Comments on: Lack Of Broadband Internet Hurts Higher Education In Rural Areas

By: bBIG JOHN

bBIG JOHN — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 04:15:50 +0000

WELL ALL I CAN SAY IS TO GET INTERNET OVER SATELLITE FROM EREC.. I HAVE IT AND LIKE ALOT. LET ME SAY THIS I DON’T WORK FOR EREC, BUT I GET MY POWER, AND INTERNET SATELLITE FROM THEM! TRY IT YOU MAY LIKE IT………

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 15:08:22 +0000

AT&T years ago was for a long time charging customers for Caller ID and Call Waiting yet AT&T did not offer or provide that service in the areas.

Kinda seems Criminal to charge for services that a business is unable to provide.

By: CW

CW — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 04:38:39 +0000

Don’t get me started on AT&T ! I had a boost phone that worked in Century, Jay and Chumuckla. Then, AT&T purchased Boost. The first thing they did was take the tower down in Chumuckla. So I got a track phone-used all the towers-At&t got Track Phone. Now its worthless. Now they purchased Dish Network. First thing that happened- rates went up. They promised us in the 60’s video telephone. Never delivered anything. If I had some at&t stock I would sell it. If we had high speed internet- I could get rid of AT&T for good.

By: molinoanon

molinoanon — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 21:08:09 +0000

I have dealt with Frontier for years, bitter sweet relationship we have. Until 2005 I was still on dial up and until 4ish years ago on their DSL getting 900kbps down and 187kbps up. Now I have their fastest speed without going to bonded service which would make my bill $100 a month for 24mbps down and 1.5mbps up. My friends in 3rd world countries have better speeds and cheaper!!! It is sad when 4g is faster than a hard line connection. I want to teach through world Bible school and can’t because my upload stream quality is garbage, I need at least 4-6mbps up for 720p 60 frames per second which is streaming standards. I have a feeling I will NEVER see those speeds and Brighthouse will not run 6mi up the road to connect a large rural community. Hughes net is no good either… We have to suffer because we have no options and Frontier for the most part has no competition so we must pay outrageous prices for service.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 20:14:48 +0000

AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner is in the advanced stages of approval, Which many critics are right in saying will further hurt competition in this country. Something ole Donny said he would stop but backed tracked anyways, such is corruption.

By: Smith

Smith — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 20:10:21 +0000

FWIW, if you have broadband,cell phone,landline,DSL…..you have been paying a “Fee” each month you pay your bill, just for this..Rural access. It goes to the Fed already. A special FCC program set up called , Connect America (Version 1 and 2) were/are Federal subsidies to the Communication providers, ATT,Verizon,Frontier and Brighthouse,etc.ect These were giveaways to these companies to invest in infrastructure providing access to rural areas already. Been going on for years folks. Funny how it operates though. Let’s take frontier and bright house, competing broadband companies in the same area, or zone. Let’s say Brighthouse recieves money from the Connect America fund to enhance access to that Zone. Frontier does not. Now all Brighthouse has to do is claim one household in the zone (Footprint) to to qualify for the fund. After that one houshold though, Brighthouse has fulfilled their obligation to the FCC. So, now the only provider is Frontier. Very expensive, very slow service. 40 dollars a month for what Frontier says is up to 6mb. In reality, 1.5 to 2 mb is all you get. Well that and the excuses about being too far away to get any better speed (Fiber access is about 300 ft away, but to expensive to connect to, so they say) In essence its a monopoly with both companies making money, spending not too much on infrastructure in the rural area because it isn’t cost effective to their bottom line. Satellite internet isn’t much better, with caps on data usage, extremely expensive and weather intermittent service (Thunderstorms).

https://www.fcc.gov/connect-america-fund-phase-ii-auction

There are map overlays that allow you to see where the “Fund” goes.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 20:05:10 +0000

OMG!!!!!!!I cant tell you how many times that I complained to Frontier about this when one of my sons was schooling online classes from UWF.. I live in Davisville and we dont have the luxury of so called high speed internet. They say it is but our ping is always below 1 gig and thats on a good day. We dont have fiber optic down ere in te woods, we have been stuck in the dinasour age for over ten years now. We hear all the time that they are going to upgrade our system, but still havent seen it. Forget about holding your breath over that one cause you will die first waiting..LOL….Oh the struggles my son had trying to do testing from UWF online especially wen its either timed or we lost internet which is quite often.

By: Local to McDavid

Local to McDavid — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 19:48:39 +0000

Good! I being a student, and dealing with terrible 6mbps Internet could say the whole county needs better internet! I have a hard time with my internet all the time so when it comes to multiple things or video research… It’s a pain… @Frontier is one main reason, in this day in age there is FIber Optics… Here certain parts of Florida are struggling with DSL at least bump the speeds…

By: Bob's Brother

Bob's Brother — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 16:44:30 +0000

This is a flimsy excuse to spend taxpayer dollars so that someone gets something without charge. It’s more government. We need less of that, not more.

By: 10Mb

10Mb — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 16:40:36 +0000

When I was a kid, we tied to cups together with a string and talked to each other. Later, the 300 baud modem came along. Now, you have DSL and HughesNet satellite internet service if you’re outside the cable internet service area.