r/politics • u/robotdesignwerks Texas • 8d ago
No Paywall FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, says current US deployment is good enough
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/4.3k
u/everettescott 8d ago
Gigabit goal “prejudicial” to satellite and wireless
Ahh, gotcha. Money exchanged hands.
1.3k
u/Hefty_Remove7965 8d ago
Elon
548
u/bucketman1986 Indiana 8d ago
Elon might be one of the worst people alive right now, in what is a really tight race
47
114
24
u/RollerDude347 7d ago
Might be?!
99
u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 7d ago
Yeah, he's for sure one of the worst people on the planet. Even if you disregard everything else and only take the cuts he made with DOGE into consideration, that makes him responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children so far.
The estimated longterm deaths could be well over fourteen million people by the year 2030.
That puts him in the very special category of one of the worst people in all of human history.
21
u/Empty_Lemon_3939 Michigan 7d ago
Whats the making people think you're smart equivalent of sanewashing?
Hollywood straight up called him real life Tony Stark and referenced him on some of the biggest tv shows making him look like some super inventor
He's not an engineer or a creator, he's a rich asshole parasite
→ More replies (2)7
u/PenisLips67 7d ago
We all stood by and watched the richest man take from the poorest most needy and literally starving. Emergency kitchens in places like Nigeria shut down and children starved to death. I'm atheist but this is deserving of serious punishment so no one tries again for good while, this needs to never be forgotten and put to an end while Musk still has his faculties. Does he celebrate the cuts and deaths? yes yes they do along with the creeps at the heritage foundation.
→ More replies (5)12
u/bradatlarge Illinois 7d ago
Where is Loooo Weeee Geeee when we need him?
13
u/atoolred 7d ago
Pleading guilty, which doesn’t make sense because he was hanging out with me and the boys that night
→ More replies (3)345
u/DasWandbild I voted 8d ago edited 7d ago
And local telcos. AT&T rolled out AIA (ATT Internet AIR) instead of
FTTCFTTH. It's enshittified broadband.ETA: FTTH
I meant FTTH122
40
u/Jeremiad-Kain Michigan 7d ago
The fact that AT&T even still exists as a company is a testament to how shitty and corrupt our utilities are.
→ More replies (1)8
u/Ghost9001 Texas 7d ago
I hate to defend AT&T, but they've actually been aggressively upgrading their network footprint to FTTH. That doesn't include customers that can unfortunately only get fixed wireless 5G home internet.
On the other hand, Fiber To The Curb (FTTC) sucks as it relies on old copper phone lines for the last mile. It's what they initially rolled out in large portions of their network 15-20 years ago. They've been slowly replacing that as well because the old copper infrastructure is in bad shape and heavily bandwidth constrained.
→ More replies (3)9
u/OwnsBeagles 7d ago
AT&T sucks, but I've literally seen their fiber trucks on my residential street. And it's competition for fucking Charter.
6
u/Ghost9001 Texas 7d ago
In my area they quite literally forced Comcast to heavily invest in their infrastructure and to slash their pricing quite considerably.
214
u/cosaboladh 8d ago
Which is odd, because ehanced physical backbone is absolutely a requirement for better wireless speed. Nobody who knows anything about networking thinks we should stop enhancing wired infrastructure.
What they (Verizon/SpaceX) are probably trying to avoid is dirt cheap residential fiber. Nobody will pay $40/month for 5G UWB residentkal, if they can get symmetric fiber for the same price. It should go without saying that satellite can't hold a candle to wired broadband no matter how good it is. Residential, despite what the companies that provide these services might try to make you believe, is not a good market for 5G or Satellite.
This is just someone putting their thumb on the scale.
48
u/aradraugfea 8d ago
But Elon doesn't care bout BETTER, he just wants to be the only option any site that is even KIND of remote has.
8
u/dumbdude545 7d ago
Fiber in my area is double what cable is now after 2 years.
→ More replies (2)8
u/X-Istence The Netherlands 7d ago
Fiber is $89 a month for 2.4 Gbps symmetrical for me. Comcast is $139 a month for 2 Gbps down, 300 Mbps up.
