Microsoft's New Study Finds 162.8 Million People in the US Do Not Use the Internet at Broadband Speeds, Up From FCC's 24.7 Million Estimate (nytimes.com) 132
An anonymous reader shares a report: A new study by Microsoft researchers casts a light on the actual use of high-speed internet across the country, and the picture it presents is very different from the F.C.C. numbers. Their analysis, presented at a Microsoft event on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., suggests that the speedy access is much more limited than the F.C.C. data shows.
Over all, Microsoft concluded that 162.8 million people do not use the internet at broadband speeds, while the F.C.C. says broadband is not available to 24.7 million Americans. The discrepancy is particularly stark in rural areas. In Ferry County, for example, Microsoft estimates that only 2 percent of people use broadband service, versus the 100 percent the federal government says have access to the service.
[...] Accurate measurements on the reach of broadband matter because the government's statistics are used to guide policy and channel federal funding for underserved areas. "It's a huge problem," said Phillip Berenbroick, a telecommunications expert at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit technology policy group. "The result is that we're not getting broadband coverage and funding to areas that really need it."
Over all, Microsoft concluded that 162.8 million people do not use the internet at broadband speeds, while the F.C.C. says broadband is not available to 24.7 million Americans. The discrepancy is particularly stark in rural areas. In Ferry County, for example, Microsoft estimates that only 2 percent of people use broadband service, versus the 100 percent the federal government says have access to the service.
[...] Accurate measurements on the reach of broadband matter because the government's statistics are used to guide policy and channel federal funding for underserved areas. "It's a huge problem," said Phillip Berenbroick, a telecommunications expert at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit technology policy group. "The result is that we're not getting broadband coverage and funding to areas that really need it."
Access (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a big difference between having access to something and being able - or inclined - to use it. Its like the difference between a food desert (somewhere with no accessible grocery stores) and people not being able to afford to visit the supermarket next door.
The questions about why people who theoretically have access aren't using it will be interesting and hotly debated, but at the end of the day it won't change the fact that, today at least, they're not.
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Most rural people can go out to their phone box and see that it is a network terminal. That means DSL is available there. But the DSL offered is a stretch of the imagination on definition of broadband. And it is expensive too. So this rural observation, that covers northern Ohio, southern Michigan, and eastern Indiana, tells me that $64 dollars a month isn't worth the shitty 3 Mbit "broadband" speed. Even those lucky individuals who get 10 Mbit, it still isn't work $64. Really lucky individuals who ge
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My parents can pay for DSL; there's a DSLAM 800yds from their house, or they can use a cell phone. Cell phone is already paid for and works better than the phone company ever has.
A cell phone's screen is also tiny, its operating system limiting, and carriers tend to charge extra for use with a computer.
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Hotspot costs extra (Score:2)
carriers tend to charge extra for use with a computer.
they also have a feature called "hot spot" that allows other devices to access the phone's internet connection via wifi.
Hotspot is the feature to which I was referring. Cellular carriers in the United States tend to charge extra for a plan that includes hotspot use, particularly one with enough hotspot use in a month to support multiple downloads of a multi-gigabyte semiannual upgrade to the next point release of Ubuntu or Windows 10.
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I could get 25/5 from comcast but it'd be $80/mo ...
it's worth many,many dollars a month a month to me NOT to deal with Comcast ever again. I've been in and worked with the military, dealt with bureaucracies of all sorts, worked as an outside contractor in a government IT operation. I've never seen anything remotely like Comcast. I think Comcast staff meetings probably start and end with readings from Kafka's "The Castle". Needless to say, Comcast customer service leaves a lot to be desired.
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Broadband should be a minimum of 25mb/s down 25mb/s up.
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I don't even get 25mbs down. I pay for 20Mbps but get 24. I used to have 12Mbps and I could stream HD TV just fine with that. I don't really see the need to go faster for the large increase in cost this would entail.
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Pretty much this. I lived in the middle-of-nowhere Montana for about a year. The house had DSL, literally the only service available. The phone line quality on the poles was so ungodly shitty, service would cut out or have massive packet loss in just about any non-perfect weather condition. But, we counted as "having broadband service" despite it working very slowly and unreliably.
But that's okay though, the internet gods forgave me. After moving back to the Seattle area, they blessed me with symmetrical gi
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3MHz is enough for people who don't watch much video. The bigger problem with DSL is its short usable range from the switch. Most rural farmhouses are not in DSL switch range even though the copper is there.
