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Broadband isn't Broadband Unless its 2Mbps?
quanticle writes "According to House Democrats, broadband isn't broadband unless its at least 2Mbps. The view of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications is that the FCC's data collection standards are hopelessly outdated, and is proposing a number of updates to their criteria. For one, they want 'broadband' reclassified to at least 2mbs, up from 200kbps. Another requirement will change the FCC's outlook on broadband availability. Just because one household in a zip code has broadband access, that will not longer mean everyone in the zip code does. 'The plan went over well with the consumer advocates who appeared before the subcommittee. Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America, said that the US is "stuck with a twentieth century Internet" and that he would support increasing the "broadband" definition to 2Mbps. Ben Scott of Free Press echoed that sentiment, suggesting that the definition needs to be an evolving standard that increases over time, which is in contrast to the current FCC definition; it has not changed in nine years. "We have always been limited by the FCC's inadequate and flawed data," he said.'"
But its too correct (according to the summary, I didn't RTFA). Something else has to be behind this, given american politics.
Fat tubes for all!
Let's aim high. In the future, it is likely many individuals will run media servers, VPN in to home, download a ton of video and use services like VOIP that rely on quality bandwidth. Instead of going piecemeal into this future, let's design for the next fifty years, roll out the hardware, and enjoy a nice long depreciation curve. It will be cheaper in the long run...
technical writing / development
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
My wife and I share a 1.5Mbps DSL connection with 256k up. I've never had to wish it were faster.
If the downlink is required to be 2Mbps to count as "broadband", I think the uplink should be a minimum of 512Kbps. Far too many people are stuck on lines that have 128Kbps up and far too easily saturate the uplink and bog the whole connection down.
I read the internet for the articles.
They're widely misusing the term "broadband" already (just like "modem" and many others), so why not simply define the class of service they want to standardize and give it a NEW NAME instead of abusing existing ones? My vote is for "Standardized Fast Ubernet." You can guess what else the acronym might stand for.
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
I thought 56K was broadband when I upgraded from my 14.4K modem. Of course, that was back in 1998.
Yeah. But the poster mentions 2mbps. 2 milli bps. Now that is slow. Five hundred seconds to get one bit. SI prefixes are case sensitive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix
Broadband, as opposed to baseband, is technically defined as anything not at the base frequency of 0Hz. Baseband is at the base frequency and up, broadband is at a higher frequency and up.
FCC can't even seem to get a technicality right.
When I was in college back in the triassic period, broadband had nothing to do with transmission rates, but with the fact that multiple channels were transmitted through a single wire (like TV) over a more broad frequency band than single-channel narrowband transmission, regardless of speed. Every time I hear someone say "broadband" in reference to the speed of some sort of internet connection I sort of cringe inside.
One good thing could come out of this. Setting a definition for broadband will reduce misleading "broadband" offers from cable and dsl companies. Either they raise their data rates or they have to call it something else. Most will choose to increase bandwidth since having to admit they are slower would be an advertising nightmare.
I'm going to expand a little on that with a simple line: what about consumers who want that bandwidth? Why should we have to wait for anything to download? And by wait I mean longer than instantaneous.
The definition also needs to specify up/down speeds. I don't consider a satellite connection with 1.5Mbs down and 56K up (phoneline) a broadband connection.
768K seems to be a nice low speed broadband. Large downloads are still doable, and youtube videos just take a few more seconds to buffer than on a faster connection. Podcasts are downloaded automatically in the background, so there is little reason for those to have to be super fast. This is just to serve as an example of working broadband internet under 2mb.
At least in France, many of the problems were solved by local loop unbundling. I imagine the same would work here.
7 .html
We had local loop unbundling here in the U.S., but then the FCC took it away. Now if you want DSL, it's back to the local phone company -- except for the places where they still have outstanding contracts with independent ISPs (like Speakeasy, etc.), there's no choice.
The FCC's rationale for reneging on the LLU decision was that consumers now had "choice" without it -- between the cable company, and the phone company. The nature of the decision had something to do with classing DSL as a 'data service' as opposed to a 'communications service' or something similarly pedantic, but the upshot was that it didn't require wholesale line leases to competitors, or let them charge more for it, or something.