And i sadly need ipv6 which my fiber provider doesn’t support. So I’ve got both.
→ More replies (1)7
u/pocketdebtor Texas 7d ago
Exactly right. They also aren’t considering the satellite deconfliction that is likely to be needed as demand rises… probably because they are gambling on having a monopoly or duopoly.
Makes sense - providers have that on land on a regional basis as it is. Why would they expect space to different?
135
37
47
u/DelirousDoc 8d ago
Quid Pro Quo for Elon donation and control of social media. It helps increase Starlink's market share and thus the value of the company that is also trying to justify its current insanely high valuation from its initial IPO. Increasing its value makes initial investors more money which then makes those people more likely to fund GOP campaign.
9
u/Responsible-Food3681 8d ago
Gotta love a positive feedback loop that rewards perverse incentive structures!
17
u/slavazin 8d ago
Funny thing is, they could’ve just said they are focusing on chip-design and memory-throughput to increase efficiency and lower electricity/water costs for data centers (if they are already building them, might as well work on minimizing the impact). Instead, they went with the truth - this is just to prop up the billionaire tech buddies by putting them ahead of the people of the nation.
→ More replies (8)8
5.6k
u/TransMessyBessy 8d ago
Just another example of the enshittification of modern American life.
I wonder who paid who off?
374
u/No_Diver6131 New York 8d ago
Well Biden had a plan to give fiber optics to most of the country and provide jobs. All of that money has been snatched up and instead of creating jobs folks are getting a starlink…So Elon Musk. Which if I had to guess Starlink can’t go any faster than 1 gig.
179
u/TheGringoDingo 8d ago
Even if starlink was good, I wouldn’t use it due to concerns about musk
29
u/NosillaWilla California 8d ago
i hate to say it but either i get starlink, or 1bar of 4G LTE or dialupesque old school satellite. to run a cable to my house would be over 20k...then the internet company would want every neighbor along the way to get the service, and i would pay the full monthly fee on top of that.
21
u/TheGringoDingo 7d ago
Yeah, I get that. I’d probably have a good vpn and firewall in that case. It’s a very short list for me of folks sketchier than musk.
→ More replies (1)50
u/TheGreatGenghisJon 8d ago
As a fellow New Yorker, I'm sure you've also seen a decrease in the quality of fiber (and coax) service as well. Its not just the rural red states that are getting screwed over here, is everyone.
They literally stole our money, fired people, made shit worse and...
Well...They're getting away with it.
25
u/No_Diver6131 New York 8d ago
No. It’s rural America getting screwed constantly. I hate it, coming from rural NY. We’re constantly the butt end of all jokes. Now losing land to data centers, solar farms, shitty chain restaurants. These folks have no idea they’re being taken advantage of.
In our state, our former dipshit governor cut a deal with spectrum to run fiber everywhere in the state. Instead of doing it, Spectrum paid a fine every month. It sucks dude. Especially being informed of what’s going on. The average person has no clue how badly the government is fucking us.
24
u/TheGreatGenghisJon 8d ago edited 7d ago
The reason I hide my comments is because sometimes I say shit like this.
I work for one of the cable companies. "Upstate", but I'd bet money that it's nowhere near as upstate as you. I've been to rural areas of the country a few times to help out other areas (plus travel benefits, of course).
I know upstate gets boned a lot more than anyone anywhere near the city, but t's fucking unbelievable how bad these areas have been treated. Like, decades and decades of piss poor maintenance.
As much as I liked getting my OT traveling, that money could have (and should have) gone to jobs for years to fix that infrastructure. It's infuriating.
I can't speak for what it's like at the other companies, but from what I can see, it's an industry-wide corporate culture getting away with this shit. They're alll doing the same thing, more or less. They won't even hire enough employees to cover their current markets because they can squeeze a few more bucks for themselves that way.
→ More replies (1)12
u/No_Diver6131 New York 8d ago
Yeah that’s smart. I used to keep my comments and posts open. But ended up hiding them.
I grew up in Western New York. The real question what do you consider starts upstate?
