US Announces More New Funding for Rural Broadband Infrastructure (apnews.com) 66
The Biden administration on Monday continued its push toward internet-for-all by 2030, announcing about $667 million in new grants and loans to build more broadband infrastructure in the rural U.S. From a report: "With this investment, we're getting funding to communities in every corner of the country because we believe that no kid should have to sit in the back of a mama's car in a McDonald's parking lot in order to do homework," said Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure coordinator, in a call with reporters. The 37 new recipients represent the fourth round of funding under the program, dubbed ReConnect by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another 37 projects received $771.4 million in grants and loans announced in April and June.
The money flowing through federal broadband programs, including what was announced Monday and the $42.5 billion infrastructure program detailed earlier this summer, will lead to a new variation on "the electrification of rural America," Landrieu said, repeating a common Biden administration refrain. The largest award went to the Ponderosa Telephone Co. in California, which received more than $42 million to deploy fiber networks in Fresno County. In total, more than 1,200 people, 12 farms and 26 other businesses will benefit from that effort alone, according to USDA.
The money flowing through federal broadband programs, including what was announced Monday and the $42.5 billion infrastructure program detailed earlier this summer, will lead to a new variation on "the electrification of rural America," Landrieu said, repeating a common Biden administration refrain. The largest award went to the Ponderosa Telephone Co. in California, which received more than $42 million to deploy fiber networks in Fresno County. In total, more than 1,200 people, 12 farms and 26 other businesses will benefit from that effort alone, according to USDA.
ISPs Rejoice (Score:2, Informative)
Big ISPs report record profits by feedomg from the trough of free government money.
Don't forget that this was given to them for decades and the big corporates have squandered it every step of the way.
Infrastructure fuels Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
They fail to understand that capitalism thrives on the backbone of strong infrastructure - Roads & rail lines, an educated workforce and educated consumers, the rule of law, and, yes, things like broadband infrastructure.
Why does America have the strongest economy in the world? Because of the environment that leads to that strength.
Re:Infrastructure fuels Capitalism (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Farmer Bob can now stream the Mandalorian in 4k, so I call that a win for capitalism.
Also his kids can do their homework (Score:3, Insightful)
And he's spending money to watch that show too, which last I checked counted as "capitalism".
Re:Infrastructure fuels Capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Farmer Bob also has:
* An energy management setup, so his hybrid solar array can feed the grid.
* A real time GPS tracking system so the tractor/combine can run autonomously, the laser weeding tool can run through the planted soil and zap weeds without needing herbicide.
* Cameras on the plants having images going through a filter to scan and warn for pests before they become a failure.
* Scanning the planting area to ensure every square meter gets the best amount of water and fertilizer.
* Keeping track of agricultural prices to know the best time to sell off headcount of livestock.
* Making sure diesel is delivered, all off-road use of diesel is logged for a tax refund (you don't want to deal with "red" diesel, so most famers just pay the taxes, then get a refund for the fuel not used on the road.
Farming takes a lot of sophistication these days.
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As someone that has worked in tech nearly my entire adult life, and has also lived where internet connectivity didn't exist my whole life, these grants are doing wonders in rural communities. Our local power company got the grant to deliver broadband to all of their customers. They started pulling fiber last week. We should be fully lit up in about a year. Many people here much earlier.
Meanwhile, the local telco has been telling us that broadband is coming to our area soon for over 10 years. I'm still on a
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If you get high speed Internet, it will also bring higher real estate prices when a few dozen people move into your tiny town and gobble up the available housing. Enjoy!
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And little Bobby Jr. might be the next Zuckerberg because he has access to the latest technology. You never know what might embiggen even the smallest man.
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Yes, Farmer Bob can now stream the Mandalorian in 4k, so I call that a win for capitalism.
I get the feeling you're arguing from bad faith, but to be clear: Farming these days is generally a very high-tech operation, from planning and seed selection through planting and harvesting and selling. In some cases, broader 4G cell coverage maybe makes more sense than pulling fiber to residences? (This is, of course, all assuming that the farming operation in question is actually trying to make money in production, rather than looking for favorable tax incentives.)
I would guess that for most things, rock
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Was I sarcastic? I don't even know anymore...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Farmer Bob and his cronies are the only real Americans so the government should pay their freight. Just look at agricultural subsidies if you want to see true free market capitalism in action. Also, Bob wants to end welfare and public education and make the country a Christian nation so the will of God becomes the law of the land.
Bob deserve
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Local freeways in Calif are no longer free. But infrastructure for fringe populations must be paid for by taxpayers. Sure, it all makes perfect sense.
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That's California charging for internal road systems that connect the "freeways" together. So blame California on that one.
