
The FCC has no idea how many people don’t have broadband access - JaimeThompson
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fcc-has-no-idea-how-many-people-dont-have-broadband-access/?comments=1
======
scohesc
ISPs: Looks like we're not serving high speed broadband to a lot of people!
We've got work to do.

FCC: Yes you do! Mr. Government, would you mind giving us 40 billion dollars
to improve internet infrastructure, this is a massive undertaking and we
really REALLY want to help get broadband to under-served regions.

Government: Sure, here's the money! Don't spend it all in one place!

FCC:

ISPs:

Sounds like this happened 20 years ago and now they're going to try and do it
again with this as an excuse to get more money

~~~
xhrpost
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hgSJiY...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hgSJiYFg_3IJ:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-
book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
tzs
There have been some questions raised here before as to the accuracy of that
book. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864766)

~~~
rayiner
The book isn’t inaccurate, in the sense the data is wrong. It’s that the book
draws conclusions from that data on questionable premises, and then people
take the headline number and misrepresent what it means. The article linked
above actually makes the theory behind the book quite clear:

> By the end of 2014, America _will have been charged_ about $400 billion by
> the local phone incumbents, Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, for a fiber optic
> future that never showed up.

The premise is that pre-1992 regulated rates are the proper baseline that
reflect the “correct price” of service. The theory then goes that ISPs conned
the government into deregulating rates by promising fiber which they never
built, which allowed them to raise prices beyond what the regulated rates
should have been. In other words: “an iPhone XR should only cost about $250,
reflecting a 10% profit margin, so anything Apple gets beyond that is an
overcharge.”

The premise is ignorant, but there is no reason to believe the underlying data
is wrong. However, whether the conclusion is right or not, the underlying
theory is, by its own terms, a theory of overcharge. (Prices being roughly 10%
higher than they should have been over a 22 year period.) It’s not a
documenting of some money transfer from government to providers.

~~~
fragmede
Apple wasn't previously a government regulated monopoly and iPhones aren't a
vital service in a developed country. Government regulated monopolies are
different though. Regulations forcing a specific price, or even a specific
"profit" margin aren't unheard of. Thus, the premise isn't entirely
unreasonable!

There are details to be quibbled over, but the history of AT&T is _where_ that
premise comes from in the first place! (In particular, the 1982 DoJ mandated
breakup and resulting fallout from that.)

------
creaghpatr
Maybe a good question to put on the census?

~~~
mjevans
It would be much better if the ISPs in a given census block were required to
list the offered packages and prices; that could then be submitted to those
polled (along with some fake options to detect those who just don't know).

The citizen would be asked to fill out one column of check-boxes "from
packages reportedly offered in their area" to see which they've been offered
by the ISPs, and another to select the level of service they're currently
getting.

~~~
hinkley
Offered and available are two different things.

For instance, the COs are too far apart to drive high speed DSL to the edges
of the areas they serve, so DSL 'broadband' is a dalmatian pattern even in an
urban area. So you have cable, which is oversubscribed and has ulterior
motives. Until your neighborhood has fiber the 'has broadband' question is
pretty much on a block by block basis, and in some instances house by house.

~~~
inetknght
If a company advertises (offers) a service and then backs out, is that grounds
for false advertisement complaints?

~~~
sokoloff
If they advertise aDSL with “speeds up to” and an inherent limitation in the
system (distance to CO or line quality), I suspect they’re in the clear
legally (and morally IMO)

~~~
munk-a
If only we had some sort of Federal Working Group - or Commission on
Communication... then perhaps that group could ban the practice of advertising
"speeds up to" and require that plans be reported with minimum speed
guarantees (with some allowance for craziness, like an SLA - 95% of the time
monthly the speed will be at least 30Mb)

~~~
sokoloff
Does banning the advertising of ADSL (in practice) benefit or harm consumers
in total in areas where that's the fastest terrestrial option? I believe it
harms them (in that advertising the cost and availability of ADSL is better
than remaining silent on the service). ADSL line performance is hyper-
localized to the individual service recipient.

~~~
guitarbill
I think the point is that measuring real, possible ADSL speeds can and should
be done. There's no reason the price couldn't be prorated based on the maximum
achievable speed at your household. Good luck getting that at the moment
though.

