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FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

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Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#241

Post by jrochkind1 »

Here in Baltimore, the only option for any kind of broadband is Comcast XFinity, and it costs $85/month for 50 Mbps service. (And there is no plan available for under $65/month).

What does it mean to say the "minimum" is 100, are they just gonna charge me a minimum of $150/month or something?

The fact that I see other people in this thread saying they're already getting gigabit(+) service for $40(!)-$80/month, while I pay $85 for 50Mbps from the single monopoly provider that does not offer gigabit/fiber....

makes me think the biggest need for regulation is not about minimum speeds, but about price gouging from monopoly providers. I wonder what Comcast charges for the same 50Mbps service I pay $85/month for (with again no plan avail under $65), in markets where they have a competitor. i would love to pay $40/month for my internet, and don't even need any more than 50 Mbps -- comcast increasing the speed of my $85/month plan (or doing so and raising the price!) doesn't actually help me much.

Has anyone done a national broadband price map? They intentionally don't make their geographically disparate prices very transparent of course. It would be interesting to see the variation in what comcast charges for the same speeds, and how it correlates to having competitors in a market vs monopoly.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#242

Post by jl6 »

Higher minimum upload speeds will be more impactful than cranking download speed even higher.

100/100 is way, way better than 500/20.

Upload speed is what enriches the two-way internet - servers, content uploads, high quality videoconferencing, cloud backups. Prioritising download speed is keeping us in the broadcast era.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#243

Post by jl6 »

jdhendrickson wrote: post #220
politician wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a declining global power.

Completely based on the lens through which you are viewing it. I myself am American and have seen the quality of life for the average citizen declining in my life time. If I wasn't a part of the new middle class provided by technology, my children would have a worse life than me, combine that with the recidivism displayed by our judiciary recently and some could definitely argue we are declining. But with a user name…

What year would you suggest time-travelling back to in order to enjoy a higher quality of life?

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#244

Post by jrochkind1 »

p1necone wrote: post #187

There's a lot of comments on this thread pointing out typical bandwidth usage of popular streaming services, games etc and claiming that there's no need for higher bandwidth connections. There's an important point that I think people are missing, which is that the bandwidth usage of internet services is going to be carefully tuned to balance quality and stability at typical internet speeds. When a large portion of co…

> The most obvious thing that we already know we're missing out on is video streaming quality. You've possibly already noticed…

I only pay for the lowest tier of Netflix which does not give me HD, and I have literally never noticed a quality problem watching on my TV (which I have no idea the resolution of, honestly).

Apparently I don't care or notice much about quality. I actually have no idea if i'm the majority or you are.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#245

Post by prirun »

Wohlf wrote: post #115
prirun wrote: post #93

IMO, the FCC should: 1. make payments to local governments in exchange for monopoly access, illegal. 2. strike down laws that prohibit local governments from providing internet service. 3. stop forcing these speed minimums that also come with price minimums not everyone wants.

The FCC doesn't have the power to do this, and these are likely unconstitutional.

Isn't it the government's job to promote competition and regulate / prevent monopolies and oligopolies?

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#246

Post by epmatsw »

imoverclocked wrote: post #97
superkuh wrote: post #26

The problem, in the USA for most people, is Comcast. Downspeed hardly matters. It's been plenty for decades. Upload speed has stagnated. I uploaded as fast in 2003 as I do now in 2022. And as others have said, it's not so much about 1 fast provider as many providers and choice. In my comcast monopoly my plan started at $60/mo in 2011 and without any changes on my end and no change in my upload speed that price has in…

> But I don't have a choice. It doesn't matter how good, or bad, Comcast is. They're the only game in town. To extend that, Comcast is on my street but refuses to run a line up to my house because they consider it to be too cost prohibitive. At the same time, they block anyone else from making money in my region. I'm stuck with whatever cell signal I can acquire and that is as good as 5mbps during the day and might d…

