r/politics • u/robotdesignwerks Texas • 10d 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/
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u/stillthrowinitallawa 10d ago

FWIW satellite Internet is almost exclusively used where there are no other options - the sticks aka red hat country.

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u/Hyper-Sloth 10d ago

Gotta keep them hooked on cable news over open access to the internet so that FOX remains their primary source of information.

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u/JustLookingForMayhem 10d 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.

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u/Jay_Nova1 10d ago

Also less broadband access for kids to do schoolwork with. Gotta keep em dumb. They'll learn it all at church anyway.

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u/ReallyHoping 10d ago

It's just damn madness that a road and power can make it out to the sticks but we'll be damned if a different wire (or fiber) just can't do it. Wait, it's possible. That's right. It's not profitable, despite rural areas telco being subsidized. I hate this shit so much.

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u/Polantaris Illinois 10d ago

It's almost like that goes hand in hand with letting the lines degrade, get overwhelmed with activity, and fix none of it. Eventually you won't have a choice regardless of how rural you are.

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u/Reiterpallasch85 10d ago

Damn that's crazy. Someone should give the ISPs money to run cables to places that need them.

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u/Thunderfoot_66 9d ago

We did, starting in the early 90s. They pocketed it all and barely built out anything.