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The Internet

FCC Chair Proposes Raising Broadband Standard To 100Mbps (engadget.com) 76

Posted by BeauHD from the future-standards dept.
Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed raising the minimum definition of broadband to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads. Engadget reports: The previous 25/3 benchmark is both outdated and hides just how many low-income and rural internet users are being "left behind and left offline," Rosenworcel said. The chair said multiple pieces of evidence supported the hike, including requirements for new network construction stemming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The FCC had already proposed upgrades to rural speeds through a special program, but this would affect the definition of broadband regardless of where users live in the country.

Rosenworcel also wanted the minimum speed to evolve over time. She proposed setting a much higher standard of 1Gbps down and 500Mbps up for some point in the future. The leader further suggested more criteria for determining the "reasonable and timely" rollout of broadband, including adoption rates, affordability, availability and equitable access.
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FCC Chair Proposes Raising Broadband Standard To 100Mbps More

FCC Chair Proposes Raising Broadband Standard To 100Mbps

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  • Jessica, thank you for fighting the good fight.

    • Not sure if this is good. Anyone who is still under 25/3 would no longer be a priority. Companies can spend both their money and subsidies to improve service for their more profitable customers and still ignore the expensive rural customers.

      They'll be able to brag about how many customers they've upgraded to the new broadband standard while continuing to ignore the same people.

      • Does keeping a 3rd world minimum speed help more rural customers get service? Probably not. So why not help those that do get service?

        Internet service in the US is crap compared to many 1st world countries.

    • Are they going to set a maximum latency standard also? 1 gig at 1000ms latency is still going to be awful...

  • We Alaskans are getting absolutely raped on internet access, and I see no sign of it ever stopping. 100Mbps? HAH. Not outside of the cities. C'mon, Elon. Stop making babies, and get more birds up, preferably for my latitude.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      C'mon, Elon.

      Pick a fight with Russia. He'll get Starlink working up there.

    • With you 100%. But not Elon style, nor the other big biz clowns that want to give trash service for high prices and scraping your traffic data. That is bad news.

  • 25 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 )

    Our family of four was on 25/3 for years, until WOW upgraded us to 100/something a couple of years ago. Never saw a need for anything faster. I'm not sure what they are doing in the boonies that they need 100 down.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm not sure what they are doing in the boonies that they need 100 down.

      It might be more about the 20 up. There are a lot of things which are really slow for people with asymmetric connections. Since the ISPs don't ever modernize on symmetry, maybe raising the "down" is the only way to get the "up" to become usable.

    • Agreed. while there are certainly individuals that have legitimate needs for faster connections then 25mbps that seems awfully high to me for a standard for everyone.

      I'd be much more interested in the FCC making the companies that sell us these services actually give us the speeds they claim to deliver to us. I have never had a broadband internet connection that even came close to delivering the advertised speed even at 3 in the morning.

      • Overnight (eg 3 in the morning) is the best time to do all your torrenting.
      • That's the rub with cable modems. Theoretical is not what you get when you share with a hundred other people.

        I've had DSL since the mid 90's (upgraded to fiber earlier this year as they phase out copper) and have always gotten the advertised speed or better since then, from the original 3mps back in the mid 90's to the 75/25 before fiber, all with excellent reliability.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Hey, I could accept slower speeds during prime usage periods but as I already said, even at a time like 3am I've never gotten my advertised speed on any service I've had.

          • Yes, but is it faster at 3am?

            Overselling/under-provisioning nodes is rampant by cable companies to save a buck.

            • Yes, but is it faster at 3am?

              Overselling/under-provisioning nodes is rampant by cable companies to save a buck.

              Not if you have savvy neighbors or 24-hour online torrenters/downloaders/etc :) I believe that's called load shifting in electric. It's called cheap crap in RF-sectored service.

          • ...I've never gotten my advertised speed on any service I've had.

            I'm sorry that your ISP sucks. That seems to be the international standard.

            Strangely enough, AT&T's crappy DSL service delivered higher speeds than advertised. It was super-crappy 24mb/6mb (I think), but I frequently got 3.2MB/s on downloads, with occasional speed drops (it's unknown where in the chain this happened). All this for $95/month. AT&T policies sucked (no customer service for Linux users, no running servers). and I had to suffer through daily outages at very bad times, so I switched to M

      • ...25mbps...seems awfully high to me for a standard for everyone.