The other issue is fluctuating speed at peak times. This is far, far worse
IMO, because companies have oversold capacity and should be considered false
advertising.

~~~
sokoloff
"Our service is prorated at $100/mo per 1Mbps download. For customer
convenience, we also cap the monthly bill at $75/mo. You always pay the lower
of the two prices." Done.

------
drewg123
When we moved to central VA a few years ago, there was a house we really,
really liked but did not purchase because there was no option at all for
broadband. The truly sad thing is that the house was about 1 mile from the i95
corridor, where a ton of fiber sits, going to the northern VA datacenters.

We wound up in a more established, less rural area, where we have exactly one
choice in internet providers (Comcast).

~~~
hanniabu
The good ol' local monopoly

~~~
switch007
The First Honest Cable Company | Extremely Decent
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso)
(profanity)

------
LinuxBender
Wouldn't it be easier to figure out how many people do have broadband and
subtract from the population to get a rough guess? ISP's report subscription
numbers. It won't be super accurate but maybe that is sufficient.

~~~
chipperyman573
Would this handle multi-person households?

~~~
b_tterc_p
Incorporate avg number of people per house...?

~~~
hanniabu
Do we really have no record of how many houses are in the US? I hate how
absolutely inefficient government is

~~~
b_tterc_p
We have excellent data on this

~~~
hanniabu
Then I don't see the issue of why we can't calculate like the parent said to
figure out how many houses don't have service. If we know how many houses
there are and the ISPs know the homes they serve, then you can figure out the
difference.

------
munk-a
Don't forget that a common argument that ISPs use to suppress muni broadband
is that the muni will cover highly profitable customers while leaving the ISP
needing to support only extremely rural customers... even though genuine
private competition could do the same thing and the government has already
footed the bill for that rural build out.

------
IronWolve
I've seen lots of apartments only offer some 3rd party cable company and 3rd
party dsl, that the owners would get kick packs. (Millenium as an example).
One place I was at, they only had cable and no internet. I had to use ISDN
then IDSL after I moved in. About a year later enough people complained and
they put in comcrap with real cable modems.

My folks live in a small town with 1 tower for the town that has verizon,
thats the only internet, and its slow.

This one time work put in frame relay to employees homes, they asked for my
address and didnt ask if I was a owner, I was renting the house. One day a
crew showed up and ran copper to my computer room. I had instant access into
the servernet for work. (it was decades ago...)

I'm really looking forward to Sat internet like spacex, so I can sit in a
cabin away from everyone, and still work. Someday soon I hope.

------
dboreham
I've always scratched my head at this. ISPs really don't have this information
so beating chest about ISPs needing to supply better and better data is
nonsensical. Do you know who has this information? Amazon.

~~~
inetknght
> ISPs really don't have this information so beating chest about ISPs needing
> to supply better and better data is nonsensical.

Do you really think that ISP's marketing teams don't have this information?

~~~
rayiner
Often, yes. They know where they have plant. They don’t necessarily know where
they don’t have plant. If your house doesn’t already have service, it can be
complicated to figure out if it can get service. Maybe you just need to extend
an existing node one block over. Or maybe you need to trench half a mile.
Until someone actually rings up and orders service to a previously unserved
address, they don’t try to figure this all out.

I saw this in action when I ordered Comcast Gigabit Pro at my house. They
looked at a map and figured there was a place close enough where they could
splice fiber. Then they sent out someone to do a ground survey, put together
an estimate, and then some bean counters decided whether they would eat the up
front cost. The whole process took a month or so (followed by a couple of
months to get permits and two full days for a four-person team to actually
pull the fiber).

------
tthrow44
The FCC should visit the data at
[https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/](https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/) ;)

------
jbob2000
What would we do with that data if we had it? Would we force the ISPs to build
out unprofitable infrastructure? Would we direct some funding to the ISPs to
do that? Would we incentivize rural folks to move to better served areas?

It just seems like more politics to yell at the FCC to gather this data - why
do we want it?

~~~
thwythwy
You get that the government is controlled by politics right? The FCC Chair is
quite obviously a political appointment based on politics. ISPs get to dig in
the public right of way. They have access to what is a natural monopoly of
plugging into peoples' homes. Unprofitable infrastructure? How about the fact
that these companies take all their cap-ex and throw it into CONTENT then beg
the federal government to allow them to throttle their customers so they can
charge for the content. Force indeed.

