nanog mailing list archives
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
From: Marshall Eubanks <tme () americafree tv>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:11:39 -0400
On Aug 27, 2009, at 11:11 PM, Richard Bennett wrote:
The background issue is whether satellite-based systems at around 200 Kb/s and high latency can be defined as "broadband." Since everyone in America - including the Alaskans - has access to satellite services, defining that level of service as broadband makes the rest of the exercise academic: everyone is "served." There's no economic argument for government subsidies to multiple firms in a market, of course.
It seems to me that there has to be an element of what can be the hardest thing to obtain in Government, judgement.
If I lived on Attu Island in the Aleutians, I would probably consider a 200 Kb/s satellite link as broadband.
Where I live in Northern Virginia, I would not.If there isn't some form of judgement about what is suitable and possible in a given area, the results are not likely to be good.
Regards Marshall
It's more interesting considering that DirecTV is about to launch a new satellite with a couple orders of magnitude more capacity than the existing ones offer. I seem to recall their claiming that the service would then improved to some respectable number of megabits/ sec. Satellite ISPs locate their ground stations in IXP-friendly locations, so there aren't any worries about backhaul or fiber access costs.But to your actual question, "under-served" is of course quite subjective and cost is clearly part of it.RB Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote:As one of the workshops discussed, does the definition of "underserved" and"unserved" include the clause "for a reasonable price"?If the price is unreasonable, do you think its government money well-spent to subsidize bringing a competitor to a market that couldn't make it before?Or are there perhaps other ways to deal with that pricing issue? Frank -----Original Message-----From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-nanog () dirtside com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:46 PMTo: Fred Baker Cc: nanog () nanog org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband <snip> Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service sincemonopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar customsolutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin-- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Current thread:
- FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Luke Marrott (Aug 24)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Bill Stewart (Aug 25)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Fred Baker (Aug 25)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins (Aug 26)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Ted Fischer (Aug 26)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband William Herrin (Aug 26)
- RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Frank Bulk - iName.com (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Richard Bennett (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Marshall Eubanks (Aug 28)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins (Aug 26)
- RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Richard Bennett (Aug 26)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Robert Enger - NANOG (Aug 26)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Alexander Harrowell (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Leo Bicknell (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Marshall Eubanks (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Leo Bicknell (Aug 27)
- Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband JC Dill (Aug 27)