        I have gamers in my family, and 25mb/s would not be even remotely close to enough to download game updates.

      • Re:How about we get the speeds we pay for instead? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by kbrannen ( 581293 ) on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:54PM (#62707054)

        I'd be much more interested in the FCC making the companies that sell us these services actually give us the speeds they claim to deliver to us. I have never had a broadband internet connection that even came close to delivering the advertised speed even at 3 in the morning.

        As a service rep for my ISP told me once, all of the SLA clauses for residential (perhaps others too) only require them to deliver 60% of the advertised speed. So as long as they deliver above that, they're going to claim they're meeting their obligation. Personally, I'm with you; I'll accept up to 10% loss, but if I pay for 35Mbs, I should be getting really close to that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Agreed. while there are certainly individuals that have legitimate needs for faster connections then 25mbps that seems awfully high to me for a standard for everyone.

        I'd be much more interested in the FCC making the companies that sell us these services actually give us the speeds they claim to deliver to us. I have never had a broadband internet connection that even came close to delivering the advertised speed even at 3 in the morning.

        Well, always shoot for the moon. If you want to raise it 50Mhbs, you do

      • Agreed. while there are certainly individuals that have legitimate needs for faster connections then 25mbps that seems awfully high to me for a standard for everyone.

        I'd be much more interested in the FCC making the companies that sell us these services actually give us the speeds they claim to deliver to us. I have never had a broadband internet connection that even came close to delivering the advertised speed even at 3 in the morning.

        Amen to that. My ISP is DSL and sells 10Mbps for $59.99/mo, 30Mbps for $59.99/mo, and 50Mbps for $59.99/mo. No, I'm not joking or copy/pasting.

        The kicker is they have video service they sell (you know, the 'new cable'). Anyhow, you say you don't want that service; you want data only. Okay, $59.99/mo for 48 down, 2.7 up? WTF? Your service agreement and ads and price lists say $59.99/mo for 50 down, 3 up. Oh, the fine print. 2/.3 is allocated for video service. If you wish not to use the video servic

    • Re:25 (Score:5, Informative)

      by feranick ( 858651 ) on Friday July 15, 2022 @05:56PM (#62706686)
      The problem isn't 25 vs 100 down. It's 3 vs 20 up. Having a conversation online with 3 up (advertised, it can be lower), or uploading anything takes forever if at all. You can only live with that if all you do is light emailing. if you are a business, you are basically not going anywhere.
      • Consumers use mostly downloads. Content providers use mostly uploads. This is convenient for ISPs as they have two revenue streams for their mostly symmetrical backbone connections.

        • Consumers use mostly downloads. Content providers use mostly uploads. This is convenient for ISPs as they have two revenue streams for their mostly symmetrical backbone connections.

          Perhaps this was mostly true pre-pandemic. However, now Zoom and other video-conferencing applications use much more upload bandwidth, particularly in a family where several individuals may be in a meeting at the same time and need more than 3Mbps.

          • Absolutely. Besides, try to do an interview at less than 3Mbps up. You will be hard pressed to justify why the quality of the transmission is so incredibly poor in a civilized country. I mean, it happens to me very often, and I am in the suburbs of Munich, Germany, where in the local neighborhood internet is still relying of old ISDN lines (yes, you read that right). The interview is awkward when i am proposing high tech projects and yet it looks I am dialing in from the 90s.

        • The last mile is the reason most consumer and small business have asymmetric speeds. Getting a clear signal over copper given the distances is difficult and requires precision wiring, power and accompanying transceivers.

          The modems on the other hand have to be cheap, most people donâ(TM)t take care of them and locate them in atrocious places.

          • Frankly we are not talking about 100MB/s up. We are talking about at least 10, which is very much sustainable even with subpar equipment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by forty-2 ( 145915 )

      Unrelated: Great Sig.
      My other terminal is a Data General Dasher D200 :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      I'm not sure what they are doing in the boonies that they need 100 down.

      Yeah, 640KB got to be enough for everybody, right?

