| Parts of rural America have broadband internet | | | | third parties at wholesale prices. I am not sure |
| access and I guess you could say it is available to | | | | what wholesale prices means but to a company |
| everyone if you consider the satelite services | | | | like Verizon it means another chance to gouge |
| which cover the entire country which are | | | | anyone who wants put up the amount they will |
| ridiculously expensive for the initial setup and | | | | arbitrarily come up with. |
| monthly service. There also is a patchwork of | | | | I think if some company is going to rent a piece |
| local providers offering wireless internet services | | | | of this spectrum in their area it should be cheap, |
| off of water towers and grain elevators and | | | | cheap to the point it is a negligible expense in the |
| buildings. These services are limited in the amount | | | | operation of an ISP\'s costs to provide internet |
| of bandwidth they can offer, not because the | | | | access. The telcos like to promote themselves as |
| wireless gear is not capable of high speeds, but | | | | service providers. If one of them gets this |
| because the actual t1s or t3s to provide the | | | | spectrum let them do a real service to this |
| backhaul to the internet are so expensive. | | | | country and provide cheap access to everyone |
| The nice thing about this particular spectrum is it | | | | who is willing to do something valuable with the |
| will go through trees, walls, and just about | | | | spectrum in their area. |
| anything for a long distance from a central | | | | Each election cycle politicians have spouted crap |
| broadcast point. So the cost of deployment is | | | | about bringing broadband access to rural areas. |
| reduced because one central broadcast station will | | | | First of all, I do not think they really know |
| cover a large area and the cost of setting it up | | | | anything about the business and the technology. |
| and providing internet access is spread over more | | | | Secondly, they have ignored the large group of |
| customers. This is all contingent upon local | | | | small companies that have already been providing |
| providers being able to gain access to the | | | | broadband access in rural areas. Finally, they have |
| spectrum in their area. | | | | been all to happy to take money from telcos that |
| Google started a discussion about this spectrum | | | | maintain a stranglehold on access out to the |
| and tried to influence the FCC to require the | | | | internet by charging too much for broadband |
| purchaser of the spectrum to provide access to | | | | circuits to carry rural traffic to the internet. |