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FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

arstechnica.com

61–70 of 221 posts

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#61
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that there is a significant price disparity between locations for what is ostensibly a global service. Central Minnesota isn’t that different in terms of availability of services from my corner of Ohio either. We have 3 fiber providers in the area but even then if you are half a mile out of the service area it can cost a fortune. I just wanted to validate your claim of Starlink’s price competitiveness and…

> Interesting that there is a significant price disparity between locations for what is ostensibly a global service. … is it? Why wouldn't a corporation use any and all data available to them to price discriminate as hard and as much as they possibly can? > my corner of Ohio either. We have 3 fiber providers in the area I … am not sure I believe that. Everywhere I think I have ever lived, broadband is a local monopol…

I only have one FTTH connection to my house, but if I stretched I could probably claim “3 fiber providers in the area” - the local cable co does FTTN with 2000/200 service and there’s an independent fibre provider that serves multi-unit buildings in the downtown.

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#62
post #42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any similar requirements for the Supreme Court?

When it’s all said and done, Americans will have to find the courage to admit the Judicial branch was an utter failure. That whole thing was supposed to be immune to political coercion. I say it will take courage because it got rammed into our heads that God made the constitution, and that it’s infallible. It’s a massive failure through and through. The founding fathers did not protect the branches from each other ne…

> it got rammed into our heads that God made the constitution

Article III is light in describing the courts [1]. Our judicial system is mostly a creature of Congress, not the Constitution.

I’m personally a fan of choosing by lot, from the appellate bench, a random slate of justices for each case. (That court of rotating judges would be the one in which “the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested”.) You could do this entirely through legislation—nothing in the Constitution requires lifetime appointments to a permanent bench.

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#63

You can always tell how tech savvy someone is, buy how much bandwidth they don't buy. They don't fall for the marketing/lobbying of the big incumbent ISPs. Anyone I've known worth their salt in networking cares about latency far more than speed. Historically upload speeds on asymmetrical plans were a problem too, but since people have started to work from home, most cable/fiber/wireless internet providers' lowest pla…

All other things equal, higher bandwidth links are inherently lower latency.

Propagation delay usually dominates latency, so it's generally not the biggest factor, but on a simple local network with two PCs and a switch, you can expect about 1ms latency with 100BASE-T, and 0.12ms latency with 1000BASE-T.

  | Component                                      | 100 Mb/s            | 1 Gb/s            |
  | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------------- | ----------------- |
  | Propagation (30 m)                             | ≈ 0.15 µs           | same              |
  | Two NIC serializations (TX + RX, 1 500 B each) | 2 × 120 µs = 240 µs | 2 × 12 µs = 24 µs |
  | Two switch serializations (store‑and‑forward)  | 2 × 120 µs = 240 µs | 24 µs             |
  | Processing in switch + NICs                    | \~10 µs             | \~10 µs           |
  | **One‑way latency**                            | **≈ 490 µs**        | **≈ 58 µs**       |
  | **Ping RTT** (×2)                              | **≈ 1 ms**          | **≈ 0.12 ms**     |

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#64
post #16
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically Tesla was the first major company globally starting a trend. Aka leading.

By that definition, we haven't been leading for years since the Chinese are cranking them out much faster than Tesla. What if we want to be a world leader in satellite internet coverage? Is that a goal you support? Because that's part of what these changes are about.

[flagged]

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#65
post #14

I think this isn't as bad as people make of out to be. The 100/20 goal is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users. The only thing really supporting the old goal of gigabit connections was fiber. I would rather see the expansion of traditional cable or even satellite to rural areas. Fiber plans tend to be expensive and mostly available in the areas that already have usable high speed options. If we really want t…

> I think this isn't as bad as people make of out to be. The 100/20 goal is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users 640K was "perfectly fine" for most people, too. 100/20 is barely enough for a household of 3-5 "light" users. The US already has abysmal broadband speed/bandwidth/latency metrics compared to the rest of the developed world and settling for 2010's version of "fast" in 2025 is ... not how we're goin…

100/20 is barely enough for a household of 3-5 "light" users.

What the hell are you doing that 100/20 is "barely enough"?

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#66
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there was that one court ruling that said agencies have to stick to what Congress actually authorized them to do rather than having free reign to reinterpret their own authorizations however they want.

If you are thinking of the ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine, that's not what it said. What it said is that courts do not have to defer to the agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute. The court can make and use apply its own interpretation. Under Chevron courts were to defer to agency interpretations if the statute was ambiguous and the agency's interpretation was reasonable.

Here is an article that (1) lambasts the 2023 Sackett ruling that a swampy back yard is actually not a navigable waterway; and (2) says that that decision teed up the 2024 Loper decision that got all the headlines: https://minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/6R... , section starting at the page numbered 2863.

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#67
post #14

I think this isn't as bad as people make of out to be. The 100/20 goal is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users. The only thing really supporting the old goal of gigabit connections was fiber. I would rather see the expansion of traditional cable or even satellite to rural areas. Fiber plans tend to be expensive and mostly available in the areas that already have usable high speed options. If we really want t…

A country that wants technological leadership needs to aim higher. It needs to do more than the absolute minimum.

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this isn't as bad as people make of out to be. The 100/20 goal is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users 640K was "perfectly fine" for most people, too. 100/20 is barely enough for a household of 3-5 "light" users. The US already has abysmal broadband speed/bandwidth/latency metrics compared to the rest of the developed world and settling for 2010's version of "fast" in 2025 is ... not how we're goin…

100/20 is barely enough for a household of 3-5 "light" users. What the hell are you doing that 100/20 is "barely enough"?

Work from home? Copy large files?

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#69

FYI to all commenters: the current FCC chair was nominated by Trump>Biden>Trump and unanimously confirmed by the Senate all 3 times.

You can't really read anything into that.

As has already been noted by law there can be no more than 3 commissioners from the same party.

Traditionally when a commissioner's term expired and they were from the party that did not control the Presidency the President would ask the other party's Senate leadership who to nominate and would nominate that person.

Also traditionally the Senators of the President's party would vote to approve that nominee.

Biden followed this tradition, as did the Senate Democrats.

Re: FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices

#70
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it’s all said and done, Americans will have to find the courage to admit the Judicial branch was an utter failure. That whole thing was supposed to be immune to political coercion. I say it will take courage because it got rammed into our heads that God made the constitution, and that it’s infallible. It’s a massive failure through and through. The founding fathers did not protect the branches from each other ne…

> it got rammed into our heads that God made the constitution Article III is light in describing the courts [1]. Our judicial system is mostly a creature of Congress, not the Constitution. I’m personally a fan of choosing by lot, from the appellate bench, a random slate of justices for each case. (That court of rotating judges would be the one in which “the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested”.) You…

The problem is that the executive appoints the lower court judges, so the pool is tainted. A solution to this is probably something everyone needs to start thinking about (the whole problem), because a future democrat or sane republican will need to push a reform onto the court. Biden tried to push term limits before he left. Trump is a pen tester and showed all the cracks, so there's going to have to be a massive repair job of our systems.
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