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The Internet Cellphones Communications Government Network Republicans United States

Maybe Americans Don't Need Fast Home Internet Service, FCC Suggests (arstechnica.com) 378

Posted by BeauHD from the think-again dept.
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via Ars Technica: Americans might not need a fast home Internet connection, the Federal Communications Commission suggests in a new document. Instead, mobile Internet via a smartphone might be all people need. The suggestion comes in the FCC's annual inquiry into broadband availability. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband (or more formally, "advanced telecommunications capability") is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. If the FCC finds that broadband isn't being deployed quickly enough to everyone, it is required by law to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market."

The FCC found during George W. Bush's presidency that fast Internet service was being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. But during the Obama administration, the FCC determined repeatedly that broadband isn't reaching Americans fast enough, pointing in particular to lagging deployment in rural areas. These analyses did not consider mobile broadband to be a full replacement for a home (or "fixed") Internet connection via cable, fiber, or some other technology. Last year, the FCC updated its analysis with a conclusion that Americans need home and mobile access. Because home Internet connections and smartphones have different capabilities and limitations, Americans should have access to both instead of just one or the other, the FCC concluded under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler. The report goes on to add that with Republican Ajit Pai as chairman of the FCC, "the FCC seems poised to change that policy by declaring that mobile broadband with speeds of 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream is all one needs." Furthermore, "In doing so, the FCC could conclude that broadband is already being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, and thus the organization would take fewer steps to promote deployment and competition."
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Maybe Americans Don't Need Fast Home Internet Service, FCC Suggests More

Maybe Americans Don't Need Fast Home Internet Service, FCC Suggests

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  • There is a difference (Score:3)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:02PM (#54979035)
    Considering something adequate for federal policy is different than 'all people need'.

    • Re:There is a difference (Score:5, Informative)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:07PM (#54979081) Journal

      When the FCC decides that mobile data speeds are all the bandwidth anyone needs, they're basically saying large parts of the United States are fine with the same level of bandwidth to be found in large portions of India.

      • Re:There is a difference (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:37PM (#54979363)

        I'll use my parents as an example as to why this FCC statement is nonsense.

        My parents live about 10 miles outside of a medium sized city in Texas (Waco).

        They have NO data over mobile. They barely have voice connections for cell phone.

        They can't get ANY decent broadband. They use HughesNet, which is essentially modem speeds of 25 years ago for upload, ping times in the seconds, and download speeds at about ISDN levels. That is the ONLY provider that serves their neighborhood (others have come out, checked signal strengths, and told them they're out of luck).

        My dad drives to a McDonald's about 5 miles away to use their pathetic internet connection (by most people's standards), and my Mom goes to a StarBucks in town to get a better internet connection when she wants to do anything other than read text email.

        Regardless of what the FCC currently says, they do NOT have acceptable internet.

        They aren't poor. The service just isn't available in rural Texas (or, I suspect, most rural parts of the USA). We are essentially a 3rd world country, w.r.t. internet, when you get 10 miles away from the city.

        Meanwhile, in Austin, we have Google Fiber.

        • My mother lives about fifteen miles outside of a major city.

          I got her a wireless hotspot because it is 100x faster than her DSL line was. The DSL speed was not going to change anytime soon...

          Also, how do you know your parents cannot get cellular data than where they are? Have you tried a wireless hotspot? They offer better caption and transmission than smart phones do. There are even re-transmitters you can buy - expensive, but if you want faster speed...

          There is no question in my mind now rural users a

        • My parents live about 10 miles outside of a medium sized city in Texas (Waco).

          They have NO data over mobile.

          ...have you tried a high-gain antenna aimed directly at a high-speed cell tower, and a hotspot, for the computers in the house?

          If you're ten miles from Waco, and if Waco has high speed cellular emanating from a tower that is local to the city, then you can definitely get it ten miles away.

          You'll need a directional high-gain antenna, and perhaps a little height above ground, but you can certainly do i

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Xicor ( 2738029 )

        i have absolutely no problems with my mobile data speed( which is like 120mbit/s), my issues are A. latency(which is 100+ms) and B. my 2gigabyte data cap...i use between 600 and 1k per month.