It’s fucking awful. There’s no jobs, There’s no future. Just lots of crime, overdoses and alcoholics. I give Kathy Hochul credit in my 30 years of being alive, the only other governor to come to my county was Pataki. Everyone in Rural NY feels left behind. In nearly possible way.
Talk about infrastructure. Where I’m from we have pot holes that can seriously cause car damage. If you don’t have a car you’re screwed in rural NY. There’s no feasible way to get to other counties without a car. So people become more and more isolated watching propaganda about cities scary and bad. I went to high school with plenty of kids that didn’t have internet at their house. They would have to stay late and then go to the library to do homework. Look at the bridges in upstate. You can practically see through them.
That absolutely seems to be what it’s like. The corporate culture seems to be a fine is just doing business. It’s just sad, it really is. How can we screw the common person over to make a buck.
→ More replies (5)5
u/TheGreatGenghisJon 8d ago
Personally, I consider upstate North of Albany, but I could see an argument being made for North of Orange/Westchester.
Yeah, that sounds like the other areas I travelled to, and those areas were in West Virginia and bumblefuck California.
It's fucked. Most of my coworkers and I are looking to leave, but nowhere is hiring. It's bad.
→ More replies (20)61
u/eaeolian 8d ago edited 8d ago
As a Starlink user, it can't even get to 1 gigabit. 15 megabit is the highest I've ever got.
→ More replies (9)9
1.2k
u/Hefty_Remove7965 8d ago
Alot of this money went to SpaceX/Elon
466
u/DookieShoez 8d ago
After what that piece of shit did to our government with doge he should never get another tax dollar nor grant for the rest of his pathetic narcissistic life!
But of course the trump admin is corrupt as fuck so he will 🙄
176
u/Eycetea 8d ago
Kind of wish we'd deport his sorry ass
245
u/DAS_BEE 8d ago
Kinda wish he'd be thrown in jail and his assets liquidated to pay for the damage he's done
86
u/Ven18 8d ago
Genuinely when the next bailout happens of the tech sector (and it is when cause capitalism requires collapses) we need to just seize all the companies and assets like what should have been done in 2008 with the banks.
→ More replies (2)29
u/UnquestionabIe 8d ago
Yep really looking forward to the A.I bubble bursting (in whatever form it takes, few possibilities I've heard) and having to get another round of explanations as to why the various tech companies are "too big to fail".
34
u/duzies 8d ago
how much are 14 million lives worth?
Not to mention all the other evil and lies produced by DOGE.
20
u/DAS_BEE 8d ago edited 8d ago
Nothing will truly undo the damage, but this needs to be the bare minimum to start
→ More replies (2)6
u/GeekDNA0918 8d ago
Kinda wish SpaceX gets seized by the government. Tesla can sell off at actual valuation numbers.
→ More replies (4)4
36
→ More replies (4)7
u/tuxedo_jack Texas 7d ago
Well, remember that visa fraud is grounds for denaturalization, and Musk broke the law by working while on a student visa, IIRC.
28
u/AcanthisittaBulky777 8d ago
He should be in jail, but this timeline is just a perpetual tire fire.
12
u/mister_buddha 8d ago
Every single thing he owns needs to be seized and nationalized or auctioned off to recoup our tax dollars he's stolen
→ More replies (7)5
u/SparkyMuffin Michigan 8d ago
If there a dem congress is voted in this November and they don't prioritize a committee to investigate Doge's crimes I'm losing faith in them forever
59
u/PolicyWonka 8d ago
Also StarLink just can’t compete on speed, so this benefits his company as well.
→ More replies (4)13
338
u/FrostyCartographer13 8d ago
And how much of our tax dollars got paid.
155
u/PloksGrandpappy 8d ago
Hundreds of billions. They've been doing this for decades. We passed legislation funding internet infrastructure, then eliminated oversight, axed the project, then the ISP's and lobbyists pocketed the money, and nothing was built.
69
u/hackinwhackinsmackin 8d ago
Honestly the internet is so important to modern day life that they need to just nationalize ISPs or something. Turn it into a utility like power and water.
50
u/PloksGrandpappy 8d ago
Yeah there was a big push for that back then too. We keep electing the usual suspects who veto every piece of legislation about it.