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My mother gets 1Mbit on her u-verse DSL, and lives in a town. That's still better than the standard DSL I had that was 768kbit, but still a whole lot less than my u-verse. She doesn't stream anything and just uses the web so that's fast enough. I wouldn't call it broadband though. She could get broadband, but it means having the cable company run a cable from the closest box and the final monthly price would be far outside of her budget.
Not sure if mobile phones help here, the monthly cost on them for a
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ISPs will also often serve one house in a zip code and then report that entire zip code as "covered." So your house might be listed as being able to get broadband speeds but in reality nobody in your area code - save for one lucky individual - can get those speeds.
Either that or they'll promise "up to 100mbps" but only actually deliver 10mpbs. They aren't technically breaking their promise because your speeds definitely would go to 100mbps if everything lined up for you perfectly, but you won't ever really
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And it's always "call to check for availability", because they won't tell you what speeds you will likely get until you're on the hook with a heavy hitting sales person.
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Up 'til a decade ago, the FCC used a bizarre system where everyone in a ZIP code was assumed to have access to the highest speed connection in use by anyone in that ZIP code -- typically an expensive business line of some surt. The resulting broadband penetration numbers were described by one of the FCC's commissioners as "Stunningly Meaningless".
I believe that after being laughed at for long enough, they switched to some less ludicrous methodology. But I don't know what it is.
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The FCC has a "summarization" method.... The country is divided into map squares, each of which is approximately the size of a county or half of a county. If ANY household, even just one or two in that entire geographic square has any kind of broadband service available, then the square is colored to available
broadband speed based on the Highest speed available to ANY household in that square --- Also, when counting competition - the total number providers that can deliver qualified
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I pay taxes, I ask for broadband to be an open access privately held utility with absolute net neutrality without exception. I'm prepared to do anything including organized and sanely administered armed resistance to get it. I get stuck with what you assholes are willing to pay, ask, and fight for.
That's why everything goes further and further down shit lane.
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Do you want a truly neutral internet? Or do you want Net Neutrality(tm) loaded with loopholes and allowances for ISPs to censor speech and block unpopular content?
Because it seems like those two things get conflated quite often around here.
I want the first thing. But it seems like most everyone nowadays wants their content protected, but the ones they disagree with/find abhorrent/feel cognitive dissonance from or feel "uncomfortable" from to be blocked wholesale.
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"MS said only 16.2m"
MS said 168.2m not 16.2m. And if broadband is available but 5-10x the cost of the same rate in other areas where usage is higher, it isn't really available in any meaningful way.
Paying For It...Don't Have It. (Score:2)
It's highly likely that many of those people are actually paying for a package that the providers label broadband, but actually isn't broadband speed, or, the cable loops are so congested broadband speed is impossible.
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My only broadband offering is satellite. And the satellite providers know it and are actually pricing accordingly! The price points for packages go up or down drastically depending on your location (even within the same general area). In some cases they have removed all their low-cost plans and won't offer them to rural areas because they know they've got ya.
Most people don't see a value in paying $70 a month for reasonable internet. Yet that's th
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Pai is a liar and is doing to the FCC exactly what Trump is doing to the country. But hey, he's got a big cool mug he drinks from.
Because your life has changed so much for the worse in the last two years, amirite?
I can only assume, based on your comment, that the fixed-line broadband companies were just beating down your door to run a cable a hundred kilometers out into the woods before November of 2016, but that dag-nabbed Pai and the BadOrangeMan came along and forced them to stop, right?
For fuck's sake, not everything is political. Some things make little economic sense regardless of who is currently the government figurehead. Unle
Food desert = no produce for 1.6 km (Score:2)
A food desert [wikipedia.org] is a place where many people lack access to fresh produce within reasonable walking distance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service maintains a map of census tracts classified as food deserts [usda.gov].
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In order to count toward not being part of a food desert, these "grocery or convenience stores that sell fresh fruit and vegetables" have to be within 1 mile* of people. In addition, a recently established grocery store might take a while to show up on the survey. For example, an ALDI store near me moved to a different shopping center, and the survey might not have picked it up yet. So which such "areas" are you talking about?
* Or 10 miles in "rural" census tracts.
THere are three legal categories (Score:2)
The FTC has three legally ensconced terms for tiers of service that can be used in advertising to describe speed
tier 1. top 1/3 of data rates "broadband"
tier 2. middle 1/3, "Frustrating"
tier 3. bottom 1/3. "time to find another ISP"
If we could just enforce these terms and require them in product descriptions then the problem would solve itself.
