FCC Proposes Rules for Emergency Broadband Program To Keep Struggling Families Online (techcrunch.com) 55
The FCC has taken a major step toward offering financial support for people struggling to pay broadband bills during the pandemic. If approved, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program could provide $50 per month to millions of households, and more in tribal lands. From a report: The EBBP was created in the budget passed by Congress earlier this year, which earmarked $3.2 billion to offset the cost of broadband in households already struggling to make ends meet. "From work to healthcare to education, this crisis has made it clear that without an internet connection too many households are locked out of modern life," said acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement. "It's more apparent than ever that broadband is no longer nice-to-have. It's need-to-have. But too many of us are struggling to afford this critical service."
The general shape of the EBBP was already known, but since Congress first proposed it last year it has been up to the FCC to decide what it would actually look like. The rules for the program Rosenworcel circulated at the agency today are an important step in taking it from idea to reality. The important bit is spelling out exactly who qualifies for the benefit -- to wit, anyone who:
1. Qualifies for the FCC's existing Lifeline connectivity subsidy program
2. Receives free and reduce-price school lunch or breakfast benefits
3. Received a Pell Grant
4. Meets other eligibility requirements for internet providers' existing low-income or pandemic-related programs
5. "Experienced a substantial loss of income since February 29, 2020"
The general shape of the EBBP was already known, but since Congress first proposed it last year it has been up to the FCC to decide what it would actually look like. The rules for the program Rosenworcel circulated at the agency today are an important step in taking it from idea to reality. The important bit is spelling out exactly who qualifies for the benefit -- to wit, anyone who:
1. Qualifies for the FCC's existing Lifeline connectivity subsidy program
2. Receives free and reduce-price school lunch or breakfast benefits
3. Received a Pell Grant
4. Meets other eligibility requirements for internet providers' existing low-income or pandemic-related programs
5. "Experienced a substantial loss of income since February 29, 2020"
Yes, I'm sure $50 will be appreciated... (Score:3)
...when the bank forecloses on the home this summer, and that "free" broadband, isn't quite able to be relocated to the family tent pitched on a street corner.
The FCC thinks they're helping here, and perhaps for many this will help. In the bigger picture? Too little, too late. People aren't just struggling to pay the internet bill right now. Quite frankly, this should have happened long ago. Social media mega-corps enjoy giving their product away for free, and make billions from it. Perhaps they should be the ones subsidizing the costs of internet for low-income families instead of taxpayers. Hell, they should want to. More people online = more profits for them.
Re:Yes, I'm sure $50 will be appreciated... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that in the end though, the problem lies with the ISPs. Why should we funnel the money from one huge corporation to another huge corporation? Internet should be available as a public good like roadways. We all see what happened with the Texas power grid when there isn't any government oversight. There are too many hurdles and laws restricting community run internet that end up costing us more for inferior service.
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I think that in the end though, the problem lies with the ISPs. Why should we funnel the money from one huge corporation to another huge corporation? Internet should be available as a public good like roadways. We all see what happened with the Texas power grid when there isn't any government oversight. There are too many hurdles and laws restricting community run internet that end up costing us more for inferior service.
I do agree that we should eradicate the ability for Greed to put a stranglehold on ISP deployment in areas. Competition, is a good thing. That said, your examples aren't exactly great ones. The NPG still suffers from scheduled blackouts. Only difference is it affects many states instead of just one. If Texas gets their shit together and fixes their issues, they may never suffer an event like this again. Same certainly cannot be said for the NPG.
And public roadways, isn't the beacon of how to "do it ri
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And public roadways, isn't the beacon of how to "do it right". I see far more maintenance (and investment) in my area going into toll roads, which is becoming more and more popular.
My observation also has been that the toll roads are better maintained. However, they're also extremely expensive to regularly travel upon. Judging by the location of the bulk of the traffic though, the majority of motorists prefer not paying tolls.
I don't see any problem with both systems coexisting, so long as no one is forced to use toll roads to get to their destination. If an alternate non-toll route exists, there's no reason to cry foul.
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First of all there is government oversight of the TX power grid. Granted not federal oversight but I don't think that really is the point here. When it comes to stuff like that the Federal government only tends to do better than states because money is no object to them and they never have to really balance the budget; just do some accounting tricks strictly for spin and campaigning not because a check would bounce.