    • I got upgraded from 20/5 to 60/12 just to save money, and I've never noticed the slightest difference from it. Wouldn't pay a cent to upgrade to 100 Mbps, and would gladly downgrade for a $1 discount. We don't all have a bunch of 4K TVs running simultaneously, requiring that kind of service level will simply result in more people being stuck with no non-satellite options at all.

    • The exact same thing that someone in a city would do with 100 down. Your statement is really odd. Do you think people who live in rural areas use their internet any differently than anyone else? They stream, play games, download porn, take online classes, attend online work meetings and so on and so forth. You know. Just like every other person on the internet.

  • What are the consequences of it changing? If my connection is substandard, does it mean my ISP loses out on some government handouts, or they're penalized somehow, or what?

    • Probably goes to advertising.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I'm just guessing here. But below some threshold of broadband availability, access to some infrastructure funds may become available. If this is the case, the FCC just opened up its purse strings for a much broader class of under served. Which just goes goes into the pockets of the internet providers.

      • It should be the opposite.

        If ISP cannot deliver bandwidth to be considered "broadband" then ISP does not qualify for federal funding in that region.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          If ISP cannot deliver bandwidth to be considered "broadband" then ISP does not qualify for federal funding in that region.

          That doesn't make sense. That's a subsidy for broadband in rich people's neighborhoods where the infrastructure exists.

          A proper subsidy would be in the customers hands. A chunk of money that they can allocate to an ISP who agrees to build out to their property plus a monthly subsidy for the higher monthly fees. Customers get to dangle the yummy, yummy money in front of providers willing to supply service. Sort of like holding an apple in front of a bunch of pigs.

    • Well it means they can't advertise themselves as a broadband provider AND more people will be classified as not having broadband, which can translate to legal action, including class action lawsuits, for failure to deploy broadband.

    • Actually, yes, depending on what sort of service you have. Check out ACP and Erate programs. OTOH, if your ISP is Frontier, they'll lie about it anyway.

    • What are the consequences of it changing? If my connection is substandard, does it mean my ISP loses out on some government handouts, or they're penalized somehow, or what?

      I have the same question. If there are no practical effects, then knock yer socks off. Define "broadband" as 100/20. Define "banana" as 1000/500 for all I care. If it doesn't change what services are offered at what prices, you do you. TFA and linked press release doesn't dig into this.

      I suspect it's as you say. There's a line, "including requirements for new network construction stemming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act." which implies to me there's some construction subsidies for providing

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        I'm $VERBED at how many people are very opinionated what bps the standard should be, yet it appears nobody knows why there's a standard at all.

    • That was the promise last time and still 30% of the country can't get broadband.

      Literally the money sent to Ukraine for war would have solved it but no.

      Under these new rules even LEO satellite isn't broadband (reliably).

  • If traffic makes the network slow, I switch to another task that doesn't require high bandwidth until the storm clears. But if it outright stops, then all the Internet is useless. Practical benchmarks should focus on down times and the slowest times, not just max.

    • If traffic makes the network slow, I switch to another task that doesn't require high bandwidth until the storm clears. But if it outright stops, then all the Internet is useless. Practical benchmarks should focus on down times and the slowest times, not just max.

      <cynical_mode>There you go, pointing out that everyone has different preferences and requirements. You must be new to government regulation. Clearly the FCC can define the TOS the best possible way for all Americans. If you think you need something different, you're wrong.</cynical_mode>

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        We need standard metrics regardless to simplify compliance, enforcement, and public stats. A multi-factored scoring system is needed that includes but not limited to max speed, average speed, and percent of time spent "slow or unresponsive".

  • Is 100MB actually based on any hard data or just a nice sounding round number? This just seems like political rhetoric rather than real world needs with little thought to the practicalities of delivering. Especially in more rural areas where the cost per household is significantly higher due to lack of density.

    I do think that the uplink speed could use a boost from 3Mbps, but 25Mbps down is likely sufficient for most households. Data caps are a bigger limiting factor than max throughput.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )

      100 Mbps tends to be the bottom tier option nowadays in any decently populated area. It's about getting the rural areas up to speed with everyone else before they fall too far behind.

