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White House Hires Broadband Expert (axios.com) 100

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Lisa Hone, a longtime Federal Communications Commission attorney with deep expertise in broadband policy, has joined the National Economic Council team to steer the Biden administration's broadband expansion efforts. From a report: Expanding broadband internet service to all Americans is a top priority for the Biden White House. Hone's primary focus is ensuring that money Congress allocated through the American Rescue Plan Act is spent appropriately. The administration is trying to include broadband in infrastructure legislation, as the pandemic underscored the importance of reliable and affordable broadband connections to Americans' ability to participate in remote school, work, tele-health and e-commerce. Hone, who officially started her job as as senior adviser for broadband and technology policy last week, is now the White House's point person on broadband deployment efforts happening across the government.
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White House Hires Broadband Expert More

White House Hires Broadband Expert

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  • First task (Score:4, Insightful)

    by plate_o_shrimp ( 948271 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @01:04PM (#61462936)
    First task: draft a reasonable definition of "broadband" -- i.e. one that reflects currently reality, not reality in 2003.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )

      I would think the important part of it would be factoring in progress speed. If we were to stick by say 2021 standards say over 50mbs, by 2025 that 50mbs speed may be too slow to be useful.

      We also shouldn't try to offer premium speeds as well (say 2021 over 100mbs speed) at the Tax Payers expense as well.

      We need speeds where the people are able to productive at work and not put into a severe disadvantage if they are on Government Speed, however government funded broadband shouldn't also be ready for someo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Joviex ( 976416 )

        We need speeds where the people are able to productive at work and not put into a severe disadvantage if they are on Government Speed, however government funded broadband shouldn't also be ready for someone to watch multiple streaming services at the same time.

        These statements are in conflict. I need 2 streams to be open and a third window to do the code work I do, along with any popups. The streams are for running things I watch, endlessly, for my job. Just because you dislike someone's workflow, that is zero to do with the usefulness or level of service required.

        • We need speeds where the people are able to productive at work and not put into a severe disadvantage if they are on Government Speed, however government funded broadband shouldn't also be ready for someone to watch multiple streaming services at the same time.

          These statements are in conflict. I need 2 streams to be open and a third window to do the code work I do, along with any popups. The streams are for running things I watch, endlessly, for my job. Just because you dislike someone's workflow, that is zero to do with the usefulness or level of service required.

          You don't set standards for all edge cases. There doesn't need to be a new zoning law that all houses must be wired for Cat6 because some of us run labs at home.

          • You don't set standards for all edge cases. There doesn't need to be a new zoning law that all houses must be wired for Cat6 because some of us run labs at home.

            So then widen your "standards". Being obtuse about it, isnt helping. You blame government for a problem you accept.

            • No. The goal is to make sure that 100% of people have access to acceptable speeds for 95% (or whatever number is appropriate) of use cases. Maybe that covers your needs or maybe it doesn't. Probably depends more on who else is in the household and what they need to do.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Joviex ( 976416 )
                And where did I say that widening your standards, lowers the reach?

                You should run for gov. You sound exactly like every bureaucrat making excuses for things that don't exist as choices in the first place.

                You are making a fake choice, ahead of time, because of previous choices, made ahead of time.

                Keep toading that gov line.
                • I have no idea what you are talking about. The only thing I said is that if the government is going to guarantee speeds, it should not be designed around what sound like edge cases or else you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

                • How so? You are arguing that if we do something, in order for it to be a success, it needs to cover 100% of all uses.

                  Chispito is correct. You're job is not the one to set the standards on and it's clear that your job pays enough for you to pay for your own internet.

        • But are the 'streams' you're watching 'endlessly' HiDef video like 1080p (or higher), or are they just remote desktops? Big difference bandwidth-wise.
          Regardless, you're sounding like you're an outlier, the vast majority of people won't need to be doing anything like what you're doing, don't you think?

        • For a job that advanced.
          1. Are you really getting paid at the low end of the income scale where you will need government broadband.
          2. Do these streams really require 4k? or that much data to be actionable? Probably not.
          3. Can you do your job effectively with less? Probably.

          Hey if you want to work like that, then you can get the premium speeds, either at your cost, or at the company you work for cost. Normally we really just need 1 stream for the current video chat, if you need more, then expect it to be s

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by cb88 ( 1410145 )
        "We also shouldn't try to offer premium speeds as well."

        Broken logic... if you are going to spend govermnet money for something you should maximize the long term value on what is spent... that means installing fiber and mandating symmetric upload/download at > 1GBit.... its acutally difficult to go out and buy a router that doesn't have gigabit ports at this point *that* is the baseline. Doing so would also stimulate progress in the higher end of the spectrum with the "premium" point moving to 10GBe+ wit

      • I wouldn't say "too slow" in the fiture, the problem is that websites constantly inflate, inflate, and inflate by having extreme-res images, autoplaying videos on 1080p60 quality, excessive ads, and loading megabytes upon megabytes of scripts and other shit. It's deliberate by way of sheer malice.

