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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]

#181

Post by NegativeLatency »

superb_dev wrote: post #31
endisneigh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically roads should also have caps and/or tolls, so this take is strange. This is partly why gas and excise tax is a thing…

Do you seriously want every road you drive on to charge you? Roads should be a public good that we all benefit from

I would happily pay for congestion pricing because it would allow me to go where I'm going faster.

Right now we have this weird sunk cost and lack of obvious incremental charges to driving, that encourages driving when there are other better options for some trips.

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

#183

Post by arp242 »

paxys wrote: post #36
staringback wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that someone's grandma who hardly uses her connection can subsidize your extreme over-consumption of digital media?

Data packets aren't a limited resource. The costs for your ISP are fixed whether they serve you 1MB or 1TB. Data caps and overage charges are purely a money grab, not some fundamental economic requirement. So no, infrequent users aren't "subsidizing" anyone else.

> The costs for your ISP are fixed whether they serve you 1MB or 1TB.

I cannot believe how anyone with a straight face can claim that the infrastructure and maintenance required to serve "n times 1MB" is exactly the same as the costs for "n times 1TB". This is so obviously not the case that I genuinely don't even know how to explain it.

You can serve your thousand subscribers on a dingy Pentium 1 if they're using 1MB, because it adds up to just 1,000MB. You wouldn't be able to serve just a single customer with the same hardware. Never mind the cabling etc.

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

#184

Post by gnicholas »

whateverman23 wrote: post #179
gnicholas wrote: post #162

I started with Comcast with 12Mbps service. Over time, they increased the base speed they offer to 20, 25, 50, and now 75. They have done this because they want to have x% of their customers on "broadband", per the federal definition. This is all well and good, but they keep increasing the price, and refuse to offer lower-tier service. I probably wouldn't want 12Mbps anymore, but 20 or 25 would suffice. I wish I coul…

Would it actually be that much less costly to give you 20-25 vs 75, though? My uninformed assumption was that it was largely artificial once you get to a low enough speed.

Well, if there's not a cost difference, why do they keep trying to double my pricing when the base tier goes up?

My sense is there is some cost savings at these lower tiers, but more importantly it would prevent ISPs from jacking prices up while using higher speeds as the rationale ("Look, we just tripled your speed, and it only costs double!"). ISPs would be less likely to double prices without any service improvement. But since many people don't care about the service improvement, it's an illusory benefit for them.

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

#185

Post by teaearlgraycold »

gnicholas wrote: post #162

I started with Comcast with 12Mbps service. Over time, they increased the base speed they offer to 20, 25, 50, and now 75. They have done this because they want to have x% of their customers on "broadband", per the federal definition. This is all well and good, but they keep increasing the price, and refuse to offer lower-tier service. I probably wouldn't want 12Mbps anymore, but 20 or 25 would suffice. I wish I coul…

I'm in an area with competition and I think I'm paying like $60/month for 10Gbps.

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

#186

Post by hipadev23 »

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.

Credit cards almost always side with the consumer if you have meaningful spend and very few issues/chargebacks/claims. If you never use the card, and then chargeback, they'll just deny your claim and drop your ass. It's not about the money of the individual charge (for small stuff like this anyway), it's about keeping you happy and spending on the card.

I highly doubt the argument itself was relevant whatsoever.

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

#187

Post by cmiles74 »

whateverman23 wrote: post #179
gnicholas wrote: post #162

I started with Comcast with 12Mbps service. Over time, they increased the base speed they offer to 20, 25, 50, and now 75. They have done this because they want to have x% of their customers on "broadband", per the federal definition. This is all well and good, but they keep increasing the price, and refuse to offer lower-tier service. I probably wouldn't want 12Mbps anymore, but 20 or 25 would suffice. I wish I coul…

Would it actually be that much less costly to give you 20-25 vs 75, though? My uninformed assumption was that it was largely artificial once you get to a low enough speed.

Agreed, I suspect the cost is in providing the larger amount of bandwidth to the block or neighborhood (better cabling, cable modems, etc.) Once in place, the individual subscriber usage probably all costs the same for Comcast.

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

#188

Post by bscphil »

organsnyder wrote: post #149
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).

Yes, there's actually a significant ongoing scandal over this because they're only rolling it out (in most cases) to people renting their expensive hardware, even if the modem you bought already has the necessary DOCSIS 3.1 support. It's so scummy.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/want-faster-comc...

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

#189

Post by jacksnipe »

gnicholas wrote: post #184
whateverman23 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it actually be that much less costly to give you 20-25 vs 75, though? My uninformed assumption was that it was largely artificial once you get to a low enough speed.

Well, if there's not a cost difference, why do they keep trying to double my pricing when the base tier goes up? My sense is there is some cost savings at these lower tiers, but more importantly it would prevent ISPs from jacking prices up while using higher speeds as the rationale ("Look, we just tripled your speed, and it only costs double!"). ISPs would be less likely to double prices without any service improveme…

They’ve already trained consumers that higher speeds cost more. They would need a compelling reason to keep costs the same after increasing speeds.

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

#190

Post by endisneigh »

paxys wrote: post #83
endisneigh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn’t there be a cap? Bandwidth isn’t free. It’s sad seeing people on a forum called hacker news having no idea how networking infrastructure works.

They already charge for bandwidth. People pay more for 500mpbs than 50mbps. We are talking about total monthly data caps, which have nothing to do with bandwidth.

False. A month is a discrete amount of time that yields a potential maximum amount of data downloaded, this amount is clearly related to the bandwidth provided, hence caps.

To think otherwise is to falsely believe they support unlimited throughput. Furthermore the bandwidth itself literally is a function of the transmission material and infrastructure, which also isn’t free…

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