    • Re:There is a difference (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CAOgdin ( 984672 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:29PM (#54979301)

      This is for the benefit of Verizon. The current FCC Chair is Ajit Pai, who took leave from his lawyer job at Verizon to mastermind this kind of crap (and, he's being the Net Neutrality destruction effort.

      We gotta VOTE the kinds of maniacs OUT that appoint these kinds of soulless minions to public office. More "TRUMPcare..." this time, for Internet standards and prices.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rockoon ( 1252108 )
      The previous FCC guy was Tom Wheeler:

      President of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)
      CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

      ..and surprise, he supported dumping public money into both.

      The new FCC guy is Ajit V. Pai:

      Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc.

      ..and surprise, he supports dumping public money into cellular broadband but not any other kind of broadband.

      I dont understand why you suckers dont follow the money. W

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Nikkos ( 544004 )

        At least Wheeler came around and took actions directly against the interests of his prior masters in supporting Title II

        The Obama-Appointed-Republican Pai is still firmly in their pocket. Don't forget that Pai was on the NCTA's legal team for the BrandX case which completely gutted the Telecom's open-access provisions, and he was against the increase of the definition of 'Broadband' from 4mbps to 25mbps just a couple years ago (because 4mbps was enough for a whole family...)

        Anyone who wants to see the twi

    • Looking at average data speeds for my home usage. I found that home network speed seems to double every two years. As the speed increases additional services are offered.
      Saying we are good enough is meaning we as a society are ready to stagnate.

    • Come to think of it, mobile internet access is adequate for Twitter. And that's all anyone should need, right? Case closed.

  • Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ryanrule ( 1657199 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:03PM (#54979043)
    Americans don't need life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jmccue ( 834797 )

      people working in all government agencies can only earn a full salary (including all benefits) equal to the Average Income of people in the US

  • Moving goalposts (Score:5, Funny)

    by thegreatbob ( 693104 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:04PM (#54979051) Journal
    I'd like my internet to move at least as fast as your goalposts, at all times, Pai.

  • Easy Fix (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:04PM (#54979055)
    If you wanted to improve broadband speeds in the U.S. the best solution would be to make it illegal for states or cities to sell monopoly rights to various cable companies or other entities and to allow for cities to form their own municipal providers or networks if they want to.
    • Grandfather rules.
      Comcast already bought all the Monopoly owning Cable distributors.
      That's why they sell shit service with ugly people

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

      Indeed. For example, I am blighted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H SERVED by Comcast. And been promised Verizon Fiber for the last 10 years at this location. And yet have not seen ONE dig crew.

      Areas nearby that AREN'T Cox or Comcast seem to get Fiber. Funny how that works. . .

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAOgdin ( 984672 )

        Big companies want your money, and they'll do as little as possible to get it.

        Other companies, not run by oligarchs, want to provide good service for a fair income.

        There's a difference. And, it's why large corporations tend to be able to create rules that block others from competing in "their" territory. You gotta make your local government more willing to see that people get better service, instead of having some public officials' palms greased.

        • Yep.

          This is why I prefer doing business with smaller companies, even if they cost a bit more. They're much less likely to try to screw you.

    • If you wanted to improve broadband speeds in the U.S. the best solution would be to make it illegal for states or cities to sell monopoly rights to various cable companies or other entities and to allow for cities to form their own municipal providers or networks if they want to.

      The intent of the FCC policy in the article is not for improving speeds, but rather increasing access to broadband at at defined minimum speed.

      However, on the other topic of improving broadband speed, I agree that better methods to set up competition such as municipal or common infrastructure would be nice to see.

      • Re:Easy Fix (Score:5, Insightful)

        by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:29PM (#54979303) Homepage Journal

        The intent of the FCC policy in the article is not for improving speeds, but rather increasing access to broadband at at defined minimum speed.

        And that minimum speed is pitifully low by Western country standards, and now lowered even further, at prices people cannot afford.

        I have to attend video meetings from home, or drive in to work in the middle of the night. Not fun.
        I also bought a 4k TV. But speeds are too slow for me to get the 4k programs from Netflix and Amazon.