It's a cost issue (Score:2)
I have 3M/0.5Mbit DSL which is fine because I am not interested in streaming. AT&T would love to sell me fiber ( I had to tell them to stop the junk mail), but that will always cost more, and while the improved speed and page refresh latency would be nice, I ain't payin' for it.
Given how useful broadband is (Score:2)
It's like that voter fraud going on right now in North Carolina. Nobody outside the GOP is going to say "We should investigate why a 61% Democrat district only polled for the Democrat candidate at 19%". There's noone alive who can't see that as fishy. And that's only a factor of 3...
For
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The questions about why people who theoretically have access aren't using it will be interesting and hotly debated
If they don't HAVE broadband, then they also don't have access to it ---- they might have the theoretical possibility of purchasing it, but they haven't purchased it..... Either because (A) The supplier won't sell it too them, (C) The supplier limits their use of it --- for example 2GB Data Cap then you're slowed to 600k, or (C) They're not willing to pay the price the supplier demand
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For many years in the '90s my neighborhood did not actually have broadband, but the cable company said we did right up until I tried to order it. That didn't stop them from carpet bombing TV and my mailbox with ads for it.
Definitions please... (Score:4, Interesting)
Over all, Microsoft concluded that 162.8 million people do not use the internet at broadband speeds, while the F.C.C. says broadband is not available to 24.7 million Americans.
What does the term "broadband" refer to exactly?
What I know is that compared to what it was defined as in the early 2000s isn't the same today.
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Definition of "broadband" changed in 2015 (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2015, the FCC upped the definition of "broadband" from 4 Mbps to 25 Mbps (https://broadbandnow.com/report/fcc-broadband-definition/)
In the New York Times article, statistical truth is obscured by political mission.
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In 2015, the FCC upped the definition of "broadband" from 4 Mbps to 25 Mbps
And the current FCC wants to lower that to 1 Mbps so they can claim everyone HAS broadband.
AT&T wants to claim 90% of the US population DOESN'T have broadband so they can get government (read taxpayer) money to "improve" service (read dividends)
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Oh Jesus Christ this is terrible. People who live in rural areas might have to stream their Netflix at 720P. Clearly what's needed is a lot of government spending.
Re: Definition of "broadband" changed in 2015 (Score:3)
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I don't think the FCC updated their defination (Score:2)
Put another way, could you go from 56k to 300 baud in 1995? How about 150 baud? Would you even consider that "Internet" at that point?
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What does the term "broadband" refer to exactly?
The exact definition of broadband: My wife and daughter can stream two different movies while I can still get work done.
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The exact definition of broadband: My wife and daughter can stream two different movies while I can still get work done.
I like it, but it will never play in Washington - too practical and easy to understand!
What are the 'official' criteria... (Score:4, Interesting)
...for what can be called 'Broadband'?
I seem to recall they actually lowered the bar at some point.
Another question: Why is Ajit Pai such a deceitful son of a bitch? Was he born that way, or did he have to work at it?
Re: What are the 'official' criteria... (Score:1)
According to the FCC, 25Mbps.
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Thank you. I got along for years with 5Mbps DSL out here in the sticks. But for some reason, the phone company ran fiber up my Class 6 (not town maintained) dirt road, and as of this spring I am running with 300Mbps fiber. What a difference! But I would have noticed a big difference at 25Mbps, I'll bet.
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I think around 10-20Mb/s is where you start to hit diminishing returns. That's enough to stream HD and not completely kill everything else that you're doing. I remember as a student we decided to pay extra to get the entire 1Mb/s that our cable company offered (their standard package was 512Kb/s) for a shared house. It was a huge difference from the modem (56Kb/s in theory, 33.6Kb/s if I was lucky, 28.8Kb/s most of the time) that I was used to. I stayed on their fastest (and most expensive) plan until i
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Another question: Why is Ajit Pai such a deceitful son of a bitch? Was he born that way, or did he have to work at it?
His parents are Republicans, so it is likely he was born that way.
"Use" or "Have"? (Score:2)
I don't see why people not using their broadband would be a concern.
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Because it frequently indicates that some company has checked a box - maybe even legally - on a solution they're contractually able to provide that doesn't actually work in the real world.