I can't find a source on it right now, but I distinctly remember reading about it (maybe about a year ago, maybe a bit more).
Finally found some reference to it:
FCC Could Rule on DSL Line Sharing
FCC Halts DSL-Sharing by Telcos
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040303-348
(Reason I wasn't finding anything is that "LLU" or "Local Loop Unbundling" only seems to be used in the press in the U.K. and Europe; in the 'States they seem to call it 'Line Sharing,' probably to maintain their mandatory 6th-grade reading level.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As much as I loath the US Congress, and celebrate Wikipedia, I haven't quite gotten to the point where I think that the the later should be able to overrule the former.
Around here, AT&T and Comcast, among others, have been pushing cheap "broadband" that turns out to be in the 600kbps range. If the hapless FCC is forced to adopt realistic definitions, so much the better for consumers and for the communications industry in the long run. I have yet to find a downside explained in all the lazy cynical-posing comments.
Broadband is a signaling method - as long as the Congress is deciding what speed of Internet connectivity is appropriate, can they also legislate a more appropriate term?
It's all politics. You redefine "broadband" (in this case, the new definition in a way consumers will like, since they want more of it) so that you can say come election time that only x number of homes have broadband, and blame the lack of availability on the previous administration. (Or you can even say that the number of US homes with broadband went down, though that looks worse if you're called on the definition change.) You can fit a single statistic into a good sound byte, but politicians aren't good at fitting an explanation for why the statistic is ridiculous into a sound byte.
This is similar to changing the poverty formula--or any other similar metric--in advance of an election.
What kind of SCSI do you have?
SCSI-1
Fast SCSI
Fast Wide SCSI
Ultra SCSI(1.5)
Ultra SCSI(3)
Wide Ultra SCSI
Wide Ultra SCSI(1.5)
Wide Ultra SCSI(3)
Ultra2 SCSI
Wide Ultra2 SCSI
Ultra3 SCSI or Ultra160 SCSI
Ultra320 SCSI
Nah. Just make the term "Broad Band" a standard that is reviewed every 2 years and be done with it. Otherwise, in 20 years we'll be connecting over the Super double wide ultra fast inter tubes of doom .
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
So they're old Korean people?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I hate you.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
Rather than siting down for a minute and actually, you know, thinking about something, or heaven forbid talking to someone who has thought about it, politicians and bureaucrats just up and make laws. It's sort of like Slashdot, except the rule is "legislate first, then maybe think" instead of "post frist ;-, think second".
The most important difference between broadband and not broadband is Always On (or, as we Mediacom customers say, "Sometimes On"). The definition ought to be stated in terms of connect latency: how much difference is there between the time it takes to establish the first connection of a particular online session and the average connection time during a session? If the first is no different than the average, you have broadband.
The next most important attribute is Quality of Service:
The top speed of that connection, and the uplink and downlink speed difference, is important, but less so. Caching, prefetch, and P2P techniques mean that as long as you have anything faster than 9600bps, if it's always on you will have essentially the same online experience as someone with a 2Mbps connection.
Now, with regard to live video audio as a substitute for broadcast media, the faster the better. And 2Mbps is not enough, and is certainly not a magic threshhold, given the QoS concerns above.
sigs, as if you care.
What we need is an FTC rule that advertising any service quality or quantity with the words "up to" or substantially similar language is, by law, considered deceptive. Advertising should have to specify a guaranteed level of service. That would put cable and DSL on the same measurement scale, discourage underprovisioning, and make cellular data transfer rates in ads something you could rely on.
There's precedent for this. At various times in the past, the FTC had to tighten up the definition of "horsepower" for cars and "watts" for audio gear.
I wonder how this would impact CALEA requirements set by the FCC for 'broadband' providers, if it were redefined to 2Mb/s. It might mean stuff under that speed would no longer need to be LI (lawful-intercept) capable. This could have significant cost savings for ISPs for compliance...
The demorats can spout all the nonsense they like. The Republicans can promise broadband for everyone. They are all full of it.
