Analysis of broadband affordability deemed “extraneous” by FCC chair.

The Federal Communications Commission is ditching Biden-era standards for measuring progress toward the goal of universal broadband deployment.

The changes will make it easier for the FCC to give the broadband industry a passing grade in an annual progress report. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s proposal would give the industry a thumbs-up even if it falls short of 100 percent deployment, eliminate a long-term goal of gigabit broadband speeds, and abandon a new effort to track the affordability of broadband.

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed “on a reasonable and timely basis” to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must “take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market.”

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      If only we could chart that and see which political party is in charge at which points, and then never vote for the one that puts us here ever again… Oh well

      • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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        We can though, first time was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with funding being released in 2010. D president, D Senate, D house.

        By 2012 it became obvious that the commitment lined out in the 2009 bill weren’t going to happen and a meek attempt to claw back the funds was made. D president, D Senate, R house.

        2021 sees the access broadband act. D president, D Senate, D house.

        By 2025 it became obvious that the commitment lined out in the 2021 bill weren’t going to happen. R president, D R Senate, R house.

        The only constant is a Democratic Senat so clearly that’s the problem! Right?

        Edit: wrong session for 2025 caucus. It’s all Rs there.

          • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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            My bad, thanks for catching that I was looking at 118th caucus not 119th. I thought I just misremembered which of those pesky other parties were part of which caucus.

          • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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            With the way American politics are at the moment I interpreted that as a “only the Republicans are the bad guys” and wanted to make it abundantly clear that is not the case.

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        Yeah well, clearly it wasn’t fixed fast enough so we should vote back in the people that break everything. Or decide that we shouldn’t vote at all like the lazy sacks of shit we are.

      • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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        This is the part that bothers me so much about everything that is being dismantled right now. It took forever to get it to where it is, and it still needed a lot of improvement. And it was just smashed seemingly overnight.

        It’s like a sandcastle. Takes forever to build a good one, and it takes some asshole one second to step on it and destroy the whole thing.

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          takes some asshole one second to step on it and destroy the whole thing.

          Absolutely. The last one to just go “lol nah” and demolish the working class this hard was Reagan, and we were still reaping the fallout from those asinine policies when 2016 hit!

          • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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            We had never actually fixed any of the shit that Reagan broke. They kept doing more of the same stuff he had started

            • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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              The religious right latching on to Reagan as the patron saint of supply-side economics was a serious fucking problem that was completely ignored (and in fact lauded in tons of circles) at the tone. And still is, largely.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          It took forever to get it to where it is, and it still needed a lot of improvement

          It not just took forever to get to where we were but it seems like most of the good things Biden was able to get passed were long term investments. Money spent for something that would help in ten years.

          Now it’s money spent and thrown away.

      • StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world
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        And “fixing it” usually means giving away the infrastructure we built to the private sector so it can charge us to use what our tax money built.

    • Etterra@discuss.online
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      We need a new 4th branch of government that’s in charge of infrastructure and public welfare.

      • ronigami@lemmy.world
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        No, we really just need to stop selecting between two bad presidents over and over again. If you always pick the second-worst option, you’re going to have a bad time. Pick the best option. Ranked choice voting is the only way.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          At this point it’s hard to remember the good old days when we picked the second worst

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        How would this branch be structured? How would it interface with the other branches? How would its members be appointed? What does “Infrastructure and Public Welfare” entail? Why are “Infrastructure” and “Public Welfare” grouped together? What powers would it have to carry out its job, and what specifically is that job? Based on those previous answers, how would it solve any existing or foreseeable issues? Why would it be better positioned to solve those issues than a change made within the existing three-branch framework?

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          And money. Infrastructure is all cost, no profit, no income source, and damn expensive.

          A separate branch only solves the political will half of the infrastructure problem, but we also need a consistent, large budget to actually keep up

          And personally I’d vote to give it all to Amtrak and transit. Every time we add a highway or more lanes to a highway, we’re increasing infrastructure costs that we already can’t afford to keep up with. Why are we still digging this hole deeper?

    • kingofras@lemmy.world
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      It’s because USA has nukes my friend. The only way your enemies can attack you is through asymmetric warfare, mostly by corrupting your political system so that you attack yourself.

      If you’ve wondered why everything looks like a coup since he got in, perhaps it is because it is one.

      https://lemmy.world/post/31401705

      https://youtu.be/AaKFx5rxdmA

      https://smartelections.us/

      https://electiontruthalliance.org/

      And if you’re wondering why Democrats like Tim Walz are not even interested in investigating it themselves, well, the existence of certain files and whether or not they are disclosed could have something to do with that.