FCC Chairman Plans to Expand Life Line Program to Internet

[Pawnee County]

Yep!!! Things change all the time and the original wire hung on a pole to send a signal was the telegraph.  The first transcontinental telegraph was completed October 24th 1861 by Samuel Morse.  There is buried fiber optic cable everywhere except for most real rural areas which like Morse have wires hanging on a pole.

That is why I feel wireless will soon be the only standard for phone or internet.  Towers can be put up in rural areas service not only rural customers, but travellers, and campers as well.

Analog TV has ended even OTA so soon will Analog Phones, they are going the way of Sam's Telegraph.

[Pawnee County]

Ditto Thomas if I could get a good signal from a USB wireless card I  would go there in a hurry.  I did good with a Cricket Card for a while but it was on a partner tower and I kept getting throttled during peak times.  I also had a ATT card and it would only get an EDGE 264k connection at best.  The data caps on those was far worse than HughesNet too 4gig per month but had free nights and weekends which came in handy.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Thomas, the technology already exists for 100Mbit+ on DSL lines, heck there are colleges that are playing with 1Gbit DSL methods in labs right now...  The issue comes down to companies like AT&T wanting to abandon wired networks and go wireless, keeping more of the precious tax money the government gives them to operate, while imposing serious restrictions on network usage.  VDSL2 offers 25Mbps, while Vectoring DSL offers ~100Mbps

[Pawnee County]

I still like my land line it works for FAX and to talk to folks that is all I need it for.  When I go somewhere I take the cell for emergencies or in case I have a need to call for some reason.  Hughes has plenty enough speed for me and does all I need it to.  I am not a big user just barley use the 5 gig I got like this month I will have a gig left over.  I'll just watch a few movies between now and the 3rd to eat some of it up but at 480p it takes a while.

[Ed3]

We don't  have a land line now, we have Verizon it works for us.

[kathynaylor]

After living in a metropolitan area most of my life, i now live in a rural area and work at a small college. Our educators see the results of expensive and limited internet access every day. The kids in these rural areas are falling more and more behind their peers in the cities. Internet access is an absolute necessity for young people in this day and age. Do we really want to have an underclass in our country? I guess some do. How can this not be political?

[Liz]

Just to add an update to the Lifeline matter:

Hughes is not currently participating in the Lifeline Program and does not provide Lifeline Services.