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Ask Engadget: How can I improve my rural internet?
In the latest installment of Ask Engadget, we tackle the topic of rural broadband.
Microsoft plans to bring broadband to 9 million more Americans
Microsoft is teaming up with ISP Nextlink in its latest effort to expand broadband access. They aim to bring high-speed internet to more than 9 million people in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. That total includes around a million folks in underserved rural areas.
FCC approves another $137 million to expand rural broadband access
The Federal Communications Commission has approved another $121 million in funding to bring broadband access to rural homes and businesses. It's the fourth round of support following last year's Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction. The funding, which will be doled out over the next ten years, will help expand high-speed internet access to 36,579 homes and businesses across 16 states.
Elizabeth Warren reveals $85 billion rural broadband plan
Millions of Americans don't have access to high-speed internet connections and despite efforts to bolster rural broadband, there's still a lot of work to be done. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has the issue in mind, and she revealed a proposal to narrow the digital divide.
FCC announces 5G airwave auction and $20 billion rural broadband fund
The FCC has announced a spectrum auction and a $20.4 billion rural broadband fund to bolster connectivity across the US. The auction is scheduled to start December 10th, and it will be the largest slice of airwaves the FCC has auctioned for commercial use at one time, with 3,400 megahertz in three different spectrum bands up for grabs. Providers have been urging the FCC to open mid-band airwaves that can project signals over greater distances, which should bolster connectivity in rural areas.
FCC allocates $67 million to boost rural broadband adoption
The FCC is acting on its promise to pour more money into rural broadband. The regulator has formally offered an additional $67 million to 207 rural carriers through the Connect America Fund on the condition they "significantly expand" access to service with at least 25Mbps downloads and 3Mbps in uploads. If you ask the FCC, this could speed up internet access for as many as 110,000 households across 43 states.
Microsoft will help expand rural broadband access in Vermont
Microsoft is continuing to help more people in rural areas gain broadband access through its Airband Initiative. It's teaming up with Vermont to expand connectivity there, while offering students access to digital skills and computer science programs.
After Math: Where are the adults
It's been quite the week of tantrums by the man-babies who run some of the largest companies in the tech industry. While Elon Musk cried and stamped his feet through what should have been a softball 60 Minutes interview, Twitter head Jack Dorsey spent much of his week encouraging everybody to visit sunny, genocidal Myanmar. And let's not even get started on what have become Mark Zuckerberg's weekly Facebook fiascos. Still, it's nice to see that at least some online institutions still have grownups behind the wheel.
FCC offers $67 million more per year for rural broadband programs
The Federal Communications Commission announced today additional funding to its Connect America Fund dedicated to expanding broadband internet service to rural communities. The agency will make available $67 million more per year than originally earmarked for the project. The funds could bring high-speed internet connections to more than 100,000 additional households and businesses, per the FCC.
Microsoft says the rural broadband divide is worse than you think
Politicians and regulators like to say they're increasing access to broadband in rural areas, but the reality might be far less rosy. Microsoft has conducted a study showing that far fewer Americans have broadband access than FCC data suggests. While the FCC is currently focused on availability and notes that 24.7 million people can't get fast internet service, Microsoft determined that 162.8 million people don't use broadband service, 19 million of them in rural areas. The gaps are sometimes glaring. In Washington's Ferry County, only 2 percent of people have broadband where the FCC claims it's available to the entire region.
Microsoft helps bring broadband internet to rural tribal lands
Microsoft announced today that it is partnering with Native Network to deliver broadband internet access to unserved rural communities in Washington and Montana. The effort will reach about 73,500 people living in and around the Flathead Reservation in Montana and the lands of Lummi Nation and Swinomish Tribe in Washington.
Microsoft will help expand rural broadband in Ohio
Tens of millions of Americans, especially in rural areas, still don't have access to broadband internet. As part of its five-year plan to help close that gap, Microsoft is partnering with telecoms company Agile Networks to roll out broadband access to 110,000 people in rural Ohio. The companies will also expand access in underserved areas over the next four years, and say that more than 900,000 people could benefit overall.
FCC gives remote health care a huge funding boost
Rural residents might soon have a better chance of seeing a doctor without venturing into the city. The FCC has raised the annual spending cap on the Rural Health Care Program by 43 percent to $571 million to tackle "funding shortages" driven by a spike in demand for remote medical services. To call this overdue would be an understatement -- the FCC noted that the previous cap ($400 million) had been established in 1997, when rural broadband was just a pipe dream. The boost reflects what that fund would be worth if it had accounted for inflation over the past 21 years.
FCC aims to block purchases from non-US firms posing ‘security threat’
The FCC announced a proposal today that aims to more fully shut out companies "that pose a national security threat to United States communications networks or the communications supply chain." If approved, an upcoming Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will seek to disallow the use of the FCC's Universal Service Fund -- which subsidizes those that bring broadband internet to rural regions of the US -- for purchasing equipment and services from certain companies based abroad. "The money in the Universal Service Fund comes from fees paid by the American people, and I believe that the FCC has the responsibility to ensure that this money is not spent on equipment or services that pose a threat to national security," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement today.
England turns to the church to help fix rural internet
Though our cities now teem with fiber optic cables and 4G signals, it's still common for rural areas to struggle with even basic connectivity. In the UK, a new pact between church and state could help local religious hubs become bastions of faster broadband. The National Church Institutions (NCIs) of the Church of England and the government will work together to promote the use of churches and other church-owned properties as sites for digital infrastructure, improving broadband, mobile and WiFi access for rural communities.
FCC chair proposes $500 million push for rural broadband
Bringing broadband internet access to rural areas has been an ongoing, long-term effort, but millions of Americans, including over a third of rural citizens according to 2016 reports, still don't have the option. Today FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed an order that would put $500 million in funding towards closing the broadband gap, institute new regulations aimed at preventing abuse of the Connect America Fund and promote broadband access in tribal lands.
Colorado voters really want city-run broadband service
Internet access and quality varies widely depending on where you live in the US. There's a huge rural broadband gap that the FCC, companies like Microsoft and the Trump administration have said they'd like to close in the coming years and as Cleveland's situation shows, service can be drastically different even within the same city. One solution that has been proposed as a fix for spotty or inadequate broadband service is city-run internet, and it's one that Colorado communities are continuing to back.
AT&T's rural wireless internet is now available in 18 states
If you've been waiting for AT&T's rural wireless internet to show up in your state, there's now a good chance you can sign up. The telecom has launched the service in nine more states, or twice as many as it had just a few months ago. And this includes some of the most populous states in the country -- California and Texas are included along with Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. AT&T says about 160,000 locations are covered (more than double what it could manage in June), and it's reportedly still on track to serve 400,000 locations before 2017 is over.
Verizon cutoffs mark an uncertain future for rural customers
Last week, some Verizon customers in rural areas received unexpected news. The carrier would be terminating their service as of October 17th because they were using a "significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network." These users were roaming because their "primary place of use" was outside the company's service area.
BT offers broadband to every rural home in the UK, for a price
The UK was confident when it unveiled plans to make broadband available to every home by 2020, but how's it going to get there? BT thinks it can help. The telecom giant has made an offer to spend up to £600 million (about $788 million) giving 1.4 million rural homes access to internet with speeds of at least 10Mbps. This would theoretically help the government meet its goal in one fell swoop, rather go through a slow existing process that requires residents to ask for access. It sounds tempting, especially since the current approach would leave some waiting for access when 2020 arrives, but it's not as clear cut a solution as it looks on the surface -- it could lead to higher internet bills.
