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

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

#191

Post by gruez »

gamepsys wrote: post #132
notfried wrote: post #85

I like they raised the broadband minimum upload speed from 3 to 25Mbps. Spectrum's 300 Mbps broadband is only 10 Mbps up. Let's see how fast they change their statement that "an upload speed of 3 Mbps is enough for most households" [1]. [1: https://www.spectrum.com/resources/internet-wifi/what-is-a-g... ]

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…

>Zoom recommends 3.8Mbps for uploading 1080p video. Being able to do 1080p video conferencing is an expectation of broadband

You can't even get 1080p on zoom unless you're using "Business, Education and Enterprise". Pro and free users are limited to 720p and 360p respectively. Moreover people don't even have 1080p webcams, much less webcams where you can tell the difference between 1080p and 720p. That's not to say there are other reasons for wanting > 3.8 Mb/s up, but "video conferencing" is a poor one.

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

#193

Post by gnicholas »

kerkeslager wrote: post #167

As it turns out, a lot of HN is a lot more for government regulating business when it affects them personally. Have you ever seen an HN thread with so much pro-regulation sentiment?

I have said on several occasions that this is getting out of hand. I was perfectly happy with 20 down, and am now forced to buy 75 because that is the lowest tier that Comcast offers. They keep pushing up the minimum rate so that they can show a high rate of "compliance" with the ever-increasing broadband standard. And of course, they push the price up with every speed increase.

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

#194

Post by sologoub »

gamepsys wrote: post #132
notfried wrote: post #85

I like they raised the broadband minimum upload speed from 3 to 25Mbps. Spectrum's 300 Mbps broadband is only 10 Mbps up. Let's see how fast they change their statement that "an upload speed of 3 Mbps is enough for most households" [1]. [1: https://www.spectrum.com/resources/internet-wifi/what-is-a-g... ]

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…

25Mbps up may be adequate in a pinch, but it’s laughably outdated. Symmetric down/up enables a lot of great use cases including seamless backup. I briefly lived with AT&T fiber symmetric 1gbps (actually more like 940mbps at the router, but close enough). It was a game changer and losing it definitely undid a bunch of great use cases. If you WFH, it’s even more important.

Meanwhile our Swiss friends have 10+gbps to home…

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

#195

Post by gnicholas »

Cody-99 wrote: post #123
dtnewman wrote: post #110

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…

Strange logic IMO. Internet service providers already receive money from the government through grants, loans, and other programs. Opposing increasing the pretty low requirements on ISPs who already receive this money just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Millions of people are getting an increase in their internet speed (including many in this thread!) at the flip of a switch. Seems like a pretty big win. >Anecdot…

> If 40% of the county can't get a basic 100mbit/20mbit internet package then something should be done to address that.

The problem isn't that they're offering higher speeds. The problem is that they're getting rid of lower speeds. I've been repeatedly forced off my old plan as Comcast has sunset them. It appears very clear that their moves are in response to FCC definition changes. I wish I could still have my 25 down service, along with my old price ($19). But I can't! They killed that service years ago, before they killed the 40 down service and the 50 down service. The lowest tier I can buy is 75 down.

I'm all for options, but it's clear that rejiggering the definition of broadband has the (perhaps) unintended side effect of eliminating low-cost options that would be fine for many families.

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

#196

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ghaff wrote: post #109
probably_satan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The idea of usage caps was intensely controversial on sites like this a number of years back because it was mostly related to downloading "Linux distributions" from torrent sites. Today, with the download activity mostly driven by Netflix and other video streaming services, it's mostly untenable (within reason). In a market where so many households have an expectation of essentially unmetered video streaming I'm not…

Data caps have always been a scam because they don't match the economics of providing service. Idle capacity goes to waste, and there is always idle capacity during off-peak hours (that's what off-peak hours are), so deterring usage during those times is wasteful and spiteful.

You could have on-peak data caps, but then you'd have people who e.g. watch an hour of streaming a day hitting them because they do so at the same time as everybody else does, and then the people clamoring about someone else torrenting "all day long" would find themselves hitting the cap, because their usage is during peak hours and what somebody else is doing after midnight or before 4PM is irrelevant.

The better solution is to simply sell connection tiers with different speeds. If you pay for 200Mbps, the network is designed to be able to provide you with 200Mbps during peak hours. Not that you have 200Mbps dedicated but rather that under typical actual aggregate load, there will be 200Mbps of capacity available for someone on your service tier to use. Meanwhile if you try to download something at 3AM, you might get 1000Mbps, because why not? Nobody else is using it. But someone who wants to pay less can buy less expensive slower service -- slower, but only during peak hours. If the person who pays for 50Mbps wants to download something at 3AM, they can get 1000Mbps too, but at 7PM they're getting 50Mbps instead of 200.

The actual reason cable ISPs like data caps is that it discourages people from using video steaming services (which eat up the cap even when used off-peak) rather than subscribing to cable TV (which does not).

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

#197

Post by bufferoverflow »

We have 400 Mbps symmetric with Hotwire, and whenever I do a speedtest, I get at least that much, sometimes it bursts to 600.

But then there's something wrong with their peering or something. Youtube videos randomly buffer even at 1080p. Downloads randomly drop from 400 Mbps to 10. Sometimes the problem lasts an evening, and then goes away. I have no idea.

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

#198

Post by gnicholas »

partiallypro wrote: post #56

My parents to this day still don't have real broadband access. The best they can get is a bad 4G signal to their rural area. Even Starlink only has speeds of 40mbs in their area. They only live about a mile from a fiber line, but AT&T won't run it over because it would only service maybe 10-15 homes, and there are no cable lines. I think this is more common than people think.

What's wrong with 40mbs? I honestly don't need more than 20. The only time I even notice faster speeds is when my podcasts download.

I'm curious what types of situations require more than 40mbps, and why the inability to do those tasks would mean that someone doesn't haver "real broadband access". I was pushed from 50 to 75 a while back and seriously hardly notice it.

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

#199

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

gamepsys wrote: post #132
notfried wrote: post #85

I like they raised the broadband minimum upload speed from 3 to 25Mbps. Spectrum's 300 Mbps broadband is only 10 Mbps up. Let's see how fast they change their statement that "an upload speed of 3 Mbps is enough for most households" [1]. [1: https://www.spectrum.com/resources/internet-wifi/what-is-a-g... ]

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…

It’s also a good opportunity to remind family that bandwidth is cumulative. That is nonobvious to quite a few people I’ve talked to that are not super internet savvy. What I mean by that is that if zoom uses 3.8Mbps that means they probably maximum two people can probably be on a zoom call simultaneously comfortably in a 15 Mbps household while other people are doing regular things. 3 if that’s the only thing happening in the household.
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