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This. I "have" 25mb service, the fastest available in my area. As to the amount I can "use", I can't recall ever seeing a speed test break the single digits (today is a good day at 7.5mb down). I'm in a populated section of the DFW area with apartments and business building all around. When I complained I was told by the service tech that our neighborhood isn't that bad so don't expect service upgrades anytime soon. I'd switch providers if I could but outside of satellite providers, I have 0 options.
I'
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OK. I see. So it's the old "confusing terminology" trick that industries pull? Like USB 2 "Full Speed" was slower than high-speed.
Or in other words: fraud.
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There's probably a lot of people who never use their 25Mbit service because they never use anything that takes 25Mbit. If you're just browsing web pages you don't even register as having used any significant amount of bandwidth. Even watch Netflix or Youtube in 1080p won't put you much over 5 Mbit.
This is basically how I am reading the article. People pay for a service or the government mandates that a certain portion of people need broadband, but there's a lot of poeple who would be perfectly fine with
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The "I'm out of data for the month" complaints I read in certain online communities show that cellular alone is not satisfying everyone's needs.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the real reason broadband is so important. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not wrong that they're pushing for it due to business opportunities, but telemetry and advertising aren't the only business opportunities that come with fast internet. Everybody is hopping on the streaming media bandwagon. And if you're Microsoft instead of Netflix or Hulu, they provide services like azure and skype, office 365, all of which benefit from broadband.
You're not wrong that increased access to broadband is good for megacorporations. You're way off base to imply it's one-sided, and especially in the implication that their benefit is entirely for services that go against the end-user interest.
"...study by Microsoft researchers..." (Score:3, Funny)
That's where you lost me
Yep for sure some don't have access (Score:1)
My mother in law only has access to a Wireless ISP that provides her with around 3Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Works for her given she just uses it for iPad and doesn't stream video or much requiring more speed. But I do agree some areas of the US have limited access to broadband speed. Although I do know people who use a cellular option with good success.
Money Talks (Score:5, Informative)
Especially in rural areas.
Broadband -might- be available ( heavy emphasis on might ) but the costs for high speed internet out there are a bit high which tends to drive most folks away from it.
Example where my parents live ( US ):
5MB down - $70.00
10MB down - $90.00
25MB down - $110.00
Internet only. Advertised speeds you may, of course, never achieve. They have exactly one provider to choose from.
Most get a better connection / price via a smartphone / hotspot. ( assuming a tower is in the general vicinity )
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A dishonest fuck would be someone attempting to equate cellular service (in a rural zone, no less!) with wired broadband. Apple != Orange.
Captcha...heh: classify
Bits per second vs. bits per month (Score:2)
but then, only at the end, you say most people use another provider that is even faster.
When you compare plans from DSL and cellular providers, you usually find that DSL is slower at peak transfer (bits per second) but faster at sustained transfer (bits per month) than a similarly priced cellular plan.
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We are dealing with a specific persons specific comparison. Their comparison was that there was only one broadband provider, and it was slower than what most people are subscribed to.
Now, we can assume then that most of the people in the area have BETTER than the only broadband in the area, or the dishonest fuck is intentionally misleading on purpose because thats what dishonest fucks do.
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When I compare them?
For the avoidance of doubt: I intended "you" not to refer to Rockoon but instead to generic you [wikipedia.org], or plural you referring to Slashdot users as a whole.
We are dealing with a specific persons specific comparison.
In context, I read "Broadband" in nehumanuscrede's comment to refer to wired broadband, particularly in that the last line contrasts it with cellular Internet service, concluding that the intent was to compare wired broadband to cellular. Then I recalled similar comparisons in the past, many of which have concluded that cellular offers more instantaneous spee
residential vs commercial (Score:1)
A LOT of commercial DSL lines are setup for CCTV or remote access to something, that use residential / consumer plans, so the results are skewed.
How are they measuring this? (Score:2)
Are they surveying people to find out what level of service they pay for OR are they measuring actual speeds? Put it this way, when I have 150 megabit service, I should be able to get all the streaming video I want without any bandwidth problems. But noooOOOOoooo.... "Insufficient bandwidth" errors come up about every two to three days. So is the internet infrastructure the real problem not the access to it?
Screw broadband (Score:2)
Re:Screw broadband (Score:4, Informative)
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Depressing, a hated co more honest than gov (Score:3)
The Internet-Bringing Us Closer Than We Need To Be (Score:1)
You're all missing the real story (Score:1)