Lobbyists for huge telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Windstream are fighting a proposed rule that would require telecoms to provide higher internet speeds in order to qualify for a rural broadband subsidy, Jon Brodkin reports for Ars Technica.
The Federal Communications Commission announced in December that it would scrap the 4G LTE rural subsidy plan and instead launch a $9 billion fund to bring 5G to rural areas. The 5G plan, called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, plans to offer three tiers: a baseline tier with 25 megabytes per second download speed and 3 Mbps upload, an "above-baseline" tier with 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, and a "gigabit performance" tier with 1Gbps down and 50 Mbps up, Brodkin reports.
Though most ISPs seem fine with the requirements for the bottom and top tiers, "it's the above-baseline tier of 100Mbps/20Mbps that providers object to," Brodkin reports. "They either want the FCC to lower that tier's upload speeds or create an additional tier that would be faster than baseline but slower than above-baseline. Companies pushing lower standards are trying to ensure that ISPs offering much slower speeds can get a large slice of that federal funding without making significant network upgrades."
The Federal Communications Commission announced in December that it would scrap the 4G LTE rural subsidy plan and instead launch a $9 billion fund to bring 5G to rural areas. The 5G plan, called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, plans to offer three tiers: a baseline tier with 25 megabytes per second download speed and 3 Mbps upload, an "above-baseline" tier with 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, and a "gigabit performance" tier with 1Gbps down and 50 Mbps up, Brodkin reports.
Though most ISPs seem fine with the requirements for the bottom and top tiers, "it's the above-baseline tier of 100Mbps/20Mbps that providers object to," Brodkin reports. "They either want the FCC to lower that tier's upload speeds or create an additional tier that would be faster than baseline but slower than above-baseline. Companies pushing lower standards are trying to ensure that ISPs offering much slower speeds can get a large slice of that federal funding without making significant network upgrades."
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/35sowPX Giant telecoms fighting requirements to provide higher broadband speeds under new rural subsidy program - Entrepreneur Generations
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