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monthly fee charged to help AT&T recover its required contribution to the Federal Universal Service Fund. (Fund). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created the Fund in 1997 to help ensure first-class, affordable telecommunications service for all consumers across the country, especially residents in high cost rural communities and low-income customers.

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doubledog said:

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Remember when the government was allowed to "fee" the average phone customers to pay for "rural" phone lines?

FYI you are still paying that "fee"

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monthly fee charged to help AT&T recover its required contribution to the Federal Universal Service Fund. (Fund). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created the Fund in 1997 to help ensure first-class, affordable telecommunications service for all consumers across the country, especially residents in high cost rural communities and low-income customers.

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https://www.att.com/legal/terms.otherWirelessFeeSchedule.html

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woodiewood said:

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BrazosWifi said:

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Ok. I just saw this.

Although the media just picked up on this, it has been in the works for quite some time.

Back in May of 2022, the Feds announced funding based on each state's population and their "unserved" areas.
Some states have lots of unserved areas, others have few. Texas is in the middle. We have lots of unserved "area" due to West Texas but most of our population centers and adjacent areas are covered pretty well.

This program's rollout is a SLOOOOOW process and the NTIA wants fiber to everyone, even though that is not feasible in the near term.

Fiber construction is expensive and where populations get thin, the cost-benefit-analysis is very poor.
Many states are prioritizing fiber but allowing rural areas to be serviced by wireless.

We're not eligible in much of the Brazos Valley because of the quality our our (Brazos WiFi) service was above the 25/3 minimums in much of the area. Where we didn't service, other companies also had good services.

So, by doing a good job, I excluded our area from funding for fiber networks..... DOH!! This is ******ed but we are working with the government and you know how that goes.

Enter Starlink: In 2022, nobody believed that Starlink would work as good as the claims. So, the government has now set things in motion and they can't really change. Unfortunately for Starlink, that rules them out.

Truthfully, Starlink is an amazing technology but it does require CONSTANT rocket launches to keep it working. Satellites fail and have to be replaced. The low earth orbit also decays and drags them back into the atmosphere eventually.

My desire is for the Government to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on projects that the free market is handling on it's own but without a MASSIVE change in how things work, the government is going to continue to fund idiotic projects such as this one.

Oh, by the way, this whole thing is funded by that every rising tax on your telephone bill. Currently 34.4%.

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I suspect it would be much less expwnsive to just assist in the payments of subscriptions to Starlink (or any other private service available) for those in rural areas who cannot afford it and be done with it. You can help a lot of people with much less than 5+ BILLION dollars and probably millions annuall of maintenace costs going forward with other methods.

Sort of like Brazos Transit. Give those in need vouchers to use to call a taxi or Uber a couple of times a week. I bet that would be a lot less expensive than the labor costs, vehicle costs, and maintenance costs of Brazos Transit now.

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AgProgrammer said:

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Starlink really has lived up to the hype, honestly. Is it fiber? No. But it runs and feels just like it.

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