Talk to your local government. We were in the same situation, and it turns out Comcast was legally required to service our house, they just didn’t want to (because of the expense). A few days after getting the government involved we had a trenching crew on-site.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#247

Post by FireBeyond »

p1necone wrote: post #187

There's a lot of comments on this thread pointing out typical bandwidth usage of popular streaming services, games etc and claiming that there's no need for higher bandwidth connections. There's an important point that I think people are missing, which is that the bandwidth usage of internet services is going to be carefully tuned to balance quality and stability at typical internet speeds. When a large portion of co…

One of the things that frustrates me is that ISPs have successfully lobbied broadband surveys to exclude "inconvenient" plans.

AT&T asked that their DSL plans were not counted towards their "average bandwidth" because they were "obsolete and no longer being marketed".

To be clear - they were still _available_, and in many cases, your only option, but they were an anchor pulling down the average, so AT&T just "didn't want them to count".

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#248

Post by rootusrootus »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #230
hamandcheese wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your definition of copper? Almost everywhere I’ve ever lived, the only broadband internet available was provided using coax cable.

POTS. ILECS were required for a while (still are?) to sell access to their central office DSLAMs. For a hot moment in the early 00s there was a fair bit of competition for DSL service (at least in the Bay Area). If memory serves – as technology moved on to higher speed DSL that worked over shorter distances (and required more RTs as a result) legislation stayed the same. Essentially the only things that ILECS were re…

> ILECS were required for a while (still are?) to sell access to their central office DSLAMs.

It was just the copper, not the DSLAM access. What you could do is buy colo space at the CO and install your own DSLAM, and the ILEC was required to cross connect the copper to your cage. What you did from there was your business, as was all of the CPE.

I worked at a CLEC for 10 years during the good times. Even set up a few of our colos myself back in the day. I still think we (the US government) should have kept going and required incumbents to lease access to any last-mile wiring technology. It should be part of the price for enjoying what amounts to a government-sanctioned monopoly. Even better, just make the last-mile network a regulated utility like water & electric.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#249

Post by raisedbyninjas »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #244
p1necone wrote: post #187

There's a lot of comments on this thread pointing out typical bandwidth usage of popular streaming services, games etc and claiming that there's no need for higher bandwidth connections. There's an important point that I think people are missing, which is that the bandwidth usage of internet services is going to be carefully tuned to balance quality and stability at typical internet speeds. When a large portion of co…

> The most obvious thing that we already know we're missing out on is video streaming quality. You've possibly already noticed… I only pay for the lowest tier of Netflix which does not give me HD, and I have literally never noticed a quality problem watching on my TV (which I have no idea the resolution of, honestly). Apparently I don't care or notice much about quality. I actually have no idea if i'm the majority or…

We do the same. Subscriptions and rentals are 1080p. 4k versions of content usually cost twice as much. A few simultaneous compressed 1080p streams easily fit in the slowest broadband service I can get.

Re: FCC proposes to increase minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps

#250

Post by FireBeyond »

walrus01 wrote: post #117
superkuh wrote: post #26

The problem, in the USA for most people, is Comcast. Downspeed hardly matters. It's been plenty for decades. Upload speed has stagnated. I uploaded as fast in 2003 as I do now in 2022. And as others have said, it's not so much about 1 fast provider as many providers and choice. In my comcast monopoly my plan started at $60/mo in 2011 and without any changes on my end and no change in my upload speed that price has in…

The problem is not just Comcast but everything of its ilk, and by that I mean Charter (Spectrum/former Time Warner Cable), RCN/Grande/Astound and similar giant size coax based DOCSIS3 operators. In Canada, Shaw and Rogers. They are absolutely determined to squeeze every last dollar of ROI out of that existing coax cable plant by doing asymmetric RF channels for downstream/upstream. And not overbuilding themselves wit…

> So you end up with something like a 200 Mbps down x 15.5 Mbps up cable connection.

I have a 1200mbps down Comcast connection that still only has 35mbps up.

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