        I'm so proud to live in these United States of America, where we put a man on the moon almost fifty years ago, and now can't even lift a man to orbit. Where we still use checks, and phenomena like homeless people and disenfranchisement still exist. And where "up to" speeds of 10/1 Mbps are considered high speed.
        Anyone who hasn't figured out that USA is on the decline and has been overtaken by a great many countries already are blind.

        • I dunno about that, seems we're ahead of most of the EU [wikipedia.org], and most of the rest of the world.... Sure, there are 12 others ahead of us, but that is a far cry from being "pitifully low by Western country standards".

          • Re:Easy Fix (Score:4)

            by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:52PM (#54980225) Homepage

            Actually the US is up to 10th place in the 2017 Q1 [akamai.com] figures. It's unevenly distributed though, the US is 37th in >4 Mbps adoption. Even Russia got you beat in 33rd place. And I think that's reflected in a lot of the discussions here, either you got competition and it's great or you don't and it's terrible. By the way, Akamai's figures are way below the national statistic on what people have. Here in Norway I see it reports the average connection as 23.5 Mbps. According to the national statistics the mean broadband connection is now 59.5 Mbps, the median 31.5 Mbps. Here 44% of the population is now on fiber and increasing rapidly, though the normal speed tier is still 100-150 Mbps. Gigabit is still very rare, even though it's available for quite many.

            • Actually the US is up to 10th place in the 2017 Q1 [akamai.com] figures. It's unevenly distributed though, the US is 37th in >4 Mbps adoption. Even Russia got you beat in 33rd place. And I think that's reflected in a lot of the discussions here, either you got competition and it's great or you don't and it's terrible.

              Or maybe a lot of people choose the lower speeds. The neighborhood where I live has ~60% of the people over the age of 50, and many are retired, and most are perfectly happy with Dish and 10 Mbps connections. They like it - it does what they need. Only a few of us have >100 Mbps connections because we want them. I think the average probably reflects most of this - it's high because of a smallish number of people who want lots of fast bandwidth, and most people are perfectly fine with 4-5 Mbps because

        • And that minimum speed is pitifully low by Western country standards, and now lowered even further, at prices people cannot afford.

          What is the minimum speed requirement in other countries to be counted as broadband? I agree the big concern is affordability, and data caps as well, when it comes to wireless.

      • The intent of the FCC policy in the article is not for improving speeds, but rather increasing access to broadband at at defined minimum speed.

        But achieving that goal by redefining the minimum speed is simply cheating. And lying.

        • The intent of the FCC policy in the article is not for improving speeds, but rather increasing access to broadband at at defined minimum speed.

          But achieving that goal by redefining the minimum speed is simply cheating. And lying.

          That speed used to be lower at one time. Do you believe that 10 mbps is not enough as an absolute minimum to be counted as broadband? That's the fundamental question you should be arguing.

      • You can't guarantee everyone some kind of minimum speed. Some people like to live way out in the sticks to get away from everyone else. That's fine, that's their decision, but as a consequence of that, they might not have as many options for high speed internet, but if they really want it they can pay their own hard earned money for someone to run the cable and supply service.

        You could argue that ensuring access to food is far more important than making sure people have high speed internet, but I don't t

        • You can't guarantee everyone some kind of minimum speed. Some people like to live way out in the sticks to get away from everyone else. That's fine, that's their decision, but as a consequence of that, they might not have as many options for high speed internet, but if they really want it they can pay their own hard earned money for someone to run the cable and supply service.

          Agree to some extent, but sometimes that itself is not a realistic option. All this FCC requirement says is the home must have 10mpbs available to be counted having broadband available.

    • If you wanted to improve broadband speeds in the U.S. the best solution would be to make it illegal for states or cities to sell monopoly rights to various cable companies

      You mean like 47 CFR 5 [gpo.gov], which says in part:

      (a) Authority to award franchises; public rights-of-way and easements; equal access to service; time for provision of service; assurances
      (1) A franchising authority may award, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, 1 or more franchises within its jurisdiction; except that a franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise and may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise.

