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FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

docs.fcc.gov

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Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#141

Post by jeffbee »

nathanfig wrote: post #47
idiot900 wrote: post #10

Honest question: at what point, with real life usage, is 1 Gbps actually necessary for home users? I find that latency rather than throughput is what determines my perceived quality of an Internet connection. But am curious how others think.

Most households with 4+ people are going to have dozens of connected devices, including multiple doing HD to 4K entertainment streams, outgoing video feeds, and (at least on PS5) the occasional unexpected 80GB updates to a video game you were just about to play. This in addition to the apps/webapps that are often in the 10s of Mb of content served per click.

Multiple simultaneous 4K streams does not describe any household I know. How much TV are you people watching? It seems like an exceptionally high level of media consumption, in my experience.

Furthermore, 4K video is < 25mbps each per stream, usually.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#142

Post by avarun »

danielfoster wrote: post #119

I recently won a credit card dispute over a hotel resort fee. The hotel claimed they had high-speed Internet. The speed was only 2-3 mbps. I was able to use the current FCC definition of high-speed to claim a refund.

Was the wifi access part of the resort fee? Curious how you went about explaining the monetary value of the wifi portion of your stay to the credit card company.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#143

Post by IntelMiner »

andersa wrote: post #91
paxys wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical reason is that by restricting upload speed they can offer a higher download speed, and that is what most users care about.

This is nonsense. Fiber cables are always capable of the same speed in both directions at once. The actual reason is so they can sell you an overpriced "business" plan if you need upload speeds from the current decade.

Yes, *fiber* can. But the majority of Americans use Cable/HFC (DOCSIS) technologies. These were designed as a one-to-many closed loop TV broadcast on a coax line. Except with the incoming DOCSIS 4.0 deployments it's always been asymmetric as a limitation of the technology

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#144

Post by wmf »

epx wrote: post #86
AussieWog93 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what gets me. Is there a technical reason why symmetrical connections would be more expensive than asymm?

AFAIK, PON (Passive Optical Network) has inherent reasons to be asymetric

Not really. I'm sure asymmetric PON is cheaper but there are plenty of symmetric EPON modes.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#145

Post by xnx »

danielfoster wrote: post #119

I recently won a credit card dispute over a hotel resort fee. The hotel claimed they had high-speed Internet. The speed was only 2-3 mbps. I was able to use the current FCC definition of high-speed to claim a refund.

That is awesome. Can you say more about your process?

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#146

Post by criddell »

IdiranVibe wrote: post #112
andrewmunsell wrote: post #3

This is nice, but with increased speed, they should also require ISPs do not impose a data cap to be considered broadband.

It blows my mind that you guys in the US still have to deal with data caps ... It's been years in the UK since that's been a thing for broadband, and we're close to the point where mobile data will be the same

It depends on your ISP. My phone has a data cap of 100 GB/month. Once I go over that I am throttled when the network is congested.

My home internet has no data caps.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#147

Post by Avamander »

carstenhag wrote: post #120
CSMastermind wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people work from home and that connection speed can be important when you're uploading a bunch of files while on a video call for example. Or there's three people in your house all on video calls.

With Teams using 0.3 Mbit/s (3fps) while I am sharing my screen, this is not really a concern.

That's a ridiculously low and bad target to aim for though.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#148

Post by aidenn0 »

somat wrote: post #65

Oh boy! pedant time. note that ethernet and gpon(single line fiberoptic) are not broad band, they are base band. Broad band does not mean speed. it means it uses a lot of frequencies at the same time. OK getting dizzy here from too much excitement, pedant time is over for this week. We are all allowed to go back to using the non-technical meaning of broadband where it means speed.

If we are being pedants, I object to fiber-optic being labeled as base-band.

It is modulating a ~100THz carrier wave, so is clearly not base-band.

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#149

Post by organsnyder »

bscphil wrote: post #37

It's 100 Mbps down / 20 Mbps up as the proposal, and 1000 Mbps / 500 Mbps as an eventual goal. I imagine the 20 Mbps upload target is useless for most of us, even those on asymmetric cable, but there's a good chance that if the ISPs were forced to provide 20 Mbps up at their lowest broadband tiers, it would raise the ladder quite a bit. For example, on Comcast I get 800 / 20, but there's also a 400 / 10 tier (and may…

According to someone I know that works at Comcast, they're working on rolling out symmetrical (or at least closer to symmetrical) speeds—even over coax—within the next few years. I'm able to get 2000/200, which is decent. Metronet just buried fiber in my front yard, though, so I'm looking forward to symmetrical fiber soonish (though Metronet has been building so fast I'm worried about growing pains).

Re: FCC launches inquiry to increase minimum broadband speed [pdf]

#150

Post by derefr »

paxys wrote: post #99
andersa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Fiber cables are always capable of the same speed in both directions at once. The actual reason is so they can sell you an overpriced "business" plan if you need upload speeds from the current decade.

A very small part of the country is connected by fiber, and fiber connections are always symmetrical. The vast majority of consumers still get internet via coax cables, and bandwidth is very much an issue on those.

No, a very small part of the last mile is connected by fiber. Trunking is always fiber these days. As are local neighbourhood branch points, if your provider evolved from a telephone company. (If you live in an apartment building served by an ex-telephone ISP, you likely have fiber run all the way to the network closet of your building, with only the per-subscriber in-wall wiring switching over to copper.)

ISPs that evolved from cable companies might still be using cable hubs with a common collision domain, but only a relatively small number of subscribers will be riding the same copper — it’s just cheaper these days to convert the signal to fiber as early in the signal path as possible. Plastic wires are cheaper than metal wires, and you need fewer of them (and so fewer switches.)

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