establish service in unserved areas. The hope is that this program, along with other FCC programs like the Universal Service Fund, as well as newer efforts like the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and Affordable Connectivity Program, will help close the digital divide.
[...] Building networks in rural America is incredibly expensive, and in some places it's nearly impossible. The terrain can be a problem, with mountain ranges or inclement weather making deployment difficult and more costly. But the bigger barrier in rural and tribal regions is more often due to low population density. Broadband providers simply won't offer service if they can't get enough customers to pay for it.
The way the FCC has structured its wireless spectrum auctions has also compounded this economic problem. Wireless spectrum licenses auctioned by the FCC, which often sell for billions of dollars, usually cover large geographic areas, which can be up to tens of thousands of square miles. As a result, the licenses are too expensive for smaller players and often go to the national carriers, which can afford the high price tags.
But because it's more profitable to deploy service in denser cities and suburbs, big carriers usually spend resources there while limiting deployment in rural communities to the minimum required by the FCC, according to the public interest group Public Knowledge. The result is a persistent gap in coverage, with rural and tribal communities perpetually being left out.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @10:23PM
How Russians do it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday July 17 2022, @10:47PM (16 children)
There is some California proposition showing up in November that gives the Indian casinos competition. Now, normally I'd look at it, judge the yays and nays (cuz I'm a voter that actually does such archaic things), but....
Since before the June election the Indians have been running ads. Streaming, OTA, YouTube, everyfucking where. 1-2 ads per commercial break. At first I thought it was something I could vote on last June. But no. It's evidently something on the November ballot. 1-2 ads per commercial break, no matter where you watch your video? Someone is paying a lot of money....
Guess what? Fuck you. The fact that you are so terrified about this initiative tells me I need to vote for it, or against it, I'm not sure yet. But I will be voting against whichever way you want me to vote.
Why? Because A) if you put this much money into it I'm suspicious; and B) you're annoying the fuck out of me, GTFO. I don't do "gaming", have been in an Indian casino once and left ASAP because you aren't bound by local smoking laws, and C) you're annoying as hell. Fuck off.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Sunday July 17 2022, @10:59PM (1 child)
That's generally a solid voting strategy: Vote for whatever party pesters you the least.
It's not like voting either way would make a difference, but that way you at least feel good about it for a change.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday July 18 2022, @05:04AM
I think they'll have something like that in the future [youtu.be]. We can only hope. Or don't, whatever.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @11:00PM (12 children)
So it looks like they want to permit sports betting at Indian casinos (Propositions 26 and 27). But boy, you're right about the money, check out how much money is involved [ballotpedia.org] so far (10x more than the other issues).
I don't know how the hell you guys do governance out there with all these propositions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 18 2022, @12:46AM (1 child)
That's simple economics. There's a lot of money in gambling. The house is always guaranteed a generous rake off, no matter how honest or dishonest the system is. If you had a monopoly, or even a near monopoly on legal gambling, you'd spend a lot of money on public relations too.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @08:35PM
Unless your name is "Trump"!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday July 18 2022, @03:19AM (9 children)
If they've got this much money to fling around, why can't they fix their own damn broadband without needing to get subsidies from Uncle Sam??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday July 18 2022, @05:05AM (7 children)
Hell, why can't they just get Starlink from Uncle Musk?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday July 18 2022, @05:45AM (6 children)
Good question...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday July 18 2022, @06:08AM (5 children)
I don't think that is a good question at all.
Are you suggesting that everybody on tribal lands has to now use Starlink? Why? Are you planning to impose that same restriction on others outside of tribal lands, or is that those living on tribal lands are not entitled to have the same rights or any help from the government?
I don't know what the average download speeds are for most people, but to achieve the same download rates for native Americans would require a lot of Starlink terminals. If it turns out that providing everyone with a Starlink terminal is cheaper than any alternatives being proposed then you might have an argument to make. But I don't think that will turn out to be case.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Monday July 18 2022, @06:31AM (4 children)
What I'm saying is that tribal lands shouldn't have special considerations and subsidies, which seems to be what this is aiming at. They already get free housing courtesy of Uncle Sam, and various other perks, such as not being subject to the same laws and taxes as the rest of us (sovereign nation and all that).