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Yes, infrastructure needs to be socialized so that a single company cannot monopolize it. Monopolies are a type of market failure, and so socialism makes capitalism work better. People who say it isn't socialism are either poorly informed or in denial (or both).
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At one time railroads were controlled by a handful of rich people. They were so powerful they could upset the U.S. economy because they bought up all their competitors, including shooting some of them.
The current case with broadband is similar. There are a few big guys in the country who dominate large swaths of the country, and when they are able to, buy up competitors. As a result, pr
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To be socialism would require the workers or the government to own the fibre. That's not going to be the case. The private corporations will own everything they setup. This is just corporate welfare and hoping that private companies expand their networks.
I'm at a loss (Score:5, Insightful)
The largest award went to the Ponderosa Telephone Co. in California, which received more than $42 million to deploy fiber networks in Fresno County. In total, more than 1,200 people, 12 farms and 26 other businesses will benefit from that effort alone, according to USDA.
1200 people for $42M, eh? Sounds like a bargain at $35k a head (or more realistically somewhere between $70-140k per household). I'm at a loss as to how anyone would tout this as a successful program rather than an example of "we're wasting your tax money." Err, rather, "we're wasting the money that we're borrowing at ever higher rates and that your children and grandchildren will have to eventually pay for (or, more likely, deal with the consequences of hyperinflation as a means to deal with that debt)."
Re:I'm at a loss (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm at a loss (Score:4, Insightful)
You are right, it almost might make sense if satellite internet wasn't a thing. As it is, they are bragging about how wasteful they are.
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So, I'm guessing you've never contracted to have network laid down.
You would be guessing wrong.
Because I have, and for about 200 feet, it took over $5,000.
Guessing this from road to your demarc? In a similar vein, about 10 years ago, I had Comcast pull about a thousand feet of hardline through conduit for less than this. About six or seven years ago, they pulled SMF through the same conduit for a point to point link and light it for around the same (the far end site only had ~50ft of conduit from road to demark and costs were billed at $0 for that site). AT&T internally quoted themselves about $3k for SMF around the same tim
Growth thrives on infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
The REA brought civilization to the South via electrification which later supported air conditioning.
Today's farm is tomorrows residential development and the future's city. Fast internet matters. It's not about the little people, it's about the growth that sustains all society.
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There have been subsidies and grants in the past that have NOT been used for the intended purpose. That's one problem.
Another is that instead of giving a subset of people the option to pay for faster links (many will not), there should be concentration on covering more people, period.
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Luddite.
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Seems like you're worried that the "wrong" people will somehow benefit from a Federal program.
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Seems like you're worried that the "wrong" people will somehow benefit from a Federal program.
With all due respect: fuck you. I live in a rural area, and my internet is delivered by fiber built by our electrical co-op that was built with the help of state and some federal grants (though the co-op had a business plan to built the same network over 10 or so years fully funded without the grants before those become an option). I am not begrudging paying for infrastructure with tax money, and am certainly not gatekeeping who the "right" or "wrong" people are, but I am calling bullshit on waste, which
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The waste is coming from middle men intercepting the money before it even gets to the fiber installer. They wear suits, and also, don't need the money and also, they give the money to others who are called shareholders.
Some regular folks, who unwittingly invest in their own scamming via their various funds or direct investment for retirement think
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Careful what you wish for!
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I live on a border between two rural little towns, border is also a phone exchange border (one prefix in the area code to another prefix in a different area code, though all calls are local). I'm at the very end of my DSL service - the folks that live 500 feet further down the road have too much signal loss to get good/reliable service, and there are 5 more houses further down from them.
I can see across the road from my house where fiber was laid 5 years ago. I can see a big grey box that is providing tho
$35,000 per person? (Score:3)
"The largest award went to the Ponderosa Telephone Co. in California, which received more than $42 million to deploy fiber networks in Fresno County. In total, more than 1,200 people, 12 farms and 26 other businesses will benefit from that effort alone, according to USDA."
$42 million divided by 1,200 people is $35,000 per person. How many more people at the 12 farms and 26 other businesses?
The government money helps the Ponderosa Telephone Company.
Re:$35,000 per person? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's just who will benefit immediately. If done right that new infrastructure will support untold new people in the future and encourage growth in those areas.
This is why only gov't can do infrastructure (Score:2)
There's no way the ROI on this kind of infrastructure would ever make sense for the business doing it. Without the government this kind of stuff just doesn't get done. And our entire country stagnants.
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This is the same state that promised we would have high-speed rail between LA and SF by 2020, right? And that now is projecting at least $35 billion for a line through the flat part of the state, linking Merced and Bakersfield that -- if they finish quickly -- will be a decade late?