Yes in this case the feds did want to winterize the grid in TX but it was very reasonable t
Re: Yes, I'm sure $50 will be appreciated... (Score:2)
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Quite frankly, this should have happened long ago.
Truth to power bro. That, and many other things to support struggling people should have happened long ago. We are a poor country stuffed in a gucci bag.
Re: Yes, I'm sure $50 will be appreciated... (Score:2)
...when the bank forecloses on the home this summer, and that "free" broadband, isn't quite able to be relocated to the family tent pitched on a street corner.
When did the FCC become responsible for keeping families in homes they can't afford?
The FCC thinks they're helping here, and perhaps for many this will help. In the bigger picture? Too little, too late. People aren't just struggling to pay the internet bill right now.
So.... the FCC should do what? Nothing? Start forgiving mortgage debt, subsidize rent payments? Deliver free groceries? Issue stimulus checks? No one - except you - thinks this one program was the fix-all solutions to everyone's financial hardship.
So basically everyone gets $50 (Score:1)
The free school lunch program was extended to everyone, regardless of income, during the pandemic under the Trump administration.
Likewise almost everyone has suffered a loss of income in some form, any loss can be consider substantial.
Pell grants are also easy to get, regardless of your actual income.
So making these definitions so vague, everyone gets the $50, which means ISPs will justify raising their prices by $50.
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Everything you pay in taxes (near enough) is a form of insurance.
It goes to police departments as insurance that crime doesn't overrun things. It goes to fire departments as insurance to prevent cities burning down.
It goes to schools as insurance to try and avoid entering another dark age, and nobody knowing how to do the basics when you're in your twilight years needing medical and practical support.
Part of that also goes to fund potentials like this, where there are people who may not be able to afford b
Errr, Starlink (Score:3)
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Starlinks price includes the router. https://www.theverge.com/2021/ [theverge.com]...
The $99/month subscription fee does not include the cost of the terminal and your link says as much. The terminal is $500, and will likely remain that expensive for some time to come. Your link correctly quotes Elon Musk saying, "Every new satellite constellation in history has gone bankrupt. We hope to be the first that does not." That's going to keep the terminal price high for a while.
SpaceX has elected to go with having customers pay the cost of the equipment up front and offering a pay as you go ser
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If cost of Starlink is $99/month (plus router I know but costs are going to come down) then isn't this just going to go to Starlink? And if Starlink is able to provide the service then why would the government pay for fiber-optic?
Well, Starlink isn't applicable to everyone, and it's also susceptible to weather effects. For me living in the woodsy and rainy Northeast, I'll take the fiber.
But here's the thing. As much as some might think this is some sort of socialist handout, any money going out to people who are struggling is back in the hands of a business by the end of the day. Call it the trickle up theory.
As a counterexample, I'm not in any particular need of stimulus checks or a 50 dollar internet check. The money just goes
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Seems to do decent weatherwise.
https://youtu.be/fZbwJKQAL5E [youtu.be]
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Seems to do decent weatherwise.
https://youtu.be/fZbwJKQAL5E [youtu.be]
I'd be surprised if the starlink sats are immune to rain fade. Other signals in that frequency range certainly are not. Then again, Ol Muskie is viewed as being able to ignore the laws of physics that we mere mortals must obey. ;^)
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There are ways of dealing with it.
https://blog.bliley.com/rain-f... [bliley.com]
There's also water shedding materials, and dish covers.
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There are ways of dealing with it. https://blog.bliley.com/rain-f... [bliley.com] There's also water shedding materials, and dish covers.
Well, we'll see how it works out. Seems like the most successful method of combatting rain fade is increasing the power to and from the satellites. I'm skeptical, because there's some physics going on here, and I went through the Broadband over Power Line wars where we got a lot of the same "it'll be fine!" talk.
And then there are the trees. Trees are definitely a concern. Should we deforest the country? Just kidding. And while Musk gives us great assurances, he's also said a lot of things - like landing
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But here's the thing. As much as some might think this is some sort of socialist handout, any money going out to people who are struggling is back in the hands of a business by the end of the day. Call it the trickle up theory.
Not really. A awful lot of it goes to retire debt. So it mostly ends up in the hands of very wealthy banks who would otherwise have had to write it off. Its not like it all goes to by milk from the tiny bodega down the road. So Its not so much trickle up as leaps up to extremely wealthy passing by every other level along the way.