      You mean like that law, which was enac

  • Can't fall behind (Score:3)

    by Gabest ( 852807 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:09PM (#54979103)
    If the rest of the world has gigabit fiber at home, services will be optimized for that, and you will be excluded with your mobile plan.
  • The guest wireless network at the government facility I work at has a download speed of 30Mbps and an upload speed of 70Mbps. O_o

  • I'll take it! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:12PM (#54979133) Journal

    I for one would take reliability over speed. Reliability is a big problem with our current 1.4 choices of providers.

    • I have no problem with reliability.

      But I would give up both some reliability and some speed if it meant I didn't have to do business with Comcast (or their ilk) anymore.

  • Maybe mobile would be a solution if we didn't have such horrendous internet on our cell phones or the data caps / throttling of most providers.

    • Maybe mobile would be a solution if we didn't have such horrendous internet on our cell phones or the data caps / throttling of most providers.

      That's they key concern. 10mpbs up/down isn't really that bad if you have no other options. It lets you handle just about any productivity task a normal person would need, it falls short for entertainment. But is it accessible for a reasonable cost compared to other home access costs like for cable? No. That is the problem with cell wireless plans.

  • A case of changing the problem... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:14PM (#54979157)
    ... to fit the lack of solution.
  • If you lower the bar, that means you're already meeting requirements, and you don't need to work as hard.
    Brilliant!

  • It's easy to Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:15PM (#54979165)

    Just change the definition of "Great".

  • Gee. Why did we bother moving beyond ISDN? I mean that was teh awesome. You could even get two lines for twice the price.

    Would it be helpful to point out that South Korea has gigabit service now to most homes? In the United states we can't have that it seems because MAGA or something.

    My Comcast service has >100Mbit download and has been very reliable. Enough so that I can do video Skype and WebEx to Asian and European countries where they permit it. Why would anyone accept anything less than that

  • Simple Solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:17PM (#54979179)

    The FCC board members should be required by law to use the speed they deem "adequate" for others at home and at work.

  • Cable company conspiracy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by qzzpjs ( 1224510 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:23PM (#54979239)

    Is it possible that this is the cable companies lobbying the FCC to try and make sure people don't have the bandwidth to stream all their TV shows and cut the cord? The funny thing is, these cable companies are the same ones providing the Internet in most cases so they're not actually losing the customer.

  • Why does the FCC hate the American people so much? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JohnFen ( 1641097 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:23PM (#54979241)

    Internet access in the US is already a joke compared with most other industrialized nations, and has been for years now.

    Not content with showing their contempt for the citizenry with their net neutrality positions, now they're arguing that the US should remain in the backwater as a matter of official policy?

    This is ridiculous. We already pay more for less than other nations, and the FCC wants us to pay even more for even less.

    • Why does the FCC hate the American people so much?

      Oh no Citizen, you misunderstand! The FCC loves the American people! Because the Telecoms hoover money out of their pockets for overpriced underperforming Internet connectivity, and they put that money right into Ajit Pai's pocket! The FCC wouldn't be able to make their yacht payments without the American people!

    • Re:Why does the FCC hate the American people so mu (Score:5, Informative)

      by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:13PM (#54979631)
      The FCC is run by a guy who works(ed?) for Verizon. That's why. Simple corruption.

    • Internet access in the US is already a joke compared with most other industrialized nations, and has been for years now.

      I see that claim a lot, but the data seems contrary [wikipedia.org], in that the US is ahead of most of the EU, and most of the rest of the world.

    • this isn't really hard. We elected somebody who's pro-business/anti-consumer. This is absolutely nothing we should have expected. Trump and his party have decades of this behavior. There's a joke about face eating leopards [google.com] making the rounds that explains the phenomenon more humorously.

  • Ajit Pai. . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Idou ( 572394 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:26PM (#54979263) Journal
    Is a PoS human being. I mean that in the most apolitical way possible. He does not just suck at his job. . . he sucks at being an individual member of our species. The less he "tries" the better off the human race will be. . . Seriously, we would be better off just paying him off at this point to not do anything else (I guess we would have to pay him more than what he currently is no doubt collecting to screw us over. . .).

