> "In 2021, we expanded our study, manually checking availability of terrestrial broadband internet (wired or fixed wireless) for more than 58,000 addresses. In all, we checked more than 110,000 address-provider combinations using the FCC Form 477 data as the “source of truth”.
> "This study confirms our estimate that at least 42 million Americans do not have access to broadband. For the first time, we also estimate broadband availability for all 50 states."
https://broadbandnow.com/research/fcc-broadband-overreportin...
I suppose the Chinese government could be inflating reports of connectivity for propaganda purposes, but that also seems to be what the FCC is doing:
> "The figures and estimates cited by the FCC rely upon semi-annual self-reporting by internet service providers (ISPs) using the FCC-mandated “Form 477.” However, there is a widely acknowledged flaw with Form 477 reporting: if an ISP offers service to at least one household in a census block, then the FCC counts the entire census block as covered by that provider."
How does the parent imply China and the CCP are better than the US?
In short, every one of the over 600,000 “administrative villages” in China (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villages_of_China), with an average population of ~1000 each, now has broadband internet, which is either Fiber or 4G connectivity. Over 99% of villages have both. The average broadband fiber speed is 100Mbps.
This has been a long-term effort. At the start of the 13th Five Year Plan (2016), 50000 villages had no broadband internet at all, while another 150000 had speeds less than 4Mb/s. Since then, 130000 fiber networks and 60000 4G base stations were constructed.
The Chinese article also goes into detail on the efforts that were expended into getting the last few villages connected up; these were remote, hard to reach settlements with a high construction cost and a low number of viable subscribers. However, since the national plan was clearly 100% of all villages, the national and provincial governments covered much of the costs necessary to bring broadband to these remote areas.
I wonder if solving the famine problem is as high up on their list.
The real "social credit system" bears almost no resemblance to the online meme.
Most people in China aren't even familiar with the system, because it's mostly used to regulate businesses.[0]
There's a funny video in which someone in Shanghai went out and asked random people on the street about their "social credit score." Most of them thought they were being asked about their financial credit scores.[1]
0. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-sys...
Not to mention that China is short of purchasing Agricultural products from trade deal.
My parents in laws don’t have running water, but they got cheap fiber.
In all likelihood, even if they went to the expense of cleaning the water to drinking water levels, people would still boil their water and distrust the tap. So, I think drinking water is not a high priority.
Also, it’s uncommon to have running water in very small communities. Here we’re talking about villages with an average population of 1000. Well-water works just fine for many rural folks, and so it is in China as well.
Are you aware how budgeting and projects work? Would you have the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology tackle the water situation of your parents in laws instead of achieving their goal of connecting rural china with broadband?
Why must some small wage earners in remotest parts must even have access to the internet. Let them use cave paintings.
Want the villiage cut off and enslave all villager you need a technology to monitor them real time. And just got it.
Right to unplug and disconnect. That is the new initiatives.
I'll believe it when I see it.
