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100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

arstechnica.com

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Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#171

Post by relaxing »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #22
totalZero wrote: post #15

Imagine how good our network technology policy would be if the Senate weren't run by septagenarians and octogenarian. I fear that data caps for home internet will become standard. There is no technological reason for these caps. For wireless, they could be defended by arguing that companies only get to use so much spectrum because of FCC laws. But the only limit for home internet is the ISP's willingness to deploy eq…

> Imagine how good our network technology policy would be if the Senate weren't run by septagenarians and octogenarian. The ages of the senators proposing this are 76 (Joe Manchin), 76 (Angus King), 65 (Rob Portman), and 56 (Michael Bennet). 3 of the 4 are older than the median Senator age. None of the 4 are in the youngest 25%. Image how good our opinions of the Senate would be if we based them in facts.

The comment was about who runs the senate, not the proposers.

Of the individuals you named, only Manchin has any chairmanships.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#172

Post by xyzelement »

I am genuinely perplexed reading the comments here about how bad US internet is. Knock on wood, I have basically never felt bandwidth or latency constrained in practical terms once the dial-up days ended.

I forget what plan I pay for with my cable provider but I just tested to 200 Megabit down and 18 up. That sounds low compared to numbers people throw around here but in reality my wife and I are able to Zoom or stream at the same time, browse in parallel and basically never feel any impact of latency. Basically, everything we want to do in real time works in real time and anything large I want to download (eg: linux ISOs) takes just a few seconds. Whatever numbers we are throwing around for comparison just don't seem to be practical concerns.

We're in NYC. With COVID, my coworkers scattered all over the US - east, west and south. Nobody put in a particular effort to look for places based on connectivity quality and yet everyone is able to WFH fine. Everyone moved to either be close to family, to a warmer client, or to skiing and the mountains. And yet somehow everyone ended up with great connectivity that allows us to seamlessly run a large and successful firm.

It's just funny to hear people complain about how bad things are when in reality everything works mainly fine. Like - really - what are you actually unable to do? (I am genuinely curious)

My internet bill is $38 in NYC by the way. RCN cable.

One final thing - it's nonsensical for people to say "I have X connectivity and I am in a Central European village." Obviously... the us installed its infrastructure before you did and it works well enough so we're not going to tear it out and replace it for no reason. You didn't have connectivity until much later so of course you're currently using newer technology. At some point we'll have to upgrade ours and leap ahead of you again.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#174

Post by StillBored »

supertrope wrote: post #135
plantain wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOCSIS 3 (from 2006) can do 100/100 over cable - it's the decision of the provider not the technology.

100 Mbps up requires expanding the uplink band from 5-42MHz to 85MHz. That requires changing outdoor components like amplifier and filters, and upgrading millions of cable TV boxes, splitters and modems inside customers' homes. The combined cost of hiring more technicians and buying boxes might approach the cost of upgrading to fiber. Altice USA decided to skip DOCSIS 3.1 and start dragging fiber.

Which is all stuff they are doing anyway. Cable modems, even when not integrated with wifi don't last more than a couple years before someone adds a couple more channels, or tweaks the spec. Etc, Docsis 3.1 modems were available in the local best buy for probably 5+ years before my cable company would even provision them in docsis 3.0 modes.

They might have some excuses with the amps, but again, those can be upgraded as they age out/die too. This was the excuse 20 years ago when the amps didn't allow any upstream signals through in many areas. If a cable company hasn't been preparing/slowly rolling out new equipment as soon as the specs are available that is their own fault. Like any other technology you either get on the train, or you get left behind.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#175

Post by trissylegs »

Australia has been bee-lining towards faster internet for over a decard. (Which was somewhat sabotaged but changing the "All FTTP" to FTTN leaving most suburbs with substantially worse internet) I just got upgraded to 1000/50... Yes that's 1 Gigabit down and 50 megabits up. This can actually break if your download requires too much Request headers (eg Range requests) it will choke on the upload when downloading at full speed.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#176

Post by thaeli »

rejectfinite wrote: post #64
kryogen1c wrote: post #38

Lets try and suss out some of the multiple issues with US internet: -regulating ISPs as a free market is, to be hyperbolic, a disaster. there is effectively a monopoly in most parts of the country. -25/3 Mbps is a very reasonable speed for most people. the issue is that its provided on a best effort basis that is never maintained for long, if at all. netflix says thats enough to stream UHD[0] -FTA: "Those data points…

>-25/3 Mbps is a very reasonable speed for most people. the issue is that its provided on a best effort basis that is never maintained for long, if at all. netflix says thats enough to stream UHD[0] Yes, for one person. Having lived with a family fo 4 using ADSL, it was not fun when 3 people watched Netflix on their own screens, and having to update a game. Or with the pandemic and WFH, you have maybe 4 people using…

My backup broadband is 25/3; speed tests come in at 35/3. On three weekdays in 2020, there was a major outage on my primary (gigabit) connection and our home network failed over to the backup. This is during COVID, with three family members on video calls simultaneously. We barely noticed each time. A solid, actual 3mbit up is perfectly adequate for home use if you don't go overboard.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#178

Post by lostapathy »

technofiend wrote: post #27
Panino wrote: post #3

> The funding is going to a mix of cable, fiber, and fixed wireless providers, plus SpaceX's Starlink satellite network. I think cable providers should be left out. They were already gifted many billions of dollars in the past for this same basic purpose but they pocketed the money. They can just use the free money they've already been given. Instead, the funding should go to existing munipical fiber ISPs to expand t…

>They were already gifted many billions of dollars in the past for this same basic purpose but they pocketed the money. They can just use the free money they've already been given. I mean they could but they wont, and there was no reason to with Ajit Pai running the place. I daresay they'll have to be sued into compliance to do it now. Not that I object to that: they need to refund the taxpayers' money or do what the…

> there was no reason to with Ajit Pai running the place

This problem goes back WAY farther than Ajit Pai.

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#179

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

new_realist wrote: post #169
bredren wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why starlink is so important. I can not wait to stop paying Comcast.

Why don’t you move to 5G now?

Most of America doesn't have true (mm wave) 5g. About 1/3 of America lacks "5g" entirely. Assuming one does have access it's not financially prudent for most households to buy into 5g when the caps are as low as 100gb/mo.

https://www.androidauthority.com/where-is-5g-available-in-th...

Re: 100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

#180

Post by teach »

lmilcin wrote: post #137

I live in Poland and I am BAFFLED at how bad internet in US, supposedly one of the most developed countries on Earth, is. I have commercial (ie high priority), 600Mbit/120Mbit broadband with extremely stable (under 15ms, over 99% of th time) round trip to most of the Poland, for equivalent of 20 USD per month. I know its not the same everywhere in Poland, but consider I also have three mobile internet plans. One of t…

So Poland has two things going for it:

(1) Poland is a LOT smaller than the United States. It's not much bigger than the state of Wyoming, yet it has more than 60x the population. That makes building infrastructure a lot cheaper and more profitable.

(2) The US had the Internet FIRST. That's not an advantage when it comes to infrastructure. For example, England had roads hundreds of years before the US did, so roads in the United States are quite a bit better. Rome had running water (of a sort) a long time before most anywhere else but I'll bet its water situation today is quite a bit worse on average than most of the United States.

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