    "Ajit Pai" should now be the technical term for extremely painful and angry jock-itch between the upper thigh and testicles. . . We've got a real bad case of Ajit Pai. . . something really nasty. . .

    • Re: Ajit Pai. . . (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WheezyJoe ( 1168567 ) <fegg@excite.cCOFFEEom minus caffeine> on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:17PM (#54980031)

      "Ajit Pai" should now be the technical term for extremely painful and angry jock-itch between the upper thigh and testicles. . . .

      a lovely thought, truly, but the world also needs "Ajit Pai" as a term for a political ass-kisser who happily accepts a position of authority over something, only to deliberately cripple that thing... yet still say with a straight face in public that he's made it better.
      No conscience, no sense of irony, no imagination, no moral compass, no sense for potential, and fuck-well no thought for making life better for anyone other than himself. Not a fucking thing, so long as he's first in line to catch the scraps off whatever politician he's sucking up to.

      That's an Ajit-Pai. Easier to pronounce and less elitist than "sycophantic hypocrite", and with more meaning.

    • but shouldn't you be more angry at the man who empowered him, e.g. Donald Trump? Or the party that empowered him (the Republicans)? He was picked to do a job because the folks who picked him knew he'd do it and now he's doing it. It's like getting mad at a red light camera. You shouldn't be mad at the camera, you should be mad at the bastards that put it there.

  • I don't think I've ever heard anyone under the age of 70 say "Gee I wish my Internet was slower"

    10MB down is pretty close to being the minimum I'd ever want to try and use these days.

    If you have more than 1 user, or are a 4K streaming service user, you'll be pretty disappointed with 10MB.

    Instead of backtracking from their previous 25MB down, as a benchmark, why not come up with a plan to actually improve service?

    There are still many places in the US where 1MB down isn't possible to purchase.

  • didn't I hear this from Bill? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @05:32PM (#54979323) Homepage Journal

    "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates, Seattle, 1981

    But hilarious comparison aside, these clowns are just trying to find a way to justify the universally-hated stance that we don't need net neutrality. Mr T's just in the business of appointing yes-men that either always agree with him or get replaced immediately, Pai's just one of the team - there's no point in trying to reason with that, you'll never get anywhere. Not with facts, not with evidence, not with contrary public opinion of any magnitude. These people haven't been hired to be experts or critical thinkers, they were hired to be yes-men, and none of your facts matter.

  • Ugh, what a shill that Ajit Pai is. Really? This is your solution to poor adoption of broadband wired internet connections? Push everyone onto mobile broadband with nasty data caps, throttling and overage charges?

    Really? Could you at least sort of even try to appear to not be a total Verizon shill? Wow.

    Well, Trump did say he'd Make America Great Again. He just didn't tell us which parts of America. All he's done in my book is Make America Groan Again. And again. And again. And again.

    • What is wrong with saying Rural users are better served by cellular internet, when they can get MUCH faster speeds? Sure the data caps are bad, but the why not push to get those raised for rural users instead of damning rural users to an even worse cable model hell than city users have... At least you can choose cellular providers!

      • What is wrong with saying Rural users are better served by cellular internet, when they can get MUCH faster speeds? Sure the data caps are bad, but the why not push to get those raised for rural users instead of damning rural users to an even worse cable model hell than city users have... At least you can choose cellular providers!

        That would be fine... if anyone did any pushing. But I wouldn't hold your breath on that. There's also the problem of cellular dead zones, bandwidth saturation, even weather can drop your LTE to 2G, or a tornado might knock out your tower and there's no plans to fix it until whenever. Wireless is no miracle cure... it's a profit-center for four corporations, until such time as Ajit Pai approves a merger to make them three, two, and finally just one (because DSL's all the competition any American needs).

  • We have no mobile, no cell service either. Also no cable. Only service option is local telco which is very expensive and not very fast. No satellite either due to the mountains.

    • Well, if it is important to you, there is fiber on the transmission line a half-mile up the road from you. Might not be economically viable for just yourself, but you could always put a tower up and you should have line of sight to town.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        Wrong. It is a mile and a half, not half a mile.

        Interesting that you think have any idea about it thought. So were you just guessing and simply wrong? I'm curious.

