ISPs getting grants must offer “low-cost” plan, but they get to pick the price.

The Trump administration is telling states they will be shut out of a $42 billion broadband deployment fund if they set the rates that Internet service providers receiving subsidies are allowed to charge people with low incomes.

The latest version of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) FAQ on the grant program, released today, is a challenge to states considering laws that would force Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people who meet income eligibility guidelines. One state already has such a law: New York requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in the state to offer $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds.

    • blitzen@lemmy.ca
      3·
      8 months ago

      Well, states are still free to do as they wish if they are okay not receiving money from this fund.

      Lots of stupid going on with this, but I wouldn’t consider it a violation of the tenth amendment.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        18·
        8 months ago

        Don’t pretend for even a second that this could be applied to anything Republicans like. They’d scream “state’s rights!” and block it.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        That’s not the argument Republicans make. They say using federal funding to influence state decisions is violating the rights of the state to make decisions for itself. This isn’t a legal argument, but an ethical one. They aren’t claiming actual constitutional violations, rather a violation of the spirit of state independence.

        I agree with a lot of this opinion, if they were making it in good faith. However, they obviously are not, as usual. They want states to be free to make decisions about not providing education to children, but they should be forced to not allow people to choose to have abortions, for example. If they were consistent it wouldn’t create so many issues, but they just want to enforce their views on others.

  • aramis87@fedia.io
    75·
    8 months ago

    We’ve already paid for nationwide broadband, and the corpos took the money, did a fraction of the work, and called it done. I don’t see what this latest infusion of cash-to-corpos is going to do for the average Joe.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      41·
      8 months ago

      The USA isn’t run by or for the average Joe. Average Joes are human resources to be mined, plundered, exploited and discarded as their rulers see fit.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      8 months ago

      We didn’t just pay for it, we also gave up the public TV spectrum in order to make it happen. That’s why your old-school TV antennas won’t work anymore.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        Technically the antennas work, it’s the old tuners that don’t. Plug rabbit ears into a smart TV you’ll get whatever stations are left now.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      don’t see what this latest infusion of cash-to-corpos is going to do for the average Joe.

      Who gives a fuck what the average Joe wants? If they aren’t in the donor class, fuck 'em.

  • FrostbittenDuck@lemmy.zip
    52·
    8 months ago

    This will most likely hurt rural voters, who overwhelmingly supported Donny Dipshit, the most, given the expense of expanding Internet availability to rural communities.

    It really is hard to overstate how badly the average Republican voter shot himself in the vote. Not that they care.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
      5·
      8 months ago

      There’s a surprising amount of rural electric co-ops that have pivoted to installing fiber on their own poles and becoming their own ISP. It’s honestly impressive, they have done more to tell the major ISPs to fuck right off than any city ever has.

      I was trying to find a clear list or map, but this site suggests 250 coops are doing this. Since the coops usually encompass a single county, you can sorta read that as 250 rural counties across America have already told at&t and comcast to kiss their yeehaw ass

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        The electric company provides fiber internet where I live. It’s much cheaper than previous internet providers. Biggest complaint is that there isn’t much technical info available on their website.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    39·
    8 months ago

    Lmfao or what

    Also, this is transparently an effort to push people towards Starlink. They are trying to holistically control the flow of information to as great a proportion of the population that they can.

  • mazzilius_marsti@lemmy.world
    29·
    8 months ago

    Pay higher so we can be tracked like in FL, where you have to show ID to watch porn?

    What a fucking joke

    BTW, whats the typical price for internet access these days in the US? Havent been there since 2024.

    • doughless@lemmy.world
      14·
      8 months ago

      I pay $140/mo for ~300 down / 100 up. I found another provider with similar bandwidth for $50/mo, but I self-host a couple things, and they wouldn’t assign me an IPv6 prefix or allow port forwarding. Also, my son complained because his games had 70 ms ping on the less expensive provider.

      Edit: I’m in a big city, I think it’s even worse in rural areas.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
        17·
        8 months ago

        Wow. I live in Denmark and I pay 150 dollars every 4 months for 1Gb up and down.

        You guys are getting scammed in the US.

      • bruce965@lemmy.ml
        6·
        7 months ago

        If port-forwarding is an issue, you can always use a free VPN to reach your self-hosted services. Or if you want to make them public, you can set up yourself a relay on AWS LightSail for less than 5$/month. Or if you want to save as much as possible you can use TailScale or CloudFlare’s Zero Trust network to self-host for free using their server as a relay.

        • Spice Hoarder@lemmy.zip
          4·
          8 months ago

          I’ve been port forwarding for decades at this point. I just recently found out about tunneling your traffic through relays like that. Pretty neat stuff. Glad I can finally ditch my isp and switch to another without worrying about their port forwarding policies

      • DannyMac@sh.itjust.worksFrançais
        3·
        8 months ago

        $90/mo for 1Gbps up and down for me in a 30k town for me. I also have two fiber providers, one cable, and wireless as options. I realize I’m more of the exception than the rule. When I first moved here, 50Mbps cable was my only option.

        • doughless@lemmy.world
          4·
          8 months ago

          I already have my own router, but they do NAT from the modem with no way to switch to bridge mode.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            8 months ago

            Ah, fucking assholes.

            I had to call my ISP because I specifically requested a modem only, no router, and they gave me one of their stupid locked-down combo units.

            If you bitch enough, they will relent.

            • doughless@lemmy.world
              2·
              8 months ago

              This was T-Mobile 5G internet, and they only had one modem available. I never bothered looking for my own 5G modem (assuming T-Mobile would even allow BYOD), because my son was already complaining about his ping. And even then, they would still only assign a single IPv6 instead of the full /64 prefix I get with my current provider.

    • Zier@fedia.io
      19·
      8 months ago

      The US education system has created idiots. The religious cult has done everything they can to destroy actual education.

      • MNByChoice@midwest.social
        7·
        8 months ago

        That is unfair. US Public schools are often okay. US Private schools are sometimes okay. US Home schools… I heard one kid was okay.

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
      9·
      8 months ago

      The more overworked people are the more willing they are to take intellectual shortcuts and not think independently. One of those shortcuts is to mistake a contrarian opinion as independent thought. Throw in a contrarian leader into an economy where people are overworked and this is the result.

      • Oxysis/OxyEnglish
        7·
        8 months ago

        Hey! There are dozens of us who don’t like it! Dozens!

  • Australis13@fedia.io
    20·
    8 months ago

    They’re probably trying to stop low-income people from having some means of learning about the world (at least until the Trump Administration manages to control their part of the Internet like China does) and reducing their ability to organise en masse.

    • bradinutah@thelemmy.club
      5·
      8 months ago

      “They might learn more about Jeffery Epstein and the people who spent time with him. Can’t have that!”

  • thedruid@lemmy.world
    19·
    8 months ago

    What the cuck authority does he have to do that? None.

    An and Trump is in the Epstein files

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
      9·
      8 months ago

      Turns out if the worst that can happen is a judge saying “Hey don’t do that” a few weeks later, you have unlimited authority.

  • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
    15·
    8 months ago

    Having lived in the mid level of an NYC apt block: offer your neighbors upstairs and downstairs their own wifi network off your ddwrt/openwrt router, split the fast internet 3 ways and still pay less than any “low price” plan.

    Doesn’t take much to setup, and just ask them to Venmo or whatever. You’re not a landlord, you’re taking from the shit-ass ISPs and spreading the wealth while all of you profit equally.