ISPs seeking government handouts try to avoid offering low-cost broadband

In the early 2000s iirc they were given billions to build out rural broadband. They kept it. Rural broadband still doesn't exist to speak of.

We did the same for urban fiber. It's never materialized, either. And, the USDA has been providing funding and loans for rural broadband for quite awhile.
- It's almost like the foxes are running the hen house, as the old saying goes.
- I’ve read there’s lots of “dark” fiber in cities, but I don’t know if it’s true. I do know that AT&T has a fiber line that runs through my neighborhood, yet I can’t get fiber internet. Really stupid.
- American taxpayer is always paying for major CapEx for most industries then turn around and price gouge us.
  
  Most amercians see to be fine with it since they live in a free market economy where private sector funds investment.
- I don't think that the United States Department of Agriculture is involved in subsidizing urban fiber.
Almost a trillion dollars. It was like 980 billion...yea...
Yup, they took the 90s era broadband grants and just pocketed them because they knew that the Bush era FCC wouldn't pursue the matter.
- because they knew that the Bush era FCC wouldn’t pursue the matter.
  
  There's been many FCC's since then that could have and should have enforced. Both parties have been sucking on this front... spending money in ways that only benefit mega-corps with no ability to punish those same corps.
These bills have been passed multiple times over the last couple decades and the result is always the same. In places like NY, they claimed to have run fiber to millions of homes but they never actually connected it to any of these homes, it just runs along under the street out in front of them, therefore they can claim these homes are "covered by fiber."
- And the fuckers want ten grand from the homeowner to jack it in. The drop won't even be owned by the homeowner afterward either. It's literally criminal.
And in the late 2000's. And again a few years later. And as of last year they, the FCC is once again throwing money at them without any real oversight. I worked for a ISP in 2010 and we couldn't get any of the money because a bank had first lean on the company USDA demanded that before any money could be approved. AT&T got money for our area and their footprint shrank the next year when they cut off dial-up customers in the area.
To boot, Thats happened like at least 3 times now. Lmao
Idk who built it but the place I used to live in BFE definitely has broadband now.
- Because of the FCC's hilariously out of date definition, many places have theoretical broadband access (one 10mb pipe shared amongst dozens of households).

We need to stop giving money to ISPs. Give the money to municipalities so they can offer municipal broadband.

Can confirm, my ISP is fiber out in a rural area, run by the rural electric company from a couple counties over and it's pretty decent. Not top of the line stuff, offers either 100 megabit or 1 gigabit symmetrical for a home plan, but it's much better than the fixed point wireless that was the best previous option and maxed out at 100 down/20 up for the highest tier plan, and that was only if you could get clear line of sight to the transmitter (Would sometimes go down if it was raining hard or it was windy or something as something could block line of sight or misalign the transmitter/receiver on one end of the connection or the other)
- not top of the line
  
  1 gig symmetrical
  
  Mf I'm over here with 100/10 dsl in a suburban market, and you're like 'meh could be better' to what I am like 'I would literally kill for that'
  
  A competing company offers faster speeds but last time I checked, it was around $300 a month for better speeds while retaining 'small business' service (to sidestep data caps). My isp has gig fiber... 4 miles away... and isn't expanding it. Kill me.
- I cant say enough great things about these rural electric companys rolling out their own fiber. I had an interesting opportunity a while back to do contracted field work for a bunch of small midwest/gulf state electric companies, and was absolutely blown away by the work they're doing.
  
  The first one I worked, I was extremely confused by the communications on all of their poles thinking ATT came through and delivered the nicest fiber id ever seen to cows and corn until I came across the linemen casually splicing fiber on the back bumper of their bucket truck. ATT was copper only in the area, even in the small town they werent even trying - the electric company was dominating.
  
  The whole mood was wild really, most of these companies were co-ops that were tied into the community already, and its really the community that decided the co-op should do internet too. I never got to be an actual customer of any of these, so i never got to know what it feels like to tell ATT to kick rocks and then actually be able to do something about it. But every single customer and employee was feeling it and it wasnt hard to get them grinning about it.
  
  The options available to them were also something to behold. Its their poles. Communications always go under power, and normal communications companies kinda sorta just work with what they get after the electric company uses all the space they need. These guys can rearrange their electric lines to make way for communications all in the same day. ATT would probably get bogged down under 8 months of red tape if they tried to do that.
  
  One of these co-ops would even use space on their poles for directional wifi antennas. Some rural houses would have a half mile driveway, and the power line has long since been buried, so they just beam internet wirelessly from fiber on the main road and skip the expensive buildout to lay fiber for one person. I got to chatting with one guy that had this setup. His house was downhill from the road, so right next to his house they ended up installing the absolute tallest wooden utility pole i have ever seen, i dont even remember the footage, but all that was on it was a single 10 inch wifi dish at the very top. He still got a few hundred both ways, those directional antennas were impressive, and they just power them off their own electric grid.
  
  It really was a daily eye opener of how it could be if these shit ISPs didnt control everything. I strongly encourage everyone to look up to see if youre served by one! You might be surprised, they sometimes whittle in close to some larger cities, if you live in some newer neighborhoods on the outskirts....but man look at me ramble
But municipals don't have lobbyists to write laws and buy politicians.

Simple. Let them get government handouts, by being nationalized.

Make necessary infrastructure municipal utilities... Water, gas, electric, telephone, Internet... If you need it to participate in society, it shouldn't have a profit motive attached, period.

Kill your ISPs. They are more trouble than they are worth.

Meanwhile, in an affluent suburb of Pittsburgh, two companies are pulling new fiber, where there is already a provider and fiber lines. Why? Because of this. No one chooses Comcast unless they are the only game.

I'm surprised they're allowed to do with with Comcast being headquartered in Philly.
- A lot of giant corporations don’t shit where they eat. They treat the locals well so that they continue to get favorable legislation passed.
- Pittsburgh is like 5 hours from Philly.

Despite that, ISPs claim that prices for the low-cost option should be calculated based on "the economic realities of deploying and operating networks in the highest cost, hardest-to-reach areas."

Frankly, in the hardest-to-reach areas, I'm not sure that it makes sense to subsidize terrestrial ISPs at all. Hard-to-reach rural areas are Starlink's bread-and-butter.

Musk is already a problem for national security, if we're going to use Starlink even more, the government needs to just seize the company
I can’t imagine tying my only communications with the outside world to the whims of an unhinged lunatic who has proven that he’s willing to ruin good things just because he feels like it that day.
- Other satellite internet options are available (or will be soonish)
  
  Oneweb is live, although they aim more at ISPs and businesses.
  
  The Amazon one might happen if New Glen ever gets of the ground (although it's launching on other providers too)
The upfront cost for Starlink is insane for most people, especially those in rural areas.
- It's way less than the cost of running a fiber line out there though!
  
  So potentially subsidise the starling terminal instead.