Were it not for the 2021 infrastructure bill, the Antiplanner would probably be enjoying high-speed internet now. But thanks to the bill, which included $65 billion to extend broadband internet to underserved areas, I probably won’t get it until 2028.
Camp Sherman is in a rural area that is mostly out of cell phone range. CenturyLink, the local phone company, provides DSL service that is slow and unreliable. An internet speed test reports download speed of less than a megabit per second, about 1/250th of what I could get elsewhere and for less money.
Before the infrastructure bill, a regional broadband company was promising to extend coverage to Camp Sherman. Its plan was to extend a line to a nearby hilltop and then provide line-of-sight over-the-air coverage to homes in the area. Its early effort worked for a few homes; most including mine were still not covered, but the company promised it would expand soon.
Then the infrastructure bill passed and suddenly the company lost interest in extending its system until it got a federal grant. Local residents began working to submit an application. CenturyLink said it wasn’t interested in providing broadband to the area, so residents worked with the company that had started to install lines here.
After two years of preparing the application, residents were informed that the broadband company is not eligible for a federal grant. Why not? Because CenturyLink had already received a federal grant to provide broadband to the area. Under the terms of the federal funding programs, if one company receives a grant to cover an area, no other company may apply.
Under the grant it received, CenturyLink is obligated to provide us with broadband, but not before 2028. It is making no move to do so any time sooner, which is why it told local residents that it wasn’t interested in doing so. Meanwhile, the other broadband company is not going to spend its own money providing service for us when CenturyLink could, at any time, use the federal grants it received to provide a competing service.
As I noted when Congress was debating the infrastructure bill, people in Camp Sherman are not poor. They willingly gave up access to some services, including high-speed internet, when they moved here. We don’t need a federal subsidy to get broadband: there are at least two satellite companies that can do the job that I haven’t yet subscribed to for various reasons. But it would have been nice if the federal government hadn’t given local broadband companies incentives to not extend their services here.
“I live in a rural area”
Government, i need service.
Surely infrastructure for internet can be costly. But cost stems from user to provider.
While the high-tech approach to internet, either Cellular or wireless networks, it pushes the costs and energy use of the internet higher and higher, the low-tech alternatives of fiber optic are difficult to lay. On the other hand, the alternative approach can result in much cheaper and very energy efficient networks that combine well with renewable power production if need be and are resistant to disruptions. If we want the internet to keep working in circumstances where access to energy is more limited, or certain environmental factors emerge; we can learn important lessons from alternative network technologies. Best of all, there’s no need to wait for governments or companies to facilitate: we can build our own resilient communication infrastructure if we cooperate.
Europe has entire private, hand built networks. Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection — in this sense, the technology resembles the 18th century optical telegraph.Long range WiFi offers high bandwidth (up to 54 Mbps) combined with very low capital costs. Because the WiFi standard enjoys widespread acceptance and has huge production volumes, off-the-shelf antennas and wireless cards can be bought for very little money.
While most low-tech networks are aimed at regions where the alternative is often no internet connection at all, their usefulness for well-connected areas cannot be overlooked. The internet as we know it in the industrialized world is a product of an abundant energy supply, a robust electricity infrastructure, a huge data networking management systems, and sustained economic growth, huge capital expenses. This “high-tech” internet might offer some fancy advantages over the low-tech networks, but it cannot survive if these conditions change. This makes it extremely vulnerable, corporate controlled and monolithic pricing schemes like internet in many rural US areas. The longest unamplified WiFi link is a 384 km wireless point-to-point connection between Pico El Águila and Platillón in Venezuela.
A new network connecting Florida Keys to Cuba has been in works, because such a system would grant Cuban citizens access to a “Pirate” band internet access subject to US IP address, Cubans can broadcast, chat, download, view and watch footage their government restricts.
Camp Sherman has many streams and rivers. Unlike BIG hydro, small hydro doesn’t need dams.
A startup firm “Turbulent Hydro” is developing an all in one modular low pressure Hydroelectric system. And scaled from 3 to 70 kilowatts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhyi1DjGti8
And the silicon valley titans; are they really trust worthy. “Democratize Democracy”
I’m sure that’s what the wizards behind Twitter, Facebook, and Google told themselves good would follow til they transformed into the greatest censorship, snitchery, and propaganda agents in world history. A redundant, low tech internet…..while slower is orders of magnitude more liberating.
Please let us know how you like your new Starlink service 🙂
We’re suffering the same problem for slightly different reasons. I live in a medium-sized suburb of a medium-sized city. We have -fine- internet. The speeds are acceptable at the moment, but it’s VERY expensive because we have no competition – it’s one internet provider unless you’re willing to accept a 90% speed reduction. We’ve been told gigabit fiber is coming for years now and it hasn’t happened and now I don’t expect it to. Why? We’re not rural.
About 15 minutes from us is a beautiful lake town of 1,500 people. It’s quite wealthy, but it qualifies as “rural” so they are getting heavily subsidized fiber internet (they previously had service that was slower than ours, but not a ton).
So, yeah. Thanks Joe.
Dumb that competitors cant apply for grants for the same area. Way to cement the corporatocracy guys. Real pat on the back to all the politicians on that one. It’s not that fair to blame Biden specifically for a bipartisan bill that passed 69-30. He could have vetoed it sure but it passed by such a wide margin it would just go through again.
95% of South Korean households have access to fiber-optic internet, making it one of the most connected countries in the world. In addition to its advanced infrastructure, South Korea also benefits from a highly competitive internet service market.
The government subsidized a massive Ultra-high speed fiber optic network connecting virtually every region,including it’s least populated. They have the fastest internet on the planet. Millions of customers are 5G by default.
Man lives in a rural area and expects urban amenities. Curious!
janehavisham,
I must have written the article poorly to make you think I expect urban amenities. As I’ve written before, lots of exurbanites have high incomes and willingly trade off some urban amenities to live in rural areas. What I do expect is that government not get in the way of private entrepreneurs. As I wrote above, were it not for the infrastructure bill, we would probably have high-speed broadband very soon if not have it already. Instead, we won’t get it for four more years if then.