Navy Phishing Letter

I got this yesterday.  It is obviously spam:

Dear Customer Important Alert for Account Access Users! You may have recently received an email from Navy Federal Credit Union inviting you to take a survey about Navy Federal Account verification survey, to protect and safeguards your Account Details. Survey invitations are sent to the email address we currently have on file. To get started on the survey, just click the link below. Click here to help you perform this verification survey. © 2015 Navy Federal Credit Union® Security Advisor

It is from Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, Nepal

What would be the roadmap to a 4G Rural Americas Program Solution?

1.  Education... lots of it... on this blog and by other means.
2.  Identify potential suppliers.  Write an RFI (Request for Information) to see if there is are suppliers that can provide a technical solution consistent with our needs and constraints (eg, terrain)  Who?  Don't know.  Any suggestions?  How about a joint RFI from the three mountain communities?
3.  Identify potential manager companies.  The assumption is that there will be a technical solution and then a business management solution.  I would be very surprised if the two functions would come under the same hat.  The manager corp take care of operations.  I'm working on that.
4.  Serious negotiations could occur only if there are reasonable responses to the RFIs.  RFIs are NOT the final kind of technical document.  It is only a scope and possibility document.
5.  Establish the potential manager company, at least for the timeframe required to evaluate the responses to the RFQs.
5.  After RFIs come RFQs (Request for Quote), which would be generated jointly by the RFI writers and the potential manager company..  The responses would be evaluated and a partner selected.  A contract with the manager company would be established.   A budget for implementation and operation would be drawn up, etc.  From here it is the project management drill for a program.    

Slow Internet, High Costs for Internet, TV, cellphone, phone service in our communities

The communities where most of my readers live are situated in rolling hills or mountains.  4G cell service is spotty- we get it second hand from a nearby city.  4G as a technology has the potential to provide all our communication services at a low cost compared to what we pay today.

However, our "standard" internet service is ATT DSL with a max of  6M and it is costly.  Some of our members have gone to a satellite service, but that is expensive and doesn't move the speed bar that much. I think all of us have to use a satellite service for TV, which is, in itself, expensive compared to options that can bundle all communication services on the same infrastructure.

Some in our communities are lookiing at Uverse-like solutions, solutions that run over fiber and then copper wires.  Those technologies are self limiting because they either include small copper wires, which have limited signal capacity and are degrade the signal with distance, or they include expensive fiber.  Whether it is cable, Uverse, or satellite, they are not long term, economical communication service solutions.

4G, which you should recognize as something your cell phones might use, is a technology that is coming into its own as a community communication service. I've been talking with Verizon tech about "LTE in Rural America Program", VOLTE, and "Small Cell".  (Follow the links for background.)   I've also been keeping track of Verizon progress on the flagpole- technical issues, etc.   Small Cell coupled with the LTEiRA looks like the best choice, but we may have to invest in the Small Cell as a community.

A typical, non-dedicated LTE broadband service can provide a download speed in excess of 30mb/s and an upload speed in excess of 15 mb/s.   LTE-Advanced can provide peak rates up to 1 Gbit/s fixed speeds and 100 Mb/s to mobile users.

I would welcome others who know about how 4G would work for a geography and low population density such as ours to comment below.