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

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 246 posts

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

#21

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…

This statement could be made about a lot of things:

> Imagine how good [most policies] would be if the Senate weren't run by septagenarians and octogenarian.

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

#22

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.

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

#23

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…

Flatrate models usually means that a large majority of users actually covers the costs for a the minority high consumers. It is true that the marginal cost for more transmitted data is almost zero, but the overhead costs of running (and expanding) networks are certainly not. Cost has to be covered and you could very well argue that it makes sense that the large consumers pay more.

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

#24

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…

There is one reason for some caps, which is that you'll always get oversubscription in the cities, and the caps could reflect that to prevent 100% utilisation. They don't have to be so small that people actually think about them. Basically set it at 1TB for residential for the lowest plan and forget about it.

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

#25
post #18

Yes they should, but what will happen is websites and apps will get fatter and sloppier until the end result is slow, laggy performance. It's a bit like doubling your salary and increasing your spending by more than double. That seems to be how website and app development behaves. Imagine if bandwidth increased, latency decreased (approaching theoritical minimums), and websites/apps were built with a strict (but appr…

In my experience most of those slow sites are wordpress.

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

#26

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…

[deleted]

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

#27
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 they promised with it.

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

#28
post #10

Also of interest https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/speed/worldwide-speed-leag... https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/pricing/worldwide-comparis...

According to that map download speeds are nearly twice as fast in the US as they are in South Korea? I don't know where their data is coming from but that sounds awfully suspect.

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

#29
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…

for-profit corporations should not own our communications infrastructure.

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

#30

Nice to see. I would have hoped to see more of a mention around latency. A lot of tools are sensitive to this and a theoretically fat pipe is not useful if you have 100ms+ latencies.

The FCC has been skeptical of the latency of Starlink offerings, which are well below 100ms.

See https://www.pcmag.com/news/fcc-has-serious-doubts-spacex-sta... for an example.

So, it might be that the senators aren't pushing that because the FCC has already been on the ball for latency, and pushing to keep latencies down around 30-40ms

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