    • How about ditching the term altogether and acknowledging that the bandwidth necessary for a decent standard of 'digital living' is going to constantly go up and depends on the number of people in the household?

      Forget setting a new static target and develop a formula that is run every year or two.
    • I don't disagree with you on your first point.
      But I also think that an important first step should be to pull back the curtain on how ISPs in this country operate and the reality of their costs, because it seems to me that they've been price-gouging everyone for at least a couple decades now. They've been treating Internet access as a luxury, and perhaps 20 to 25 years ago it was, but today it clearly isn't. You certainly can conduct your life without any sort of Internet access or even without a smartphon

    • I'm glad they finally fired the previous Dial-Up Expert they had until now! Finally we can enter the 21st century!

    • First task: draft a reasonable definition of "broadband" -- i.e. one that reflects currently reality, not reality in 2003.

      First task: Create a Federal mandate that states that every ISP CEO has to eat their own dog food and use the lowest broadband offering by their company.

      Shit'll actually get fixed then.

    • Along with a definition of "broadband" should be a definition of "infrastructure capable of delivering broadband for the next 10 years." If you rule out POTS or a slower than mm wave wireless connection, that will help accurately gauge the scope of what's necessary.

  • Title should be... (Score:3)

    by Some Guy ( 21271 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @01:17PM (#61462974)
    "White House Hires Broadband Policy Expert"

    She's a lawyer.

    • "White House Hires Broadband Policy Expert"

      She's a lawyer.

      Let's be realistic here; one only has to know how to make a binary decision when it comes to defining broadband.

      Either your speed is complete shit by 21st Century standards, or it is not.

      Easiest way to decide that is to make the lawyer use the slowest offering for a month. Easiest way to effect change with the ISP is to make the CEO do the same.

    • They chose just a lobbyist.
      Elon Musk would be an Expert.

  • the friend of my enemy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sneftel ( 15416 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @01:30PM (#61463024)

    I guess the billion dollar question is, is she a competent technocrat who'll hold telecoms' feet to the fire and get actually meaningful work done, or is she just another aspect of their ongoing regulatory capture of the FCC?

    "Lisa will be a tremendous asset to the White House on broadband policy," said Patrick Halley, general counsel and SVP of policy and advocacy for U.S. Telecom, the trade group representing broadband providers including Verizon and AT&T. "She knows the substance and the process as well as anyone and is well respected by all."

    Well, shit.

    • Re:the friend of my enemy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @01:44PM (#61463076)

      While true and probably correct many thought the same of Tom Wheeler when he was put in charge of the FCC after being in charge of both the NCTA and CTIA orgs and he ended up being more on the side of consumer rights than we could have expected and actually turned around his previous opinion on Net Neutrality once in office.

      Time will tell of course

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sneftel ( 15416 )

        It's a fair point, and especially germane given Hone's association with Wheeler. One could theorize that Wheeler didn't so much change his opinion, as notice who was signing his paychecks and toe the administration's line, but I suppose it comes to much the same thing.

      • Woah there. Lets not pretend we've had anything resembling Net neutrality at this point. What you are referring to are sets of policies with headlines about net neutrality that had intentional loopholes large enough to sail and oil tanker through.

        This isn't much different than the legislation that came after Snowden revealed our Constitutional government and President were engaging in treason and this was followed by a bill proposing to fix the unconstitutional wiretapping! It did so by passing an unconstit

      • Just wanted to chime in to say that I'm on the record here at Slashdot of thinking Wheeler would be in the pocket of the telecom industry, then being shocked and pleasantly surprised when he ended up actually being a competent regulator. I was very happy to be wrong about him. Here's hoping we're wrong here as well.

  • ...in charge of pork delivery. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now that Starlink is working, the rural USA no longer has a broadband access problem. Experts like this only have one job: figure out a way to shovel taxpayer money to lovely corporations like Comcast in exchange for empty promises to "expand coverage." I'd feel much better about our politicians if I heard more news about how they fired obsolete bureaucrats with no intention of replacing them.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bored ( 40072 )

        Yah, its beginning to irritate me two. I live within the city limits in one of the largest couple dozen cities in the USA. I have a single provider, which charges > $120 a month for 400/35 service and only upgraded from 20/1 a few years back when it looked like google fiber was going to steamroll them. If I lived in the part of town with google fibre, I would have the choice of three different providers, two of which offer symetric gig, and one which offers "gig" service with cable modems for less than $

      • In the US only the slightest majority of the population live in a handful cities (and I group their entire densely populated suburbs and other spaces not sparse enough to shoot a rifle in yet as part of those cities).

