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Shicks4 said:

I think the basic problem overall with internet access and cost in the United States is greed or at least the desire to make a significant chunk of money off of consumers.

It is true that in countries such as Iraq comparing satellite internet with available satellite internet available in the United States it is cheaper, faster and no data limit in Iraq but severely capped and slower in the US. This is in part because there are more people in the is that want fast internet with no data cap, but many other countries have not only faster internet but better overall distribution.

In the US nearly everything prefers a network connection, and we use a lot of online resources for quicker more convenient lifestyles. We also have more money then most of these other countries, and businesses want to make a profit and shareholders want returns on investment. The sad ugly truth is in the United States we are somewhat a victim of our own success.

It also appears we are moving past existing infrastructure quite rapidly, and constantly developing newer protocols that require a new infrastructure so older infrastructure development stagnates or is abandoned all together. I never understood why it's taken so long to deploy fiber, it's been around for a very long time. Southwestern Bell in partnership with Ericsson deployed fiber between most towns in the mid 90's but fiber stopped at the telco offices converted to travel out on twisted pair. There are places that are just now getting fiber to the home. Ironically it appears in my area smaller towns are first then climbing up to larger towns in phases. My town received fiber to home 3 years ago however the town 8 miles south is just now getting fiber to home and it's close to twice as big. I grant you larger cities not only have more options but probably were first to receive most offerings of fast internet but there is a large discrepancy in how long fiber has taken to reach mid sized cities.

I probably will never understand the politics behind most things and I probably don't want to. But when I know some farmer in a shack in the Middle East has had better internet then I had for years in arguably the most advanced and industrialized nation in the world there's a problem that likely could have been solved had the major carriers not had their eyes focused on low hanging fruit.

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comfortably_numb said:

Living in a rural area is a choice. Internet access is not (yet) considered a necessity like water and power. As we say in my town population 962, "It's the price you pay to live in paradise." If gigabit internet was all that important to me, I'd move up to the city. I choose not to, so I deal with the consequences.

Companies are in business to make money; there isn't as much profit in a town of 962 vs. a town of 2.1 million.

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Radioguy41 said:

So they want to force this massive disruption and expenditure for a technology (5G) that has yet to be proven to work in the real world? I'm sorry but it's time to tell these people to make their ideas work within existing allocations. Enough is enough. Gee, fiber never gets accidentally ripped up, does it?

If the FCC wants to do something actually worthwhile to benefit consumers then they should get off their fat duffs and mandate universal broadband. The US ranks 18th in the world, 18th, in broadband access. As of 2016 the FCC claimed 95.7 % of households have access to broadband and the avg speed is 109Mbps. What world do these yokles live in? However, their own physical report released in 2016 states avg download speed is 55.7Mbps and ranks 10th in the world for speed. Hmmm, didn't they just say it was 109Mbps? Perhaps FCC employees should speak to one another and coordinate their numbers. All this points out that unlike unproven pie in the sky 5G, their number 1 priority should be universal broadband access, since this economy is now Internet driven, and 5G isn't the answer. Where broadband access doesn't exist today it won't exist when, and if, 5G rolls out either. I don't believe for one minute that any company, given the limited range of 5G is going to expend all the monies necessary to deploy it universally. So, SD, ND, and all you guys in the boonies, don't hold your breath.

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stecle said:

Is this 5G C-band proposal going to be implemented in Canada?

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