It's possible to make all kinds of rosy predictions about the future benefits of infrastructure, but not many of them stand up to scrutiny -- much less reality. Look at sports stadiums, Olympic games, factories that get tax ben
Re:$35,000 per person? (Score:5, Interesting)
and out of those 1200 people, 12 farms and 26 businesses are already covered by 5G networks?
Starlink is an option
Hughes Satellite is an option
This sounds more like a giveaway than a technical solution.
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Satellite systems like Starlink, while extraordinarily useful or critical in some places in the world, are not able to provide broadband to non-rural areas because their bandwidth is extremely limited, and at the cost of too many satellites already. They are no long term solution whatsoever.
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The example being referenced most often in these threads, Ponderosa Telephone, in no way serves an urban market - 10k homes across 4k square miles. Their HQ is in O'Neals CA -- an unincorporated area that looks to have maybe two dozen homes. Unless there is some strange urban concentration of consumers where a telco hasn't already rolled out copper/fiber, these low population density regions are the areas this program is designed for.
For rural locations where wired connections are not available, Starlink
"More new funding"? (Score:2)
Seems and od phrasing/style, but since english is not my primary language...
Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times has the gov't thrown money at expanding rural broadband over the past 25 years? I'm too lazy to do the research, but I'm going to guess at least a half dozen times, minimum. And what have rural residents gotten? Not much.
Starlink has largely solved the rural broadband problem, so why not just give rural residents vouchers for Starlink? It would cost significantly less and reach more people.
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What guarantees exist that Starlink will exist 5-10 years from now? Buried terrestrial infrastructure will last longer and support far more people. I'm a Starlink supporter but it needs to remain an alternative.
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And when that war with China eventually comes (or they just decide, like Russia, that we're never gonna shoot back as long as they do a little empty sabre rattling), and they start knocking all that stuff out of the sky?
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And what guarantees will we get that throwing even more money at the broadband companies will result in anything tangible? At least Starlink has actually been able to deliver something.
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It's a federal program. Hold your representatives accountable.
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LOL that's funny. Accountability. We're Americans. No one's accountable for anything here.
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We Americans have perfected the art of bipartisan graft. It doesn't seem to matter who is in power it's the same outcome.
Every four years we swat at flies when what we really need to do is take out the garbage.
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Starlink has largely solved the rural broadband problem, so why not just give rural residents vouchers for Starlink? It would cost significantly less and reach more people.
Because it actually hasn't solved that problem at all. Starlink's "broadband" can't even meet FCC requirements for that definition, and that's not ever going to get much better because such networks have very limited bandwidth. Grow the population just a little, and even that minimal service no longer suffices.
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This is a partially true statement.
The FCC currently defines broadband as 25meg - https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/... [fcc.gov] Starlink easily meets this definition. For the purposes of the recently rebranded ReConnect program, the FCC has upped the definition to 100meg, but providers do not have to support that level of service until 2025.
Despite initially awarding SpaceX money, the FCC yanked it back last August saying they did not believe Starlink will meet these commitments in 2025. FCC was kinda light on data
constantly is not compatible with "how many times" (Score:3)
If you have had a landline phone at any time since Bill Clinton was in the White House, you've been billed every month during that time for the "Al Gore tax" (a tax that was added to every bill at the behest of Al Gore to provide the cash to get broadband connections for everybody (part of the reason Al Gore likes to pretend to have invented the internet)). This is currently (I believe) referred to as the Connect America Fund (CAF) and is a portion of the entry on your phone bill called "Federal Universal S
STOP THIS (Score:2)
Likewise, ANY subsidies that we give for putting in broadband in low-income should be changed to being municipal owned and not by private company.
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Better still, make them put it in, and then IF THEY QUALIFY, they get reimbursed for no more than 50% of the install. All done after the fact. Each company will have to take the risk that they won't get money from the Fed, but they still need to build out if they even want the chance to get any.
we're so lucky! (Score:2, Troll)
We here in the US are so lucky that we have infinite money to spend on most anything.
Not even a billion? (Score:4, Funny)
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So More (Score:2)
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I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. See, the Big Telcos paid good bribes to get this money sent to them. The fact that it worked so well in the past is a clear indicator that it will continue to work. It's just smart business!
Too bad we can't do socialist things... (Score:3)
like having the government build the lines itself, then let companies offer services over it - you know, like Interstates and trucking companies.
But then, the lines themselves would be paying for management at fed civil service salaries, and no execs earning $1M and up every year... and every year raising your rates so they make more.
But who gets Credit? (Score:3)
The biggest hilarity to these programs and pardon me for taking a political stance on what I want to be an a political forum, but I have my local representative who complains about the reckless spending policies of the government but is doing his routine of touring small towns and promoting how he secured funding for these programs all the while was a staunch opponent of including broadband expansion as infrastructure.
The hypocrisy never gets old.
Starlink for the next decade (Score:2)
I called it. (Score:2)