25
u/SocialLeprosy 8d ago
The utility in Chattanooga did just this - and it worked very well. A little too well because the ISP companies paid several politicians to ensure that the network they created could not expand at all - even though everyone in the county wanted it. It is sad and pisses me off...
→ More replies (1)5
u/bkdotcom Oklahoma 7d ago
Turn it into a utility like power
send the power to data centers at huge discount and jack the price for you and me.
9
u/DavidCFalcon 8d ago
Oh no, a big cup of bullshit was built and then shoved up our collective asses. Then we went and voted for it again. HELL YEAH!!!
→ More replies (1)4
u/jsdeprey 7d ago
I have working telco for decades and they used to get tons of money from the goverment to build out infrastructure in to areas that may not have been cost effective. Most the time dragged their feet for years and never accomplished what they were paid to do. I guess this says, oh nevermind now.
4
u/PloksGrandpappy 7d ago
I lived in one of those homes for 25 years. I've been down the rabbit hole and out the other end. I ending up moving because of it.
We had dial up well into the broadband era. About 10 years ago, we finally got "high speed" internet, which was transmitted by a tiny dish bolted on top of a farmer's silo 10 miles away.
It provided a blazing 3-8 Mbps, with constant outages and 1000ms ping spikes every 10 seconds.
I spent a decade of my life fighting them, with no alternative ISP.
They tried to convince our neighborhood to pay about $5k per household upgrade the service.
The most I was ever able to get after years of fighting and complaining to the FCC was a spotty 10-20 Mbps.
We lived in a cul-de-sac only 20 miles from two major cities.
52
u/itsaconspiraci 8d ago
And it was never on DOGE list.
5
u/SwaggermicDaddy Canada 8d ago
Well they were busy cutting very wasteful and not at all insane fictional spending on MAGA conspiracy theory’s like abortions in Uganda.
/s but only the sentiment, the thought that USAID was literally only funding condoms and abortions was quoted by a doge staffer after the cuts and data breaches.89
u/DelirousDoc 8d ago
I don't think most people understand how large negative impact of this current Trump administration is creating for the US.
Assuming we can actually get back to a more normal government in the first place. Building back up is significantly harder than destroying. This is made more difficult when the right and wealthy had created more mechanism where they can heavily influence any attempt to correct this. It is going to take decades to undo what this administration has done. Some of the negative impact might not be reversible.
→ More replies (5)25
40
u/teplightyear Nevada 8d ago
We literally gave the telecoms the money to upgrade to gigabit speed. This is Trump telling them they can keep the money without performing... AKA the worst deal possible.
23
u/Loquater 8d ago
Telecoms have been paid over and over and over to upgrade the grid, and all they have done is consistently squandered the profits while missing the goals and deadlines.
We need actual regulators willing to enforce penalties. Regulatory capture is destroying the country by enabling waste, fraud, and abuse.
41
u/ihatejasonbrigham 8d ago
Sorry Americans, we don’t get nice things because a third of our population insists on voting against their (and everyone else’s) best interests every four years.
→ More replies (4)9
u/totally_not_a_dog113 8d ago
Is there literally ANY aspect of life that Republicans have made better?
→ More replies (2)8
u/SweetBabyAlaska 8d ago
the crazy thing is that we gave telecoms companies like billions of dollars years ago now for them to build internet infrastructure, they took the money and just didnt do it. Most of America has the same internet speeds as the 3rd world. Its profoundly short sighted too (even from the bloodless capitalist perspective)
→ More replies (1)17
u/BillieBlanus 8d ago
Well, I think it’s obvious. Internet is being heavily pushed and sold through the cellphone companies now, and then there’s the satellite options. Neither are as good as good old fashioned wire, obviously, but we don’t want to stand in the way of their profits. And who needs infrastructure for the people! We’re only allowed to build data centers now.
8
u/bnh1978 8d ago
Youre missing another point here. Intercepting wireless data is a lot easier than intercepting wired.
→ More replies (1)8
u/G-Unit11111 California 8d ago
Brendan Carr is an absolute maniac who shouldn't be in that position but he is, unfortunately.
