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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]

#411

Post by ryandrake »

portpecos wrote: post #352
vel0city wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FCC requires ISPs to publish information about their network management practices. That's how you get sites like this: https://www.xfinity.com/networkmanagement I do wish this was required to be easily accessible from the marketing pages. Usually it takes some digging to find it. But at least they do have to make these numbers public.

>The FCC determined that Comcast’s Xfinity Internet broadband Internet access services deliver, on average, over 100 percent of their advertised downstream and upstream speeds during the busiest periods of the day, known as "peak" times, during sustained testing. Peak times are Monday through Friday from 7:00pm to 11:00pm local time. >Latency is typically measured in milliseconds, and generally has no significant imp…

I'm the only happy Comcast customer on HN. They have consistently delivered their advertised speeds to me with nearly zero downtime. I can't even remember the last time I witnessed an outage lasting longer than a minute. I WFH full time and am utterly reliant on my "consumer tier" service, and they have not let me down. They have also been very progressive and strong early with Native IPv6.

They are god awful expensive, but I feel the quality of their product is excellent. And I'm not even a Comcast employee or shill.

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

#412

Post by m463 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #410
m463 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first got cable in the beginning, it was symmetrical.

Upto 35, yea, ok. Over 35? You are remembering wrong.

it was 8/8 (looong ago). Company was taken over, then they made it more expensive and 8/1 I believe.

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

#413

Post by Culonavirus »

d3w4s9 wrote: post #269
Culonavirus wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (most?) people do not even have devices that could utilize 1Gbit/s. My (relatively new) Galaxy Tab S7+ (11ac wifi) has a hard time going over 500Mbit/s (not sure if it's wifi or the slow internal memory, can't be arsed to find out), and it's similar with my (not that old) LG Velvet phone... All of that on a connection that can do a rock solid 1Gbps on my PC through UTP (cat 6)... What I'm trying to say is that m…

Anyone with a PlayStation/Xbox/gaming PC -- that's a lot of people -- can tell you how much they dislike waiting for a game download. I have 300Mbps download and I still find it too slow. I don't want to start a download, wait for half an hour before I can play the game.

How many times a year do you download a massive AAA game? Not many times. Average console gamer downloading 6 big games a year would probably be an overestimate. There are also preloads for many big games. It's not really a problem.

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

#414

Post by pianohacker »

bscphil wrote: post #188
organsnyder wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This has changed very recently: https://cordcuttersnews.com/comcast-is-making-changes-to-its...

Unfortunately, though, there are currently only three customer-owned modems approved for higher upload speeds: the CODA and CODA 56 from Hitron and the CM2050V from Netgear. The first two are from a company noone has heard of, and the last one is $350 (!) and includes pointless phone support. None of the near hundred other DOCSIS 3.1 modems on the market are supported, for no apparent reason.

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

#415

Post by geraldwhen »

huytersd wrote: post #192
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What? I wasn’t even aware consumer speeds got that high. No caps I hope?

I have 5gbps available at my house, but what would I use it for? Symmetric 1gbps is fine for me.

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

#416

Post by nikitoci »

Culonavirus wrote: post #160
happytiger wrote: post #61

1000 Mbps down / 100 Mbps up should be the minimum for any first world country. Without mandated illegality of data caps and other Comcast data and modem games this does nothing to change the reality of boots on the ground unfortunately. These speeds only really allow you to close your data cap sooner in the month for the vast majority of customers who use Internet for modern things. A fixed data cap locks in an “era…

Many (most?) people do not even have devices that could utilize 1Gbit/s. My (relatively new) Galaxy Tab S7+ (11ac wifi) has a hard time going over 500Mbit/s (not sure if it's wifi or the slow internal memory, can't be arsed to find out), and it's similar with my (not that old) LG Velvet phone... All of that on a connection that can do a rock solid 1Gbps on my PC through UTP (cat 6)... What I'm trying to say is that m…

Many households have a few people sharing single connection, so it’s not that hard to saturate 1Gbit/s even from weaker devices.

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

#417

Post by Workaccount2 »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #369
msmith wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that Google Fiber has been available in Austin, TX for 10 years but is still not available in the communities next door to Google HQ.

Probably due to the extreme level of veto-ism in the Bay Area. Everyone wants internet, but if 5 people complaining about yards or roads being dug up can get work to stop indefinitely, costs are going through the roof. There's far more uncertainty in that political environment than anywhere else. For reference, I live in a small town of ~6,000 people, and we're getting fiber laid. For the longest time we only had 25m…

It could simply be that poor people don't complain about infrastructure projects like rich people too. Or they don't have the tools/connections to effectively stop it.

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

#418

Post by Workaccount2 »

isilofi wrote: post #300
Workaccount2 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an extreme ironic twist, me, the techie nerd guy, has the slowest internet of the regular-folk friend group of mine. Everyone has got 1Gbps and here I am with 300Mbps.

Non-techie notices "internet is slow" because their youtube video is blocky or pages load slowly. Non-techie goes to ISP to complain. ISP upsells to a more expensive plan. The actual reason in almost all cases: non-techies are clueless about their slow and shitty WIFI. Picking empty or less busy channels, using 5GHz, using gasp cables, all black magic and never done. Sometimes the upselling actually helps because the…

When I had the fiber connection for my new internet run to my house, I told the tech I want the router/modem combo installed in the basement.

The guy strongly insisted I not do it, but then when I persisted I had to sign two waivers acknowledging that my wifi will probably be shit and the basement is a terrible spot.

I was just using their router/modem as a pass through, but man, they really don't want people putting routers in their basement. I can totally understand why too.

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

#419

Post by Phileosopher »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #359
mixdup wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 could pay a fraction of what I'm paying for 75Mbps and get a lower tier of service. It should suffice that x% of customers are offered "broadband" for a reasonable price, even if some choose a lower speed. The problem is that most of the…

The UK fixes this by forcing the companies who own the lines to rent and share them with other providers. ISPs in the US vehemently oppose this, of course.

The US has something like this already with cellular with MVNOs, driven by the free market.

The TL;DR is that the cost of cell towers is mostly the same irrespective of bandwidth (e.g., hiring a technician to break-fix as parts fail from weather conditions), so carriers figured out they could "rent" their leftover bandwidth.

Most of the "cheap" carriers are simply slinging together MVNOs from all the carriers (e.g., Boost Mobile, MetroPCS). It creates a weird situation where you get plenty of signal on off-peak hours and (often) the middle of nowhere, but at the expense of having no signal in larger metro areas at peak hours.

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

#420

Post by Phileosopher »

cereal_cable wrote: post #409
gnicholas wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ISPs in the US vehemently oppose this, of course. But is it still required though? Isn't this how Sonic uses AT&T lines? Perhaps it only applies to DSL, which is basically obsolete now?

This happened with copper lines for telephony providers. Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers have to provide access for Competitive Local Exchange Carriers to enter the market and break up their monopoly. This effectively made DSL and T1s available via CLECs as they could acquire access to a copper circuit directly. Internet has yet to be regulated that way and fiber lines aren't considered the same as those copper lin…

The trouble goes back to a 1910's telegraph bill. The US created a de facto monopoly on each carrier for each zone of land. On a particular parcel of land, there is only 1 carrier for any telecom tech, with those parcels as tradable on a market. M&A has allowed it to become a bit of a duopoly (e.g., Verizon + ATT).

It did make sense at the time of the law: carriers kept clustering around the major metro areas and wouldn't expand to the boonies. Nowadays, that law has outlived its purpose.

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