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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

#71

Post by Medox »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #58
reddotX wrote: post #36

in Romania you can't even get lower than 100Mbs at the largest internet providers (even 100Mbs in some cases) https://www.digi.ro/servicii/internet

I'm I reading that right that a "940/450 Mbps" fiber plan is ~$10 a month??

Yes. And very good coverage too. Even my parents in a small village have fiber at those prices, since 5 years now.

We are basically a giant Lan party since the 2000's and should get a Netflix special/documentary with this script:

https://np.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2ct58s/average_inter...

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

#72

Post by TulliusCicero »

sigstoat wrote: post #68
markovbot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for-profit corporations should not own our communications infrastructure.

can they own our food production infrastructure? how about our clothing industry? home construction? those all represent far more fundamental human needs than communication.

Those things all have much more redundancy than comms. The US has three mobile internet providers (there's also MVNO's, but they use the same physical infrastructure as the big three), and any given home will usually only have access to two or three landline ISP's in terms of infra (e.g. cable, DSL, fiber).

In contrast, food can be shipped in to a city from innumerable farms, ditto for clothing. Home construction, there's lot of different home builders around, it's not a natural monopoly like communication.

For food production, I don't really have to trust any particular two or three farming companies -- if they fuck up, food can be shipped in from elsewhere. Whereas if my local ISP's are exploitative or simply incompetent, what's my recourse?

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

#73

Post by jayd16 »

sigstoat wrote: post #68
markovbot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for-profit corporations should not own our communications infrastructure.

can they own our food production infrastructure? how about our clothing industry? home construction? those all represent far more fundamental human needs than communication.

No one has monopoly control of the infrastructure in those industries. Anyone can buy and farm land, textile plants, etc. Its not possible to simply lay more conduit and compete.

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

#74

Post by function_seven »

sigstoat wrote: post #68
markovbot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for-profit corporations should not own our communications infrastructure.

can they own our food production infrastructure? how about our clothing industry? home construction? those all represent far more fundamental human needs than communication.

What "infrastructure" means needs to be nailed down before this can be discussed.

Internet service is seen as something in the same league as roads, power, water, and other utilities. Things that require public rights of way, extensive digging, cooperations among many jurisdictions or land owners, and special rules to make it all possible.

Clothing, food, and construction are all businesses that don't require that level of centralized coordination. Anyone can open their own bakery, or buy a farm. Anyone can set up sewing machines and purchase fabric, or get a contractors' license and start nailing sticks of wood together. Government still sets standards, of course. But these businesses don't have inherent monopolies the same way infrastructure businesses do.

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

#75

Post by CodeBeater »

CKN23-ARIN wrote: post #44

The letter specifically calls for symmetrical speeds of at least 100Mbps. Let's hope that this is the death of PON-based FTTH.

I'm not trying to be aggressive here (specially since I'm WAY out of my lane when it comes to networking), but what's wrong with PON?

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

#76

Post by ksec »

abstractbarista wrote: post #67
ksec wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>-25/3 Mbps is a very reasonable speed for most people. Except most household have more than 1 person. A family of four sharing 100Mbps isn't a lot. I am not sure if 100Mbps upload is a realistic option in US. But I would at least expect 50Mbps to be minimum per household. DOSCIS 4.0 should be able to handle that.

What's the upload speed in this example? Symmetric 100Mb would be more than fine for 4 people. And just fine with 100/25. However, 100/5 will be stressful.

Personally I think getting 100Mbps defined as broadband upload is a little too harsh. Especially when US infrastructure are so far behind.

DOCSIS 4.0 was ( finally ) finalised last year. And could be pushed for upgrading. But that is just the last mile, Cable companies will still have to ensure fibre roll out. Look at UK. They had a half decent infrastructure with DSL and could have pushed G.Fast, instead they just bite the bullet and pushed FTTP to maximum.

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

#77

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

How much does it cost? Here Spectrum keeps upping the cost during the pandemic, now at $75/m for decent bandwidth.

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

#78

Post by totalZero »

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…

If the issue is link speed symmetry, then cable should be out of the running entirely. Even my phone offers better upload speed than cable in my neighborhood. Same for my parents' place across the country. New money should go to fiber, satellite, wireless, or nothing at all.

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

#79

Post by terrywang »

Paying A$90 (~70 USD) for broadband based on HFC to freestanding house, 100Mbps (downstream) / 40Mbps (upstream), hit by outages from time to time as ISPs are simply NBN resellers, which in turn is a wrapper on top of Telstra's infrastructure. Will be keen to see how Starlink rollout goes down-under.

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

#80

Post by kryogen1c »

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…

> 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.

streaming netflix in HD instead of UHD is 5mbps. 5x3=15, leaving 10 free to download a game. pretty reasonable. the pain was likely that you didnt have a real 25meg pipe, or that there was latency or jitter. a true 25Mbps would have been enough.

> the pandemic and WFH

I think you could make a strong argument that 3meg up is no longer sufficient. we live in an era where duo, facetime, and conference call programs and ubiquitous.

i do not, however, think you could make the argument that changing the download Mbps target from 25 to 100 is the best way to spend billions of dollars in a market that no one would accuse of being saturated and highly competitive.

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