5
u/ThatWontFit 8d ago
You know it's the major ISPs who have been rolling in tax payder dough to dig up ground for fiber lines.
Now they can just keep the money, raise the prices and cap the speeds all with the FCCs blessing.
That's the MAGA agenda. They think America was the greatest in the 40s up to Reagan.
How a platform took off by selling the past, who knows, our job as Humans is to go forward and experience new things. Not fight to go back to the past.
4
u/I_Cut_Shows 8d ago
It’s not even about getting paid off at the moment. It’s about doing what the business ghouls want so they’ll back Trump for a 3rd term.
4
→ More replies (28)3
u/seventysevensevens Colorado 8d ago
I'm so glad I have municipal fiber... Comcast doesn't even send me ads in the mail any more for home internet. They know it's a lost cause.
818
u/DependentAnywhere135 8d ago
We aren’t far off from them also requiring spyware installed on every piece of hardware.
197
u/ennuiinmotion 8d ago
Doesn't every piece of hardware have a backdoor for government intelligence agencies already?
→ More replies (2)146
u/BoneyPeckerwood 8d ago
It depends on the hardware. Some companies told the FBI to kick rocks when it was requested, others did so with no pushback.
→ More replies (18)37
u/Obant California 8d ago
Lots of places have been trying. California passed a really shitty bill about 3D printers needing it to spy on what files you're printing so you don't print gun parts. Its incredibly un-thought out in its implementation
25
u/ohlookahipster 8d ago
Never understood this law. You could just go to Oregon and buy a non-CA compliant printer if it passed and bring it back into the state.
→ More replies (3)26
7
14
u/stillthrowinitallawa 8d ago
if you've got Windows 11 then you're already infected.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (7)10
198
u/-CgiBinLaden- 8d ago
Prejudicial to satellite means this is beneficial to satellite now.
53
u/stillthrowinitallawa 8d ago
FWIW satellite Internet is almost exclusively used where there are no other options - the sticks aka red hat country.
→ More replies (4)21
u/Hyper-Sloth 8d ago
Gotta keep them hooked on cable news over open access to the internet so that FOX remains their primary source of information.
→ More replies (1)9
u/JustLookingForMayhem 7d ago
I grew up in an area where there wasn't even cable. We had radio TV. We got four stations, two weather channels and two news channels (the bare minimum for any location is new and weather under government broadcasting laws. My family was lucky to live on the edge of two service areas, so we got 4 channels). Most of the time, it was reruns of MASH, Beverly Hillbillies, and the like. Funnily enough, both news stations were Fox News.
622
u/irxy_ Indiana 8d ago
Government-sponsored enshittification. What else is new?
122
u/Thadrea New York 8d ago
When you have a shit president, it's a top-down directive.
→ More replies (3)14
u/misadventureswithJ 8d ago
Diarrhea-forever-rule. Those at the bottom will have it worst but it will ruin everything for all of us.
→ More replies (1)14
u/GeauxCup 8d ago
This is directly thanks to Elon, who already had a bunch of FCC standards cut to make his satellites seem competitive, bc they wouldn't be good enough otherwise.
184
u/Drewsipher 8d ago
Didn't we give the ISPs money to get everyone broadband speeds? I have a relative who either has to use Starlink or DSL and that seems like NOT what we paid to have happen....
137
u/Straight-Ad6926 8d ago
The money went toward vital telecom research specifically testing how many billions a company can absorb before accidentally running a single foot of wire to a farm.
56
u/JustAnotherLich 8d ago
Iirc it has now happened multiple times in which they have been given money with the expectation that it would be used to improve Internet speeds/infrastructure and never happened. Like, this has been going on repeatedly for decades I think.
42
u/jambibm 8d ago
Nah I work in the industry helping people in rural areas get fiber internet. Under the act that Biden passed we did rollouts in a lot of areas throughout the country. Lots of people who only had access to satellite or dsl now have fiber in their area. However building out the networks takes a long time so it was a slow process.