Mean while it prevents foreclosures which feels good in the near term but the reality is it prevents housing assets from ever having to hit the market at truly priced to move levels
Re:Errr, debt. (Score:2)
Not really. A awful lot of it goes to retire debt. So it mostly ends up in the hands of very wealthy banks who would otherwise have had to write it off.
Depends. Not everyone's obligations are at the "bill collector" stage, but it's nice to get debt off one's personal ledger if not for peace of mind (intangible benefit), it also grants a degree of personal freedom when dealing with future circumstances.
Mean while it prevents foreclosures which feels good in the near term but the reality is it prevents housing assets from ever having to hit the market at truly priced to move levels.
I reduces the knock-on effects to a society homelessness would bring. The actual homeless at that point really don't care what their assets hitting the market do since it's no longer theirs.
Meanwhile all of it means its 'possible' to live on less than a living wage so another handful of big corporations get a nice subsidized labor pool to exploit, rather than those people either moving on or engaging in substance activities like rural farming and other cottage industry etc.
Except in the grand scheme all these financial aid packages are a bli
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But here's the thing. As much as some might think this is some sort of socialist handout, any money going out to people who are struggling is back in the hands of a business by the end of the day. Call it the trickle up theory.
Not really. A awful lot of it goes to retire debt.
Retiring debt is a good thing. And retired debt frees up other money for other things. A person with un-retired debt tends to go bankrupt, and then the creditors don't get paid at all, or very little.
As well, some or most of these people are not poor because of bad decisions - some are just in financial trouble because of the 'rona.
And regarding poor decisions, we are still going to help the good people of Texas, the government of which has proven to have made really bad decisions on how to run energy d
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But here's the thing. As much as some might think this is some sort of socialist handout, any money going out to people who are struggling is back in the hands of a business by the end of the day. Call it the trickle up theory.
Sure, call it anything but what it is, the broken window fallacy.
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Sure, call it anything but what it is, the broken window fallacy.
The broken window fallacy doesn't apply here. It specifically refers to a situation where something of value has been destroyed, and money has to be spent to replace it. For example, if your neighbor's teenage kid pours salt in your lawn for the lulz, the lawn company you hire to repair it certainly has benefited from the kid's mischief, but the money you had to spend might've went somewhere else in the economy.
The reason it's a topic of debate, is that if you weren't planing on doing anything with that m
Re: Errr, Starlink (Score:2)
The reason it's a topic of debate, is that if you weren't planing on doing anything with that money, the fact your lawn got ruined did actually put some money back into the economy.
How, exactly, does one keep money out of the economy? I suppose you could stuff it in your mattress, but putting that money in a bank account IS putting it into the economy (banks can loan a multiple of cash deposits - more deposits, more loans), in your IRA? Your buying stocks & bonds. And so on...
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Sure, call it anything but what it is, the broken window fallacy.
You mean the fallacy that cites going to war is good for the economy?
Or that paradoxically, a disaster is somehow good for the economy?
These people are what would be considered "Idle resources", not the 100 percent (or near) employment for the broken window fallacy to be relevant. This situation has nothing to do with the BWF.
Giving people their own tax money back and yes, as citizens, it is their tax money, doesn't fit that at all.
Because this isn't stimulating the economy, no matter what it is cal
Re: Errr, Starlink (Score:2)
Reminder, it's $50/month, not just a single $50 check
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Reminder, it's $50/month, not just a single $50 check
I think the cure for all this to simply be wealthy! ;^)
If it's so need-to-have... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's more apparent than ever that broadband is no longer nice-to-have. It's need-to-have."
Then how about you shut down Republican attempts to ban municipal broadband deployments across the nation? [arstechnica.com]
Or better yet, how about you re-regulate all the telco's (and their derivatives) who promised nation-wide fiber back in the 1990's in exchange for deregulation? [huffpost.com] That Video Dial Tone service sounds so promising. [chicagotribune.com]
Re:If it's so need-to-have... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah yes the party of small limited government wants more government interference to protect poor Xfinity and Verizon. Isn't starting a local broadband company the definition of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
One of the hilarious examples of double think (Score:1)
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Well it doesn't take a lot of efficiency to tax people. It does however to provide services. But anyway the municipal bill is a shame for one simple reason. There's no competition to block because the incumbents have said they don't want to compete. In other words they've refused to provide service. Municipals are filling a vacuum.
Re: One of the hilarious examples of double think (Score:2)
is that the GOP will tell you simultaneously that Government is hopelessly inefficient compared to the Free Market and also that Government can't be allowed to enter private markets because they can't compete with Government....