  • So... (Score:2)

    by Xyrus ( 755017 )

    Ashit Pai McFuckface wants to actively make America suck even more when it comes to broadband?

    I guess with Trump in power this is just par for the course. Make America Fail Again. Let's sabotage our infrastructure, our education, our science, and technology. Let's redefine broadband to dial-up speeds and pretend that's "good enough" while every other developed country gets 1 Gb fiber. That will certainly put us ahead in the world.

    America. We've got the best substandard you can buy.

  • Mobile network latency is terrible (Score:3)

    by doug141 ( 863552 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:02PM (#54979563)

    Three times worse than cable internet. Matters for gaming.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Matters for video and voice as well.
      Good luck telecommuting when you're choppy as heck and way behind on the conversation.

  • What fantasyland do you live int, summary writer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:21PM (#54979697)

    You are suggesting people who use cellular for internet are getting lower speeds.

    Well obviously the ones whom this pertains to are the rural users, right? Since in larger cities you can just get a cable modem or DSL lines...

    Well I am here to tell you, for truly rural users where MAYBE they can get a DSL line, cellular internet is a godsend as it is 10-100x faster than what they can get today.

    My mother lives not that far outside a major city, but all she could get was DSL - a weak line that often capped out at something like 50k/sec.

    That's no typo, that's not MB/s, it was literally at times about like using a modem.

    It was so slow she could only use a very old Netflix client on the original AppleTV because modern players would just give up.

    I finally ended up getting her a T-Mobile hotspot, because it tests at her house my phone was getting 2 MB/s download. The actual hotspot does an even better job, getting more like 3-5 MB/s download and a respectable 2MB/s or so up.

    After just a month of testing both, she scrapped the DSL line (which cost about the same as the mobile hotspot per month).

    Now there is a downside - A fairly low data cap compared to most cable modem or DSL plans, she has about 10GB of data per month after which the connection slows. But that has been enough to stream all the Netflix she wants and do occasional device software updates.

    So do not claim you are some champion of speed by scoffing at cellular internet. For rural users I am now convinced it is the final solution rather than running expensive cable that will never be maintained well. Instead work on regulations for something like mandatorily higher data caps for those that truly live in remote locations and have to rely on cellular for internet,

  • Our employees all have CrashPlan ProE software on their laptops so we can keep a constant backup of their desktop items, documents folder and so on. The last time I had a computer crash, it was while someone was traveling out of town to visit clients. I was able to overnight them a replacement laptop but they still needed to restore their personal data to it. The Internet access was so slow at their hotel and at the various coffee houses or restaurants in the area they attempted to use, they simply couldn'

  • Australia said this (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:27PM (#54979757)

    Australia used this excuse back when they were number 38 in the global internet speeds. Where are they now? No one knows because Akamai only publish the top 50.

    Just came here to visit. Currently staying 4km from the city center of 2.5million people and downloading at the blazing speeds of 10mbps, only 1/5th of my *upload* speed back in Europe.

    Don't cut the cord yet Americans. Netflix doesn't do well at these speeds.

  • Yet another republican plan... to bring us back to the middle ages as fast as possible. Next the FCC will say that smoke signals are good enough.

  • need safe water to drink, clean air to breathe, health care, education, bridges that don't fall down, roads without pot holes, or any of that other crap the government previously forced upon us, either.

    All we need are nukes and bankers who are free to create wealth for all of us. And that wall between us and Mexico...

  • I purposely downgraded my internet to 10/1 to save money. I don't miss faster service at all. It would be better for the government to focus on getting broadband to the rural people still stuck on dialup/satellite than to focus on increasing the speed of broadband.

  • So, most customers don't *need* blazing fast speeds...The thing is, people *want* it, and in a capitalist society, you service the market. The problem is, the big ISPs have lobbied to crush any competition, meaning the market that desires blazing fast speed can't get it. They can't even *set it up* to offer it to others. THAT is the problem people have with the big ISPs.

  • Pitch forks for sale! (Score:3)

    by TheOuterLinux ( 4778741 ) on Thursday August 10, 2017 @12:46AM (#54981325) Homepage
    Get them while they're sharp!

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