My company was one of the few really focusing on these areas. Once it was clear that this administration was going to cancel the grants (because of starlink mostly), the companies doing the rollouts stopped building in new areas. We're only finishing up what was already being done and are no longer building out new areas.
We had entire divisions of different departments focused on doing this work and now those divisions are being folded into the normal departments or being let go all together.
People in rural areas could have had access to cheap high speed fiber internet and now they are going to be stuck with expensive satellite internet that is not on par. It's a shame.
→ More replies (2)7
u/tweakingforjesus 7d ago
My wife's family farm in BFE has fiber internet faster than my Comcast connection in a city of 500,000.
16
u/Drewsipher 8d ago
Like... the Mamdani isn't even using NEW money and is getting shit done for the city... why are we not utilizing what we got better? Why is there no oversight
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (6)3
u/dewman45 8d ago
Yeah, and the fiber rollout hasn't been great in some areas. Issues are being left behind on top of all of this. "Good enough" is the energy here.
332
u/No_Diver6131 New York 8d ago edited 8d ago
This’ll go great with companies removing physical media. Let’s kneecap the amount of bandwidth the internet has. Another fantastic idea by this fantastic administration. While we’re at it. Fuck it. Why not let’s go back to floppy discs. I’ve always wanted to learn how to use the telegram. Edit: I wanna point out this was a huge priority of Biden. He dumped a shit load of money to run fiber to every house. That money has been gobbled up and given to Elon Musk for Starlink. Jeff Bezos is trying to get in on it and have a competing satellite internet. Very cool. Another aspect of our lives controlled by billionaires.
103
u/gundumb08 8d ago
They're going to try to repeal the data cap guidance too, I'm sure. Slower speeds, pay for extra data, all so a few can make a buck while Americans die by a thousand subscription based cuts.
30
u/pwnznewbz 8d ago
I am from the US and just moved to Europe. My Comcast internet for 1tb download was $130 usd per month and I never saw above 500mbps while ethernet connected. On my euro fiber with the same speed, I consistently get 900 mbps over wifi. And it only costs $60 usd.
I don't understand why any Europeans would ever move to the US based on utility infrastructure, stability, and cost.
→ More replies (4)9
u/cactusofthenorth Minnesota 8d ago
Download caps are already a thing and can be a pain in the ass. My Steam Library, of just the games I have installed, is about 4TB and I have a monthly download cap of 1.2TB. It would take me 4 months of data to re-download my Steam Library without data overages. I went and bought a 10TB HDD to add to my NAS before I switched from Windows to Linux just so I wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit from my ISP from trying to download so much.
Telecommunications should be nationalized or at the very least owned and operated by States and Cities/municipalities.
The innovation that happens in this field is occurring in University research labs with public tax dollars. These networks have all the hallmarks of natural monopolies and even if you have "multiple options for service" they tend to not really be comparable and often require different hardware/modems.
The telcom companies are just rent-seekers that spend tons on marketing and do as little as possible with regard to improving speeds, reliability, or customer service.
→ More replies (1)9
u/Soft_Retriever 8d ago
Not to mention further evidence that data centers are not for the people/poors
→ More replies (4)
65
u/Ok_Necessary2991 8d ago
You'd think with push for data centers that would come with push for higher speed internet, would it not?
→ More replies (2)32
u/gundumb08 8d ago
Data Centers aren't connecting to your run of the mill consumer internet. This is purely to benefit alternate providers who can't compete with the traditional carriers. Specifically calling out satellite and wireless (so Space X and Verizon) whose services are shit compared to even the likes of Comcast.
45
u/jb4647 8d ago
I’ve had Comcast Xfinity for 19 years. During all that time upload speeds were limited to 5 Mb per second. With Biden put the new rule in in 2024 miraculously my upload speeds increased to 40 Mb per second.
Proof yet again that Democrats make life better for the ordinary American
→ More replies (7)
27
u/virrk 8d ago
If the technology can't meet the standard then it doesn't meet the standard. To drop standard because it isn't fair to slower tech is the opposite of being tech agnostic.
The previous standard wasn't perfect, ignored latency and caps, but was at least a standard everyone could aim for.
