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Hey America! Your internet is going to be so much better this January

Amplex

I don't think the authors reasoning is accurate. It is not in the interest of either the FCC or many of the providers to artificially inflate the speeds available to consumers. If anything the incentives are exactly the opposite - to continually increase the definition of broadband. Why is this? Because the FCC is required to report annually on whether advanced telecommunications capability “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion,” and to take “immediate action” if it is not. This is a open ended grant for the FCC to justify anything it wants simply by increasing the broadband speed definition. Along with this is the rural broadband crisis and the continual demands from the charity cases by the name of Centurylink, Frontier and others that they need subsidies to in order to deliver broadband. By increasing the definition of broadband the FCC can once again justify giving away even more money to 'solve' the crisis. Never mind that that just last year the FCC was patting itself on the back over giving away 11 Billion dollars over the next 6 years with a requirement to deliver 10Mb/1Mb at the end of the 6 year period. Bottom line is there is no incentive for the FCC to find that Americans are being served with advanced telecommunications capability any time soon. No government agency EVER decides it's done it's job and it's time to go away.

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