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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

#91

Post by toast0 »

oivey wrote: post #15
reaperman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be fine with 99.9% availability to my house. That means it's down for at most 9 hours per year. That's probably on par with how much my electricity goes out during an average winter. But what they mean by "99.9% network-wide availability" and what I mean by "99.9% availability to my house" are very, very different things.

That’s crazy. If my electric was out for that long consistently I’d lose my shit. That’s totally unacceptable.

Don't live in the PNW then. Soil conditions make undergrounding utilities very expensive, and there's lots of trees near power lines. My first winter we had a 60 hour stretch with no utility power. The CenturyLink DSL remote terminal has no batteries, so if I lose utility power, I also usually lose internet (but I've had two power outages due to a downed line between the RT and my house so far). Most of the cell towers have batteries, but only 2-4 hours worth and then I've got no comms. My house has a backup generator, but it doesn't serve the well, so if I want water, I've got to drag a portable generator out there. A lot of my neighbors have generators, but not all of them.

Oh, and then there was the time a building contractor accidentally took out the underwater cable connecting CenturyLink to Seattle... turns out they don't have multiple paths for that, that was about 48 hours of no internet for me there too. I remember some cell towers didn't work, but I can't remember if it was by tower or by carrier.

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

#92

Post by Cody-99 »

rsynnott wrote: post #63
cogman10 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you pay for internet? Maybe you should be directing your ire elsewhere. I currently pay $60/month for 600 down. An ISP that actually struggles to provide 100mbps down at a reasonable rate, today, is simply one that refuses to update their hardware. 100mbps is not hard to achieve with semi-modern hardware. I know of ISPs servicing remote small communities with 1gbps down at $100/month. 300 down for $30/mon…

It’s less a hardware problem and more a medium problem; to go over 100Mbit/sec reliably you’re realistically looking at fibre (or maybe coax, but coax isn’t particularly cost-effective or practical in the rural areas that tend to have problems in this direction.)

DOCSIS has been able to push 100Mbit/s over coax for nearly 2 decades.

Hanging fiber isn't really a complex process anymore anyways. We already run power to basically everywhere people live so hanging some fiber as you go isn't that hard. Electric coops have been receiving federal funding to hang fiber in even the most rural areas for the last 8-10 years with great success.

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

#93

Post by daedrdev »

oivey wrote: post #15
reaperman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be fine with 99.9% availability to my house. That means it's down for at most 9 hours per year. That's probably on par with how much my electricity goes out during an average winter. But what they mean by "99.9% network-wide availability" and what I mean by "99.9% availability to my house" are very, very different things.

That’s crazy. If my electric was out for that long consistently I’d lose my shit. That’s totally unacceptable.

Its hard to prevent all power lines from going down in a storm, and as a bonus it would take down your internet as well, messing with its 9s

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

#94

Post by tootie »

devindotcom wrote: post #52

That explains why I got this email from my broadband provider this morning: >We've increased your internet speeds to show you our appreciation I was wondering what I'd done to deserve it!

Verizon bumped me to gigabit for no good reason a few years ago. I think I had only signed up for 50 initially. I clocked it at 800/800 but I'm not going to complain.

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

#95

Post by chandlerswift »

devindotcom wrote: post #52

That explains why I got this email from my broadband provider this morning: >We've increased your internet speeds to show you our appreciation I was wondering what I'd done to deserve it!

I got the same message, also from Xfinity. It does sort of make me wonder: If the FCC declared broadband to be 100/50, would I have 50mbps upload speeds this morning?

To me, this seems to be a clear positive outcome of the FCC's change: Xfinity had this capacity, the FCC raised their standards, and now all(?) Xfinity customers have increased upload speeds for zero additional cost. Seems like pretty much a best-case result of this metric increase.

Edit: Formerly 200/10, now 300/20. Email arrived 10am today.

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

#97

Post by Dylan16807 »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #25
hedora wrote: post #5

With how many 9's of availability, and at what latency? Frontier is advertising 3 nines average network-wide availability for their new fiber network. Three nines is completely unacceptable, but our neighborhood barely got one nine last year. Based on their current behavior, there's zero chance of them providing the bandwidths they're advertising for the new build out, even when the network is completely up and compl…

3 9s is completely fine. Internet is not subject to the 911 uptime requirements. 3 9s is essentially an outage or two from a major storm. That’s fine for residential internet.

> 3 9s is completely fine. Internet is not subject to the 911 uptime requirements.

It's all going over the same wire. Why not put in the extra fraction of effort?

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

#98

Post by jltsiren »

uxp100 wrote: post #71
tomrod wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 nines is reasonable, 5 nines a good target. ISPs have become utilities, especially since covid.

My electrical utility does not hit 4 nines, maybe not even 3. Water and sewer? Definitely.

5 nines is reasonable for electricity, if you live in an urban area with no extreme weather or other major natural hazards. When I was still living in Helsinki, blackouts were basically an once-in-a-decade thing, and they didn't last long.

Today in California, I'm getting 3 nines in an urban area. Those living a couple of blocks further towards the suburbs are not so lucky. And many people in the mountains don't get even 2 nines.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

chandlerswift wrote: post #95
devindotcom wrote: post #52

That explains why I got this email from my broadband provider this morning: >We've increased your internet speeds to show you our appreciation I was wondering what I'd done to deserve it!

I got the same message, also from Xfinity. It does sort of make me wonder: If the FCC declared broadband to be 100/50, would I have 50mbps upload speeds this morning? To me, this seems to be a clear positive outcome of the FCC's change: Xfinity had this capacity, the FCC raised their standards, and now all(?) Xfinity customers have increased upload speeds for zero additional cost. Seems like pretty much a best-case r…

[deleted]
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