The Broadband Infrastructure we were promised.
-
It's all about the regs and favored groups.
"In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans," Brendan Carr, the senior Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) this month. "Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest."
Carr blames the delay on "the addition of a substantive wish list of progressive ideas" to the approval process. In an April 2023 letter to Davidson, 11 Republican U.S. senators warned that "NTIA's bureaucratic red tape and far-left mandates undermine Congress' intent and would discourage participation from broadband providers while increasing the overall cost of building out broadband networks."
Among several examples, the senators noted that NTIA's BEAD proposal "requires subgrantees to prioritize certain segments of the workforce, such as 'individuals with past criminal records' and 'justice-impacted […] participants.'" The infrastructure law that authorized the program merely required contractors to be "in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws."
Saw a comment that this is the internet version of California's high speed rail.
-
Sadly, it's something that is badly needed and maybe one of the best things to come out of the Biden Administration.
-
Sadly, it's something that is badly needed and maybe one of the best things to come out of the Biden Administration.
@Jolly said in The Broadband Infrastructure we were promised.:
Sadly, it's something that is badly needed and maybe one of the best things to come out of the Biden Administration.
Yes.
Deeper in the article, it talks about the percentage of the US which has broadband from the private sector. Surprisingly high.
Also, Starlink is a reasonable, and almost reasonably-priced, alternative. The kit is $500 and it's $120 a month for unlimited data.