I don't care what they develop organically, and if they cared to they can afford to bring in whatever they like. But they're no more special than any of the rest of us rural types who can't get decent internet, and should not get special treatment from the gov't just because they have better lobbyists.
If it was about being fair to all citizens, it wouldn't target reservations, but rather rural areas more generally (which would include all the internet-deprived reservations).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Monday July 18 2022, @06:56AM (3 children)
I understand and agree.
I would always look at the problem the other way around. It is not that they shouldn't be helped to have something because you have not been helped but, as you have pointed out, why is the government not doing more to help the rural communities if it is possible to do so?
It is the similar mentality to resenting somebody else getting a well-deserved pay rise when I am not getting one. I shouldn't begrudge them theirs but I will fight harder for mine.
I suppose they have to start with somebody and it is possible, even likely, that there are more votes to be captured by grandstanding an effort to assist native Americans than in helping those in rural areas. That, of course, is mere speculation on my part.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday July 18 2022, @07:24AM (2 children)
There are about a million enrolled tribal members living on reservations in the U.S. (I can see land belonging to one of the larger reservations from my front porch.) Less than 15% vote. So voter capture isn't worth the bother. Nope, it's really that they've got some smart people who know how to work the system, and they look after their own. Maybe that should be a lesson to the rest of us.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @08:37PM (1 child)
America! Love it, or give it back.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 19 2022, @12:35AM
Not a bad sentiment.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @12:45PM
It doesn't say whose money it is. It would not surprise me if almost all of this money is from outside interests who have an interest in expanding sports betting (Draft Kings, tribes elsewhere, non-native casino owners/interests, etc.).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @04:50AM
Follow the money.
Someone else runs them.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday July 18 2022, @12:19AM (3 children)
That's what public services are for: to provide services for parts of the community at a loss and using the profits generated by the rest of the community to turn a profit, or simply break even. That's how you provide trains, electricity, water, sanitation or internet (because it's a basic commodity these days) in remote areas and not let vast swathes of your country go derelict and leave parts of the population behind.
The French have the right idea: they have this law called "continuite du territoire" (territory continuity): if you live anywhere in France, you have a basic right to access essential services as the most urbanite Parisian.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Opportunist on Monday July 18 2022, @06:29AM (2 children)
As a country, you also have a heavy interest in bringing internet out into the rural areas. If you don't, sooner or later everyone will try to flock to your cities because that's where the infrastructure is, living space gets scarce while at the same time your rural areas become abandoned, which in turn by the simple laws of supply and demand means that prices for everything produced in rural areas goes up (as we already see today) while you have a labor surplus in cities, causing unemployment and, due to the concentration, becomes an unmanageable powder keg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @09:53AM (1 child)
Are you suggesting that Internet service is better in places like Florida and Texas than in California and New York? Because that’s where the population is flocking.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 18 2022, @11:20AM
I'm suggesting that the internet service is generally better where there are a lot of people already than where there are fewer, and that people generally move away from where there would be a lot of space (but crappy infrastructure) towards where we already have a population problem.
Think central New York vs. rural Wyoming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @12:35AM (1 child)
Federal government wants to help Native Americans install wireless communications? Suspicious. How much capability do those towers have anyway?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @04:39AM
Enough capacity to spread covids and vaccines all around the country.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @11:34AM
20 posts and no-one has suggested IP/SS. (IP over Smoke Signal).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 19 2022, @12:42PM
Where do the authors of this article think Indians live, in the deep jungles of the Amazon basin, where only the jaguar dares to go?
They live in the middle of the rest of us, in the same terrain as the rest of us. I have driven all over this country and the Indian reservation in North Dakota has the same connectivity as the people off the reservation. If it's good, then they have it good also. If it's poor, then they have it poor also.
If they want solid broadband waaaay back in the sticks, then they should look into starlink just like everybody else waaaay back in the sticks.
Washington DC delenda est.