FCC Officially Redefines Broadband As 25 Mbps Down, 3 Mbps Up
Source: DSL Reports
After hinting at such a move for some time, the FCC today voted (along partisan lines, of course) to bump the standard definition of broadband from 4 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, to 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up. It's a change the broadband industry and friends aren't happy with, because it will only further highlight the fact that a lack of competition has left large portions of the country with pricey and slow broadband service.
Under the current 4 Mbps standard, roughly 6.3 percent of households can't technically get access to "broadband." Under the new 25 Mbps metric, nearly 20% of U.S. households are unable to get broadband, thanks in large part to DSL networks telcos are refusing to upgrade.
The FCC notes that to receive subsidies, deployments will need to be at least 10 Mbps.
<snip>
As you might expect, Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai (a former Verizon regulatory lawyer) and Michael O'Reilly weren't fans of the new standard. O'Reilly in particular offered up what was probably the strangest argument of the entire day's session.
"Some people believe that we are on a path to interplanetary teleportation. Should we include the estimated bandwidth for that as well?," asked the troubled Commissioner.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Officially-Redefines-Broadband-As-25-Mbps-Down-3-Mbps-Up-132453
still_one
(92,108 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)1. I'm not in the city and I can't get any kind of speed on my internet.
2. We only have one provider in this city.
3. I paid for XXX speed and only get x speed.
America is way behind in this area.
mountain grammy
(26,605 posts)ok? "troubled commissioner." WTF is he talking about?
NBachers
(17,096 posts)Let him ooze back into the slime hive he came from.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Who let the interplanetary teleportation cat out of the bag?
Martak Sarno
(77 posts)Well, NASA now has to worry about the Republicans cutting their funding since all those "now obsolete" rockets and things won't be needed! Maybe they can spend the money on feeding the poor? LOL! I mean the poor 1 Per Centers!
And will Boeing give back the funds for the commercial contract to carry Astronauts to the Space Station?
Been thinking O'Reilly has been watching too many reruns of StartGate SG1 and is confused about reality.
Make it so! Beam him up instead!
Beartracks
(12,806 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)because we'd be uploading ourselves into computers by '97
the GOP hasn't always disliked science (heck, it still likes napalm) but maybe it's for the best in this case
christx30
(6,241 posts)how is this going to help? A company that has a low cost 6mbps/1mbps connection will have to get rid of that tier? Or can they call it "midband" or "econoband" or something? A lot of people just want to get online to browse, and don't need the 50mbps or more. And they aren't willing pay for what they won't use.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)yes, that is <point 1 mbps. so what would be fair econoband? for me, it should not be more than $20/mo including internet taxes & fees for anything less than 6mbps. and if it is <1mbps - it should be free.
i noticed recently that my bill now says i am paying for "broadband" when prior bills described the service as "dsl". i am canceling service when my contract ends in june. hmmm. i wonder if i can cancel it now because in essence, they are breaking contract by not providing what i signed up for - their promise of 12mbps.
christx30
(6,241 posts)for $14.99/month.
markpkessinger
(8,392 posts)geomon666
(7,512 posts)Comcast is the only game in town here.
A Little Weird
(1,754 posts)$34/mo
geomon666
(7,512 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)thanks to Obama.
ripcord
(5,311 posts)$55 a month.
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)NickB79
(19,233 posts)Fuck you, DSL via Frontier.
5 miles up the road where cable starts, my coworkers get 25 Mb/s.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)and, i agree - fuck frontier.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)We had almost as much up as down when we were on Verizon FiOS.
The FCC is a scam.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)we have 100 down 50 up. and we really pushed the up mostly because we share home videos and it's a bitch when the quality of the home videos are hi res. basically Iowa and Kansas are part of America the rest is stuck in Africa smh and africa in some places is faster
Ykcutnek
(1,305 posts)We currently sit at 15 Mbps.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)polynomial
(750 posts)It sounds like most everyone on DU knows the electromagnetic spectrum is screwed up. It needs a huge reformation and better prices. Or eventually free.
DSL is twisted pair communications with the common problem of cross over distortion giving uncertainty to down loads and up loads. I can listen closely to background sounds in down loads and hear convoluted audio that sounds alien.
Also DSL is governed by distance, the farther one is away, in electron miles, from the tele-company plant the more distortion. There is a top out speed because of the physics so they evolve in the use of multiplexing techniques which could spin out in what is oscillation or the mechanical engineers call it gimbal lock.
A lot of these experienced guys running telephone companies that eventually migrate to the FCC are bean counters, not very good engineers even though they might have an engineering degree.
Many of the last century are a collection what can be called a asshat, very poor visionaries that build the future problems. The last century found out the Calculus is understood in a better robust way with the computer rather than using class room 2D white board or black board approach.
The American Postal Service should be and could be a basic experiment for a new public venue that could have a stable price like the postage stamp.
My view is to try the Wi-Fi technology installed in every Post Office for every city, and have Wi-Fi adjusted for each community. It would also be a good Home Land security project, plus better banking with Cryptex public secure keys, very cool free university education, NO porno.
The idea came to me walking into a restaurant that prominently displayed a sign that they have Wi-Fi. This Postal service concept would help reduce prices and change the industry where the advertisements would help pay for the costs.
Of course the argument is there about employment costs and living wages. It is turning to a common sense example with McDonalds, or any other franchise if they cant pay a living wage they shouldnt be in business.
It is a simple economic weirdo mentality to work part of the time to begin with realizing it is for the rest of your life without benefits is a stupid method.
It is a natural for people to be attractive to integrity of a good kind plus reduce the business practice of lies that we all know are in existence from medical, insurance, commodities and food, especially the commercials in politics that propagate lies without regret. Free air is going wild with legal ads so the tide is turning.
The reasoning being is simple the cable companies are making loads of money through commercial advertising, then charging a monthly fee for connections. Seems the United Health Care and AARP are going nuts on free air advertising.
My own personal opinion is Medicare plan A B C D should be combined and merged into one plan entitlement.
America needs a system to represent the medical by the electorate. It is just stunning for AARP to make announcements they have been part of the American trust for the past fifty years all while America knows the system is corrupt as heck during that time.
Please understand that I introduce this medical stuff into the argument because the increase frequency of hyperlinks all over the google while doing research encourage more United Health Care pop up ads that are doubled scored. From my view this displays how the Health Care industry props up the one percent with huge money.
United Health Care is tightly connected to the transportation industry that has way too much uncertainty in last century in a medical data base for resolutions and determinations.
Obviously it should be noticed by a huge influx of legal ads for injuries and medical practices. Plus OSHA has complaints in that area of uncertainty for determination that needs to administer severe penalties for fraud and complicity.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Part of that is the rupee's low exchange rate, but it's not crazy expensive. 4G "semi-broadband" (6 down 2 up) is cheap enough that people in the slums here use it (about $8 per month). And Mumbai is way, way behind Hyderabad and Delhi in terms of broadband access. So, they're hoping to leapfrog and roll out municipal 200 MBps WiFi city-wide within the next 5 years (they've already covered about 1/3rd of rural villages in the state and want to expand that to 80% in the same time period). My point is, there's absolutely no excuse for India to be ahead of the US in this.