Republicans don’t want the government to interfere with things…until they use the government to interfere with things. Rural America is notorious for its lack of broadband, and Ajit Pai couldn’t care less.
The Federal Communications Commission today finalized an order that will prevent city and town governments from charging wireless carriers about $2 billion dollars’ worth of fees related to deployment of wireless equipment such as small cells.
The $2 billion savings is less than 1 percent of the estimated $275 billion that carriers will have to spend to deploy 5G small cells throughout the US. That level of savings won’t spur extra deployment “because the hard economics of rural deployment do not change with this decision,” Rosenworcel said.
Check It Out: Ajit Pai Couldn’t Care Less About Rural America
Neither do the big telecom companies. Makes me wonder why rural communities are not banding together to create their own infrastructure. I live in a rural community with its own municipal telecom. There are advantages and disadvantages to this, but at least they respond to the community.
I have heard of a couple of local infrastructure projects like that, but telecoms actively lobby to prevent them, and I think Pai also wants to prevent that.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Donald Trump, Andrew Wheeler, Ryan Zinke, and Ajit Pai are the four horsemen of the apocalypse …
Old UNIX Guy