Government IS hopelessly inefficient. We have to authorize $1.9TN in spending to put $1,400 in the hands of struggling Americans? If we send out 320 million $1,400 - literally every person in America, that comes to $450BN - according to the administration you can't discuss cutting even a penny of that proposed spending.
Do you mean compete with private markets?
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Also the USDA and your food supply.
Also Texas' privately operated power grid would like a word.
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Yeah, but this way the ISPs get hundreds of billions in government handout WHILE it gets labeled as people (government) helping themselves (actual people) with their own money (taxes).
Isn't capitalism beautiful? All sexy like...
Don't you just want to fuck it whenever you see it? Like, fuck it REAL HARD!!!
Hundreds of millions per month? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, how about we just let all the kids go back to school so they don't need to do it over the internet? It's probably cheaper and safer anyhow.
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Those recent tax cuts for the super wealthy are about the only things that are going to save middle class and lower income Americans who took unemployment.
The massive expansion of child tax credits and bracket adjustments are all that stands between them and a huge surprise tax bill in the next few weeks, when they discover all those unemployment benefits had no withholding and are taxable income.
Meanwhile DemoRATs do nothing now that they have the power, they are to busy spending money on illegal aliens, a
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Actually withholding are those are optional in most states; and they are state administered programs.
Here is a radical left leaning source on the subject: https://slate.com/business/202... [slate.com]
Most reasonable people assume outside of some possible claw back situations like you got a job in the first month government benefits would not be taxable anyway - because lets be honest taxing the dole in the first place is insanely stupid administrative overhead. Many of these people have never made claims before and are
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They'll be back in school soon. This is temporary. It's also a drop in the bucket compared to recent tax cuts on the super wealthy. I know knee-jerk overreactions feel like the way to go here, but we should probably limit the effect of a generation of kids being under-educated rather than nickel and dime this thing.
It's funny. "Giving" people some of their tax money back is seen as an insufferable and unaffordable thing.
And yet, how much money does an ISP make from customers that are disconnected and no longer customers?
That money will be back in a business's hands in a few hours. And that's the irony of the situation, comparing tax cuts to the wealthiest. That money just goes into a bank account - often one not based in the USA. Money to help the poor in this situation is money used to buy stuff. And supporting b
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This is temporary.
We shall see. There is a non-trivial segment of the population who believe broadband internet access should be an entitlement.
It's part of the nuclear weapons program. (Score:2)
Re: Hundreds of millions per month? (Score:2)
How the f-k are we supposed to afford all this?
This is a $3.2 billion program, it sounds like a lot, but we are very likely to soon approve $1.9TN ($1,900 Billion) this, in the grand scheme of things is a drop in the bucket - a tiny fraction of the $128 billion in new spending proposed to reopen schools, on top of the unspent $50 billion already approved previously to reopen schools last year.
Yippee! (Score:2)
3. Received a Pell Grant
I got one of these back in the 80's, where do I sign up? :-)
More free stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to sound crude, but can we at least sterilize them first? My wallet is only so big.
Or they could ... (Score:2)
Of course this assumes that these communities even have broadband. The people in real need are the ones who used to drive into town and get on to the Starbucks or public library WiFi systems. But now can no longer sit down with their phone/laptop. Want to light a fire under the asses of the incumbent broadband providers? Offer to pay for Starlink for the needy. The mere ide
You are being transitioned... (Score:2, Interesting)
whether you want it or not.
The political elites are working on "oligarchy for me, socialism for thee" and this is just another brick in that wall. Instead of getting the economy running and, um, obeying the founding documents of the nation, many of our political leaders are working overtime to provide unlimited power and money to their pals, particularly in Big Tech while easing the general population into the paternal arms of big gov. I'd love to pretend this was partisan...it has been at its peak in state
SpaceX (Score:2)
$3.2 billion over a period of how long?
$3.2 billion is $500 for 10 million people?
I would say it's better to give SpaceX the $3.2 billion for this year so they can use the capital to get Starlink up and solve this problem.
Is it actually needed? (Score:1)
Just how critical is broadband to lower income people, versus any sort of internet connection? Are you really going to be in bad straights if instead of watching 4k movies off Netflix, you have to read a book, work on a hobby or talk with your family? The websites I tend to think of as critical are functional and accessible without broadband. Doesn't broadband just enable higher resolution video and quicker big downloads?
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