Live data from Hacker News

FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

pcmag.com

141–150 of 233 posts

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#141
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s crazy. If my electric was out for that long consistently I’d lose my shit. That’s totally unacceptable.

In an urban area it would be unacceptable. It is not atypical for a rural area.

I think there is a gap in awareness of this depending on where people live. My rural hometown has frequent power outages, so many people have backup generators to at least keep the furnace running.

The town got popular with city people going remote during the pandemic, many of whom bought houses. I was visiting my parents a couple of years ago when the power went out for 18 hours or so during a deep cold snap. I was shocked that none of the new neighbors–who had recently completed huge costly renovation projects–had bothered to install an automatic generator.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#142
post #134

I wonder if this is the reason Comcast suddenly decided to double my internet speed today (they were forced to and then took credit because they're such good guys): > # We've increased your internet speeds to show you our appreciation >You can now enjoy 2x faster upload speeds and improved download speeds for smoother connections when you’re working, gaming and streaming. >We’re excited to share this increase to your…

Got it too. Strikes me as extremely disingenuous. I feel like they shouldn't even be allowed to represent this as a decision they made out of the goodness of their hearts. Makes me hate them even more, which is pretty amazing because I had thought we already bottomed out.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom recommends 3.8Mbps for uploading 1080p video. Being able to do 1080p video conferencing is an expectation of broadband. Raising the definition of broadband to meet this basic requirement is clearly a win. I do think 25Mbps up is more than what's required for a large number of households (>33%). I have advised family that 15Mbps is adequate when they needed to do office work from home. Perhaps the only good thing…

I've been coping with 6 Mbps upload speeds from Xfinity for years now. This morning I got an email from them saying they were raising my speeds at no cost, and after a modem restart I'm now getting ~20 Mbps up. This whole time I've been told that Xfinity couldn't provide decent upload speeds because of infrastructure reasons, but now that's been proven a lie.

I just got an email saying my provider is bumping my fiber upload from 200 to 400.

Seemed crazy to me, but I guess they are just staying well ahead of the crappy competition.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 9s is completely fine. Internet is not subject to the 911 uptime requirements. 3 9s is essentially an outage or two from a major storm. That’s fine for residential internet.

> 3 9s is completely fine. Internet is not subject to the 911 uptime requirements. It's all going over the same wire. Why not put in the extra fraction of effort?

> It's all going over the same wire

Yes and no. Even if it's going over the same wire, there are different data flows. Voice uses predictable amounts of bandwidth per phone number.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#145
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get the same... (same provider)

Try rebooting your modem. That got it for me (the increase, not the notice of an increase).

I actually just changed my modem today because I was using Comcast's modem/router combo and wanted to use my own... I'm still at about 50-60mbps. I guess I will contact them again.

I talked to them and they say I am still on the 50/20 plan... they replied saying I would need to pay more to get 100mpbs. I don't need it, so I won't.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been coping with 6 Mbps upload speeds from Xfinity for years now. This morning I got an email from them saying they were raising my speeds at no cost, and after a modem restart I'm now getting ~20 Mbps up. This whole time I've been told that Xfinity couldn't provide decent upload speeds because of infrastructure reasons, but now that's been proven a lie.

It’s not a lie – they can’t provide upload speeds anywhere near their download speeds. 20 Mbps vs 6 Mbps is still quite small compared to 1000 Mbps. DOCSIS 3.1, the latest and not fully deployed standard goes up to 10Gbps down and 1Gpbs up. It looks like DOCSIS 4.0 is actually a path forward to symmetric upload/download speeds over the same cables

I feel like this does more to affirm the "been proven a lie" statement than refute it.

20 Mbps, while still suffocation, provides a massive amount of breathing room from 6.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been coping with 6 Mbps upload speeds from Xfinity for years now. This morning I got an email from them saying they were raising my speeds at no cost, and after a modem restart I'm now getting ~20 Mbps up. This whole time I've been told that Xfinity couldn't provide decent upload speeds because of infrastructure reasons, but now that's been proven a lie.

It’s not a lie – they can’t provide upload speeds anywhere near their download speeds. 20 Mbps vs 6 Mbps is still quite small compared to 1000 Mbps. DOCSIS 3.1, the latest and not fully deployed standard goes up to 10Gbps down and 1Gpbs up. It looks like DOCSIS 4.0 is actually a path forward to symmetric upload/download speeds over the same cables

I didn't say that asymmetric upload speeds being required was a lie, but until today Xfinity wouldn't allow me to pay for >6 Mbps upload without going up to some sort of business-tier package. Now, the day that the FCC sets 20 Mbps up as the minimum, I magically get that exact number for free.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#148

I oppose this. 100mbps just isn't what most people need. To most readers, this probably sounds innocuous, but I have some involvement in my city's digital equity community, so I have some insight into what this translates to for local governments and community organizations. Now what will happen is someone at the county level in charge of digital infrastructure will look at at a map and say "oh no, 40% of our populat…

> Meanwhile, the vast majority of people have $30 wifi routers that are incorrectly configured and positioned behind a concrete wall in the garage. So 100mbps comes into their house, but their laptops, TVs and phones see 20mbps.

Why would they have the routers in their garage instead of in their house? Most houses that have cable have cable outlets inside the house, since the reason cable was originally put in was to support cable TV and generally people have their TVs in the house.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#149

This is over regulation imo. If you support this then you can’t complain about there not being any low cost housing because it’s regulations akin to this that is increasing the costs. 25->100 is more of a luxury then a necessity

How much do you pay for internet? Maybe you should be directing your ire elsewhere. I currently pay $60/month for 600 down. An ISP that actually struggles to provide 100mbps down at a reasonable rate, today, is simply one that refuses to update their hardware. 100mbps is not hard to achieve with semi-modern hardware. I know of ISPs servicing remote small communities with 1gbps down at $100/month. 300 down for $30/mon…

It is really frustrating. I live in a US city (close to the city center) where my options are Spectrum or AT&T. AT&T still only provides ADSL (recently updated to 30/10). 5 years ago, AT&T tore up our street and laid fiber. 3 streets over, fiber is available, but still not on my street.

Re: FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric from 25Mbps to 100Mbps

#150
post #73

If you happen to have 100mbps service, will your rate go down?

I’d sure like to know this, as we’re on Optimum 100, which isn’t sold to new customers anymore.

Also of note, some uploads might actually go up substantially - a bunch of people on 100 down plans have seen uploads cut to almost nothing, e.g, 35 -> 5.

Time will tell.

Post reply on HN