The Daughters Bell have failed rural America. It's decades past time when FCC should stop holding back progress in these areas by doing the bidding of ATT/VZN. We are not served by spectrum monopoly regulatory regimes.
I recently went over my "unlimited" cellular quota and was throttled to 128Kbps. I was amazed that I could literally not load the web page to upgrade my plan! 128K used to be high speed internet.
Trying to upgrade everyone so they can pipe the same amount of garbage as everyone else seems like it will always be a receding goal.
How about pass laws that say, not only must sites be accessible to the disabled, but they must also be accessible on low bandwidth connections?
Also, I just don't take seriously the difference between being connected to the internet and high quality videoconferencing for people who are extremely isolated. It's being connected at all that matters. You may be video conferencing lately, but I haven't even bothered to webex, just conference calls. And I don't myself see the worth compared to instant messaging.
Seems to me with more people each image becomes smaller and the total bandwidth shouldn't change.
As an alternative, if the government reduced the monopoly power of the telcos and allowed things like municipal internet, that might be a good solution.
I think we should seek first to remove the barriers and obstacles to progress before we use scorched earth to accomplish a goal.
4G cellular seems more efficient and good enough if websites wouldn't be so wasteful.