thanks for the note. I think the republican FCC, which had a former Verizon attorney, Ajit Pai, as chairman, and the current FCC republican commissioner, Brendan Carr, who worked for the CTIA, wireless association and Verizon, gave lip service to the rural areas. But, the previous FCC admin, with the former CEO of the CTIA, Tom Wheeler, was also biased.

I wrote the piece to point out how ATT et al, were taking over the process through others that they fund or help.

I believe the solution set is legal actions, state and federal, to go after the billions of the construction budgets that were diverted to the companies' wireless subsidiaries from the state utilities, for the ATT, Verizon states, as well as all of the other cross-subsidies that allowed the utilities to be dismantled and be used as cash cows. Waking up the DOJ, etc and doing anti-trust actions (after the last farce where Bill Barr, former lawyer for GTE, then Verizon, would never do the right thing.) might help. But depending on the republicans or the dems as political solutions to deal with rural areas, is a waste of time, especially in light of the institutional amnesia that has set in.

I always liked the original NII, National Infrastructure Initiative that was put together by another Gore, VP, Al, circa 1992... not to mention the opening the networks with the 1996 Telecom Act. By 2010, America should have been a fiber optic nation -- in all areas and with open access and competition.