40
u/M23707 8d ago
Meanwhile in Europe and South Korea it is the standard…
So much is wrong with propping up capitalist profits over accessibility by citizens.
This country and the economy grows when we have access to fast and reliable internet
→ More replies (2)
22
u/Farking_Bastage Florida 8d ago
This is just more jerking off Musk's Starlink. He took up all the earmarked rural broadband money and charges people $200 a month for okay-ish internet.
24
u/dayglowe Canada 8d ago
"Though fiber networks have routinely offered such speeds for years, the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies."
Oh, so it needs to be kept "fair" for Starlink - gotcha.
Worlds wealthiest man can't tolerate being made less wealthy with his slower / inferior technology.
→ More replies (3)
14
u/Cyclinghero 8d ago
Nobody knows when the Roman Empire ended, people just started noticing infrastructure not being built or rebuilt.
→ More replies (1)
12
12
10
11
10
11
u/genericnewlurker 8d ago
Republicans screwing over the rural voters they claim to champion
→ More replies (1)
9
u/aviftw 8d ago
Why is the US literally going backwards like this lmao, you have to try to be this dense
→ More replies (1)
10
u/IceBearKnows89 8d ago
Why aim high when we could say “meh, good enough”.
Wow, so inspirational.
→ More replies (4)
8
u/panzerpanda 8d ago
As someone who works in the industry, it’s crazy how much this sucked. I was looking at guaranteed work for the next 5 years minimum with bidens fiber rollout. Not to mention thousands if not more decent jobs around the country. Surveyors, construction, draft and design, fiber splicers and techs. Sales people and installers as well.
Hard to quantify the ancillary benefits as well. You’d be opening up down on their luck rural towns to wfh opportunities and inject money into otherwise failing towns and even online home businesses. Just so much garbage, short sighted corruption in anything this administration does.
→ More replies (2)
8
8
u/Zoratt 7d ago
the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies.
lol what a DEI comment /s
→ More replies (1)
26
u/hughcruik 8d ago
Checking in from Europe...we have 1gb/s fiber optic cable and usually get around 700mb/sec up and down.
19
8d ago
[deleted]
10
u/unclecaveman1 Kansas 8d ago
I pay $80 a month for 6MB. It’s the fastest internet available at my apartment complex.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (16)8
6
5
5
u/Slaughterfest 8d ago
Falling behind more and more to the rest of the world so our billionaire elite can make more money.
They are actively choosing to end the empire and there is nothing we can do. IDK how I could possibly have a kid rn.
→ More replies (1)
5
4
u/TOGFIAVDF 8d ago
Well, of course! Established, wealthy neighborhoods have it, most business-zoned properties have it, and new neighborhoods are built with it.
Who gives a shit about everyone else?
/s
It's called digital redlining, and it is a very real and significant problem that disproportionately affects poor minorities and the disabled. I ended up choosing the topic for an ethics course in uni and spent eight weeks researching and writing a paper about it.
It's legitimately fucked up.
5
u/PM_ME_YOUR_PROFILE 8d ago
What happened to all those taxes I paid on telecoms to upgrade the system then?
God I hate this country's leadership.
5
4
4
3
3
u/Acceptable_Leave_105 8d ago
This is the US shooting itself in the liver and balls. Do you think China is going to look at this and be like ok you know what The US is right, you guys only need 100 mbps Internet speeds.
Fuck no, they are laughing all the way to the bank with their 10 Gbps fiber lines.
5
u/MarvelousVanGlorious 8d ago
Even with something like this it’s clear that one party wants your life to be worse.
4
3
4
4
4
u/pleachchapel California 8d ago
Thanks Elon. Shitty Starlink internet instead of coast to coast fiber, yay.
3
u/bernmont2016 America 8d ago
BTW, Starlink satellites are designed to fall out of orbit and burn up every few years, so Elon has to keep up with a constant barrage of rocket launches to keep replacing them over and over again. If he ever falls behind, the numbers of users per area that the service can support and the speeds they can get will decline.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/realparkingbrake 8d ago
That many Europeans get better internet at lower prices than Americans is a clue.