        Their lives don't represent most of the country.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawguy ( 1600213 )

      Now that Starlink is working, the rural USA no longer has a broadband access problem. Experts like this only have one job: figure out a way to shovel taxpayer money to lovely corporations like Comcast in exchange for empty promises to "expand coverage." I'd feel much better about our politicians if I heard more news about how they fired obsolete bureaucrats with no intention of replacing them.

      Starlink is not yet "working", at least not at scale, so it remains to be seen how well it can address the rural broadband access problem.

    • There is no real competition for starlink. That is still a problem.

  • why is this a high priority. (Score:3)

    by Dusanyu ( 675778 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @01:32PM (#61463038)
    One would think making sure every US citizen had access to a safe place to sleep would be a higher priority. Broadband is great but not dying in the cold or from heat stroke is better

    • False dichotomy.

      It is reasonable for the United States to both update the broadband policy, and also develop policies to address homelessness. One does not preclude the other.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
        The homelessness issue needs to be on the floor ASAP we can live without internet we have for thousands of years it's a luxury. Basic needs should be higher priority Only so much money to go around, so you have to prioritize you're spending and borrowing money just defers a bigger problem to the next generations and "money printer go brrrt" as the kids like to put it just causes inflation issues.

        • I repeat: this is a false dichotomy.
          We can do both.

          • I repeat: this is a false dichotomy. We can do both.

            Indeed. And if the money is that tight, a just reallocate a few billion here or there from the military budget. We could shift $6B from our military budget to something else and still be spending as much on our military as China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined.

        • Universal utility service promotes being able to suitably house everyone, it increases livability of rural communities and encourages techbros to live out in the boonies where housing is cheap, boosting the local economy. Access to internet services also helps people on marginal incomes reach up into parts of the economy that are otherwise closed to them. Creating tenements out in the woods with no broadband, power, or sewer because a roof over their head is the top priority is too simplistic.
        • Have you ever spoken to homeless people?
          While it's true that many of them did not choose to be homeless and desperately want to break out of the Catch-22 situation that is homelessness (can't get a place to live because you don't have a job, can't get a job because you don't have anywhere to live), not all homeless people are in that situation, believe it or not some of them choose to be homeless for one reason or another. Not even saying these people are particularly the classical definition of 'sane', bu

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            Well its both ways. charity demands we extend a hand to those on the outside to come in out of the cold so to speak - it does not mean we have to stand there and hold the door open until we freeze ourselves.

            If some is homeless because they don't want to 'get with the program so speak' and they are in the way, creating health hazards living in public spaces without facilities etc, preventing the rest of us from enjoying public spaces we support - maybe they *are* undesirables. The moral thing to do is offer

            • The key to this is to figure out WHY some of these people PREFER to be homeless, determine if it's a mental problem, fix that if possible.
              I'm not saying that there aren't some people in this world who prefer to be leeches on society, take no responsiblity for themselves, and so on, and that some of them *should* be considered criminals. There are practical limits to everything, and society can only endure so much when it comes to some things.
              • " determine if it's a mental problem"

                The problem with determining if it is a mental problem is that like alchemy 'mental health' didn't begin with physical sciences but rather axioms about higher thought and then went back and sprinkled in some science and statistics to sound sciency. Unless there is actually some kind of trauma there is no 100% objective physical evidence to support 'mental problem.' Even FMRI patterns are actually highly subjective in their analysis and can be used to demonstrate just abo

                • I've known a lot of homeless people. Some are lazy but most want to be free from the rules, requirements, judgement and standards of society. Being a wage slave, eternally working to pay back indenture in the form of interest to the wealthy aristocratic class doesn't sound appealing to them.

                  I believe you. In fact I think I acknowledged that these types of 'homeless' exist.
                  The freedom to pursue what makes you happy in life is basic to the U.S. way of life. But does that give them the right to be a drain on society, in one way or another? Does this particular flavor of (apparently) 'voluntary' homeless person somehow make their own way through life, or are they begging, existing on handouts, the largess of others, and more to the point, government assistance in one form or another, which ultima

                  • "I believe you. In fact I think I acknowledged that these types of 'homeless' exist."

                    I'm glad that we agree, that you agree with my statement that I agreed with you. ;)

                    "The freedom to pursue what makes you happy in life is basic to the U.S. way of life. But does that give them the right to be a drain on society, in one way or another? Does this particular flavor of (apparently) 'voluntary' homeless person somehow make their own way through life, or are they begging, existing on handouts, the largess of othe
                    • Funny you should mention the 1%.
                      See, the rest of us are expected somehow to shoulder the burder of the homeless and the poor -- but we don't have it to give. Am I supposed to impoverish myself so homeless people can have something to eat? How does that make any sense? Meanwhile people who are multi-billionaires only contribute enough for a good photo-op, and in the end it does nothing. But is there any way to MAKE them contribute in substantial ways to solving the problem? Nope!
                      A friend of mine says that
          • Yes. My step father was a minister and we'd provide help to homeless people in a fairly steady stream.

