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US broadband grant rules shut out small ISPs and municipalities, advocates say (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The biggest Internet service providers will dominate a $42.45 billion broadband grant program unless the Biden administration changes a rule requiring grant recipients to obtain a letter of credit from a bank, according to a joint statement from consumer advocacy groups, local government officials, and advocates for small ISPs.

The letter sent today to US government officials argues that "by establishing capital barriers too steep for all but the best-funded ISPs, the LOC [letter-of-credit requirement] shuts out the vast majority of entities the program claims to prioritize: small and community-centered ISPs, minority and women-owned ISPs, nonprofits, and municipalities."

The rule is part of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that's being administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

No shit, it's the monopoly game all over again. I worked for a local provider for 4 years in engineering. I would personally like to see greater restrictions on ISP M&As, investor ownership of communication providers, and media company owners of communication providers.

At my company, we were purchased by another provider that had mismanaged themselves to the brink of bankruptcy only to be saved by some investors at the last second. Our staff was cut by about half. A year or so after that we were bought by the biggest bunch of soulless monsters I've ever worked with. From there the company went growth-by-acquisition crazy, purchasing every Mom and Pop provider they could get their hands on.

Years later I was working an IP address consolidation project when I came across an FCC filing from the late 90s written by former management at my original company asking the FCC to reject the GTE purchases that resulted in Verizon as we know it today. I was amazed, and also saddened. It was all coming true.