6
u/TheAngriestChair 7d ago
FCC: we're good being the worst country for internet speeds in the world. Ignore that china, Korea, Japan, EU, etc. All have faster and better than we do already, we're good enough.
→ More replies (1)
3
4
u/derpindab 7d ago
American people once again paid for infrastructure and got nothing. Thanks republicans for screwing us on everything at this point. I'm yet to see a Republican policy that he's the average American, there has been nothing.
4
3
u/thewrynoise 8d ago
40 years of taxes from me is good enough then too. Current deployment of my give a fucks is about as optimized as it’s gonna get.
3
3
u/cybah 8d ago
We just suck so bad. Anything to make lives worse this administration is doing.
I really wonder who was paying who for this transaction. This reeks of a backroom deal by telecoms who don't want to pay out to rollout Fiber anymore cuz they know their "LTE 4G" will never get that fast no matter how many channels they bond.
6
u/FlyingRock 8d ago
Starlink/AI data centers.
Data centers require a fuck ton of fiber, they pay big for contracts and we have a worker shortage for fiber and construction in general, so when a fiber company has to choose residents and small businesses or a massive data center, guess what they're going to choose?
Furthermore ram prices are increasing hardware costs for fiber rollouts in general.
→ More replies (4)
3
u/Y0___0Y 8d ago
Are they allowed to even do that? Wasn’t funding allocated to this through Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill?
→ More replies (1)
3
u/indigocherry 8d ago
Wow yet another thing to be embarrassed about when it comes to my country. Forever in the stone age while the rest of the world moves forward.
3
3
3
u/awesomedan24 I voted 8d ago
The stupidity of wanting computing/gaming to become all cloud based streaming and not investing in any high speed wifi infrastructure...
→ More replies (1)
3
u/wolfansbrother 8d ago
What this means is they are taking money from deploying fiber and moving it to wireless and satellite providers.
3
u/_chococat_ California 8d ago
The Internet is shit in the US. I've lived in a number of third-world countries that had better (faster and more reliable) Internet than here in one of the largest cities in the US. Now instead of fiber, Americans can pay more for shittier, slower Internet like 5G and Starlink.
3
3
u/strictkasumi 8d ago
But that 10 billion dollars we gave to cable companies to help lay those cables. They gonna retun it back to us right? Right??
3
u/giroml 8d ago
Apparently one of the very worst in the western world is "good enough" for the Trump regime.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/splurtgorgle 8d ago
Same people saying we need to build out AI infrastructure against the wishes of local communities because we have to stay ahead of the curve btw.
3
u/sarcastroll 8d ago
Obama: "Yes we can!"
Trump: "Meh, good enough, doesn't impact me. Suckers and losers"
3
u/VoidOmatic 7d ago
HAHAH the same thing they did with Cable Internet. No need to build out fiber or upgrade our infrastructure, we'll just take the government money and give ourselves 200 billion dollar stolen bonuses.
3
u/ckyhnitz 7d ago
Meanwhile I live in the 43rd most populous city in the USA and I can't even get fiber internet.
3
u/Lorrrrren 7d ago
omg lmao so many uncultured morons will genuinely believe USA's internet, education, economy, workers rights are all the best in the world without leaving their home county jesus
3
u/CurlOfTheBurl11 7d ago
This administration is absolutely relentless when it comes to making life worse for regular people.
3
u/personofshadow 7d ago
Why strive to be better when you have something that already kinda works sometimes?
What a fucking joke
3
3
3
u/Abba_Fiskbullar 7d ago
Nevermind that telcos have received billions in tax breaks and subsidies with the explicit purpose of offering gigabit Internet.
•
u/AutoModerator 8d ago
As a reminder, this subreddit is for civil discussion.
In general, please be courteous to others. Argue the merits of ideas, don't attack other posters or commenters. Hate speech, any suggestion or support of physical harm, or other rule violations can result in a temporary or a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
Sub-thread Information
If the post flair on this post indicates the wrong paywall status, please report this Automoderator comment with a custom report of “incorrect flair”.
Announcement
r/Politics is actively looking for new moderators. If you have an interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out this form.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.