      • I'm not in the US, but here 100/30 is the most bare-bones tier you can get, it seems to exist solely as a comparison point for ISPs to sell you something better. I don't know of anyone who actually has 100/30, just changed ISPs for my mother and the entry-level tier was 300/100. Standard is gigabit.
    • This is mostly just politics. Which is too bad because the current standard is outdated. 25/3 really is pathetic. But 100/20 today, moving to 1000/500 in the future, as a minimum bar, is just to be able to increase the number of people who they can say do not have access to the minimal broadband. And thus more who need government help. I would like to see the results of a basic zoom meeting at 50/10, 50/20, and 100/20. That kind of data would help in determining a bottom bar. 1000/500 is a nice luxur

  • Symmetric 1 Gbps is already standard (Score:3)

    by bustinbrains ( 6800166 ) on Friday July 15, 2022 @06:38PM (#62706796)

    ...in datacenters. I can go over to AWS, DigitalOcean, and plenty of other providers and in under 1 minute spin up a virtual instance in a datacenter that has a minimum 1 Gbps symmetric connection. Some providers burst up to 3 Gbps and some don't have data caps.

    Meanwhile, my home Internet connection upstream is pathetically throttled and ISPs only advertise their downstream speeds online, which is basically useless. Zoom/Teams/etc. is an essential part of reality and those demand fast upstreams. The connection is fully capable of equal speeds in both directions but the ISPs don't want anyone to have that.

    The FCC shouldn't be toeing the line here. Just set the definition of broadband to symmetric 1 Gbps. Actually, it should be a flexible amount based on the average network slice in the top 10 datacenters globally. That way, as speeds improve in datacenters, the needle moves up for broadband as well without having to take a vote on it each time.

  • I'll just hit my cap faster (Score:3)

    by msk ( 6205 ) on Friday July 15, 2022 @07:38PM (#62706932)

    This'll mean I can hit my 1280GB data cap in one-fourth the time.

    Maybe the FCC should be requiring the definition of broadband to include unlimited usage at whatever price tier.

  • Raising the bar to 100/20 with lousy queuing can be worse than 25/10 with good queuing. "Speed" is both bandwidth and delay, under load. Been trying to get the FCC to pay attention to both for years: https://docs.google.com/docume... [google.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Also count for deployment of IPv6, presence of CGNAT etc. Other factors that can make a service with higher peak throughput figures actually turn out worse in actual use.

  • Why asymetrical? (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Friday July 15, 2022 @08:54PM (#62707052)

    Why not classify broadband and being symmetrical? At this point, do we really need to limit upload speeds?

  • "The term "advanced telecommunications capability" is defined, without regard to any transmission media or technology, as high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology."

    https://www.govinfo.gov/conten... [govinfo.gov]

    Notice in the text there is no preferred direction indicated. It doesn't say high speed downloads or high speed uploads. It is high speed without regard for direc

  • Broadband is a term used for the actual wavelength of the signal being sent. Would be nice to see these people start coming up with a better term for high speed internet than broadband.

  • I hope while they are adjusting the definition, they also fix the word choice.

    Broadband is the opposite of baseband. That is, baseband starts at the zero frequency and usually allows using all frequency of a wire spectrum, where broadband refers to using segments of a spectrum. Some telecommunications services use each. DSL is a type of broadband frequency division.

    Lay people started using the wrong term, largely because DSL happened to be a type of broadband so engineers did not correct the problem, and

  • These days? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Saturday July 16, 2022 @04:44AM (#62707604) Homepage Journal

    I would consider 250 megs to be barely broadband, and by 2025 (when FTTP is widespread in developed countries), 1 gig would be a reasonable definition.

    For remote jobs, it's essential to have high speed Internet and rural areas will remain deprived if they're incapable of supporting remote work.

  • Instead of changing an established definition, the FCC should define different classes of "broadband", or ask the bureau of weights and measures to set up a series of definitions for different bandwidths, with minimums for quality of service. If you change the meaning of terms, all you do is create confusion in the marketplace. So if a company advertise "Broadband28", they adhere to the official definition if Broadband28, or face penalties from the FCC.

    And before requiring Broadband120, they should find o

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