            "While it's true that many of them did not choose to be homeless and desperately want to break out of the Catch-22 situation that is homelessness (can't get a place to live because you don't have a job, can't get a job because you don't have anywhere to live), not all homeless people are in that situation, believe it or not some of them choose to be homeless for one reason or another."

            I wouldn't be willing

        • Basic needs should be higher priority

          Were you alive this past year where working remotely was the normal? If an employee does not have access to broadband, they would not have been able to do their job remotely this year. I would consider a job as a basic need.

          • A job is not a basic need. People can be happy and healthy without a job if their actual basic needs (like food, clothes, and shelter) are cared for. If they have spare time they will find ways to fill it.

            A job is what we do under capitalism in order to have the money to fulfill our basic needs. Shelter is a privilege of the sane and competent.

            • Please explain how someone can afford basic needs without income under capitalism. Have you thought about that in the slightest?

              • Please explain how someone can afford basic needs without income under capitalism.

                It's not pure capitalism. There is no such thing and never has been.

                Have you thought about that in the slightest?

                Yeah, I thought about living in the really real world.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Safe place to sleep"? What about all the children who are **at this moment** drowning in backyard pools somewhere? What sort of a monster are you, to focus on longer-term issues when people are literally dying right now?? What the fuck is WRONG with your priorities?

    • That’s only a problem in Texas.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      One would think making sure every US citizen had access to a safe place to sleep would be a higher priority. Broadband is great but not dying in the cold or from heat stroke is better

      We could probably take care of every US citizen quite easily. All America has to do, is grow the fuck up and act like every other country on the planet, and close the borders and remove the illegal immigrants.

      Then, we will have plenty of money and resources for the citizens that are left.

      Don't like it? Change Federal law. That's what Amendments are for.

  • The first rule of broadband is to not categorize DSL as broadband.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 )
      Cable is borderline... *if* they are going to classify cable as broadband they also need to mandate speed tests and that the service runs as designed with high uptime (unlike today where cable modes loose channels etc... downtime should equal an equal reduction in subsidies).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      DSL can absolutely be good enough in 2021, just not the crappy slow DSL that US telcos provide (where they still provide it).

      DSL (VDSL certainly) as a technology is perfectly fine and if the box at the other end is close enough and the line length is short enough. Plenty of instances across the world (even in the US with companies like AT&T) where carriers are delivering 50Mbps or even 100Mbps or more over VDSL with technologies like fiber-to-the-node or fiber-to-the-curb or the like.

      You definitely don'

  • We have broadband... how about bringing in choice and competition? I'm North of Seattle, a supposed tech hub, and my choice is Comcast (dawg awful customer service at a rob you blind price) or Zipply (formerly Frontier) with DSL.... Like DSL is actually broadband...I also would want to update the definition of broadband to include a more modern usage paradigm with multiple family members simultaneously online.

  • Waste of money (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday June 07, 2021 @03:09PM (#61463374) Homepage
    This isn't a job for the federal government. By the time federal dollars make their way to installed cables, 90% of the money will have been sucked off. Want a better internet connection? Talk to your local government. If they're useless or corrupt, vote with your feet. We recently moved to a town with 400 residents. One of the reasons: the town invested in fiber-to-the-home a few years ago. The federal government is not a panacea. Involving them in things like this is counterproductive, because it will *prevent* local action.
  • Stop looking to lawyers, lobbyists and industry 'leaders' and pretending they are experts at anything besides a few more years of high school level maths.

    Leadership in the regulation of technical industries should be top end technical talent with creatures like lawyers and lobbyists recognized as what they are, commodity advisors. And in all cases leadership in these regulatory capacities should be barred publishing and speaking engagements for the organizations which they regulated or advised on regulating

  • Seriously, WTF happened to the idea of hiring somebody with, oh, I don't know, an engineering degree? Say what you want about Trump but when was the last time a non-lawyer was running the country? To paraphrase Erin Brockovich, all lawyers know is how to make things complicated that aren't complicated.

    • Great minds. https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19055844&cid=61464616

      If you are going to call someone a broadband expert then maybe they should have an understand of broadband that extends beyond magical communication juice that comes from a cable line.

  • Haha. All that Biden needs is someone who can tell people's race, since that is the criterion by which money will be doled out. The lawyers are just for defending the policy.

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