“FCC chairman Julius Genachowski at a conference today launched an effort to boost the speed of Internet access in the US to 100Mbps and higher,” Electronista reports.
“Dubbed 100 Squared, it would provide at least 100Mbps access to 100 million homes in the US. The official didn’t give a timetable for the rollout but hoped it would boost adoption of broadband from 65 percent today to 90 percent,” Electronista reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Actually, the “Prepared Remarks of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, NARUC Conference, February 16, 2010” documentation states that this is one of the goals under a “2020 vision,” so it’s 100Mbps Internet access in 100 million U.S. homes by the year 2020. Unless they meant “20/20 vision,” in which case all bets are off.
Electronista continues, “The ongoing National Broadband Plan is expected to help out and, among other plans, would gradually repurpose the Universal Service Fund from phone lines to Internet connections. Genachowski also warned that the US shouldn’t stop at the symbolic 100Mbps and pointed to the Google Fiber project’s 1Gbps as an example of what could be done by a motivated private company.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Comparing average Internet access speeds of countries with significantly different land areas, not to mention topography, is folly. The U.S., for example, covers 3,790,000 square miles. Singapore, for another example, is 274 square miles. Guess which one is far easier to cover and has faster average Internet access speeds?
Well at least it’s a better target that our ‘glorious leader’s’, the clueless Priminister Gordon Brown who has set a 2MB download target speed for every uk household by 2015. Twat as we say here.
Guess it would depend on how many of our senators and congressmen have stakes in communication companies….. god knows it doesn’t matter whether it benefits americans….
This is just another example of a democratic party handout!
We all know the government shouldn’t get involved. The private sector has done a fantastic job!!!
Oh, please! This is not something for the Republicans *or* the Democrats to do. Their job is simply to minimize the regulatory burdens that make it unprofitable to go for this market.
It would help too if they got rid of the bogus fees and charges that are hindering this industry. These always come to mind when folks talk of lowering taxes, but they’re never addressed. My own phone bill includes:
– DC Universal Service Trust Fund
– DC Public Rights-of-Way Use Fee
– DC Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge
– DC E911/311 Fee
– DC Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge
– Federal Excise Tax
– Federal Subscriber Line Charge
@Ed, do you mean 2 Megabytes (~20 meg broadband) or 2 Megabits (2 Meg broadband). Either way not as good as the 100 meg proposed here. But I have Virgin Medias 50 meg broadband and downloading at around 5-6 Megabytes per second is pretty sweet although I wish we had speeds closer to those in the east where some get 1 gig broadband for under a tenner! jammy gits.
It’s always easy to spend someone elses money for your pipe-dream ideas.
@ Milney…………Ed is refering to 2 meg broadband which our current gov is hoping to put into every uk household and to help pay for it every uk household with a phone lone (regardless of whether or not they actually have Internet connection) is to have a small form of taxation applied to their phone bill to help pay for it.
@Cowboy – yeah thank goodness the Republican party never does any political favors for its benefactors! *eyeroll*
Yeah, the US private sector has done a great job on boradband access – so great, in fact, that the US lags behind half the industrializaed world in quality of broadband access. Japan, Australia, Sweden, Norway, etc. pwn us.
The glory of the “free market”! Why provide better services when you can just charge more for the crap service you provide now! Instant profit!
Two points (neither intended as partisan)
1. The private telco sector has been heavily subsidized by the public sector (under both democratic and republican admins).
2. While it is nice to have decent (albeit expensive) broadband in the US, relative to the countries that lead in broadband speed/cost, the USA is significantly behind.
It is maddening how broadband access is so scattershot. We live less than a 1/4 mile from where comcast has their service already. When we inquired about how much it would cost to get a line to us, they said $30,000! Anyone who thinks that’s a realistic cost and not just plain gouging in the extreme has their head up their arse. Satellite is a joke with the latency and extremely low “heavy use” limit. We paid for high-end business service, and would STILL get our service cut off if we downloaded over 100MB in one day (try updating about 5 computers when a Mac OS update comes through). We’re too far to get DSL or SDSL service, and ended up paying for a T1 line (about $325 per month).
The private market is great, but this is just nonsense, especially the comcast thing. We are a straight shot from their existing lines, on flat, level land with power and telephone poles they can hook up to (like they do down the street already). There’s no possible way cable costs a major buyer like Comcast $21.50 per linear foot, even with installation costs (it would take about 6 hours at most to lay that cable and get it here, and into the building).
And they have an exclusive service contract in our area. Seems if they get that, they should have to SERVICE the whole area.
Hollow political statement. Problem with broadband in the country is less speed and more one of access. If you live in the country, there just isn’t incentive to get you 2 MBS much less 100. We have cable, I’m satisfied with the speed- but at our summer place in the country- fat chance getting anything but dialup. LIkewise- most folks I know who are on the sidelines would be more enticed be decreased cost than increased speed. When I can download a HD movie to my Apple TV and start watching 30 seconds after I start the download, what does that extra speed do for me?
100 Mbps ten years from now will seem like peanuts to most of us. The stated goal should be MUCH higher. 1 Gbps or more.
Koreans will be twice as fast by the time the USA gets to that speed. They’re much faster right now.
@OctoberMac
I agree the target should be 1 Gb/s. The 100 Mb/s target exhibits either gross ignorance of the technology involved or continued collusion with the service providers. Gigabit Ethernet optics are no more expensive then 100 Mb/s optics and the switching costs aren’t much more. If we’re going to run fiber to every home, GigE is the logical thing to light it with. If we’re not aiming for fiber to every home, then it looks like we’re going let the providers keep a lock on their local loop with no unbundling etc.
One more project our Federal Government cannot afford!
– 12.5 trillion and climbing in national debt
– 100 trillion we will own entitlements
– Goverment Health Care (who knows how much this will cost)
….
President Obama, STOP YOUR SPENDING AND LET PRIVATE INDUSTRY BUILD THE INTERNET!!!!!!
Read Gov Chris Christie state speech (see link below)
http://www.app.com/article/20100211/NEWS/100211042
WMD