Sad fact is, broadband by any definition is NOT available to vast areas of the good old USA! I am not talking about mountains and deserts either. I am talking about one of the fastest growing counties in the US, only one Central Office away from a metro area.
The telcos take fees for "rural infrastructure" to the tune of millions and what do they do with it? Whiz it away screaming "We are your broadband and entertainment company!" Do they come thru? Absolutely not! Not for the last 9 years they don't and they won't. Sorry, DSL is not available in your area at this time.
So you see it matters not what the FCC says or the government does. The telcos FAIL and REFUSE to provide broadband, even at the slowest recognized "fast" speed from years ago. If we are lucky they keep the POTS line up and our 24K connection works.
I have never heard these definitions to which you are referring. I have heard definitions similar to your baseband defintion, with the difference being that baseband signals are complex signals CENTERED at 0 Hz, not signals going from 0 to some other frequency. The terminology I have heard to refer to a signal going from 0 to F1 would be, a 200% bandwidth signal at a center frequency of F1/2. I have never heard anything remotely similar to your broadband definition. Broadband is a relative "bandwidth" term and has nothing to do with the center frequency. I would be curious to hear if other people have heard your definitions, if not I would say it is you that is techically wrong.
I can do 1 Gbit/sec with my station wagon, but the latency kinda sucks.
Also, the MTU (MINIMUM transfer unit) is 4 GB.
Well, 780 MB if you only want to use CDs.
paintball
You have to remember that Cable/DSL penetration wasn't nearly as high as it is now when Napster was at it's peak usage. Then again, I'm sure many of its users were students at colleges and universities.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
I just hate it when I find out the "Internet Service" I was paying for doesn't actually include everything the Internet can offer. If companies want to sell "Internet Service" they shouldn't be allowed to block servers. Call it "Web Service" or something that shows you can't do anything with your Internet connection.
Cable is the best most people can get (yeah, there might be FIOS in a few cities, but I'm in #5 in the US and we sure don't have it; Utah also has UTOPIA, but I don't trust their lawmakers not to screw it up or censor it somehow). There, you get caps like 20 GB / month total transfer, which make it a complete waste, or worse, you go with Comcast and get unknown limits above which they accuse you of piracy and cut you off with no appeal.
Or you can go with DSL. Good luck if you don't live right next to the CO. Damn phone company took an entire MONTH to find a working line for me. How the hell do you not notice that one of the lines you tagged was in use!? T1s are nice, but way out of my price range. $300-$400 a month is a bit much, even if I understand why they price them like that.
Or you can get satellite. Not bad, but your uplink will be crap and your latency painful. Or, heh, you can go back to dial-up. That's great, if you don't use anything but email...
Compare this to almost everywhere else in the first world, where they have local loop unbundling, the telcos are public utilities (rather than deregulated monopolies) and you see that we're *WAY* behind. Japan is awesome: 10 & 100 Mbps connections for less than you pay the cable companies. Other countries, too, have invested in infrastructure and are just plain leaving us behind. In the US? We gave the telcos billions to upgrade things, and just what have they done? Hardly anything, from the looks of it.
So the story here is that the Democrats want to up the standards so that we in the US will have to stop kidding ourselves about the craptastic state of our internet infrastructure? GOOD! I'm sick of the telcos trying to kill things like Net Neutrality and using "deregulation" as a way to become legal monopolies and screw their customers over.
I'm sick of hearing "We don't care, we're the phone company!" and I'll probably give my vote to someone who seems likely to make them eat those words.
I suppose 2 Mbps isnt even physically possible in 95%+ of the US. I know the top DSL speed is 1.5 Mbps where I live now. Where I previously lived any internet rated above 1 Mbps would be a flat out lie. I wouldn't be surprised if a pricey 700 Kbps package cost 90 bucks where I lived before that, and anything fast like that would only be available to the 8000 people who lived in town and not in the sub-burbs.
I hope their definition is symmetric. There's lots you can do with 2Mbps download but there's lots more you can do with 2Mbps upload. It would be more pertinent for congress to bring back local loop unbundling and to split up companies that sell both content and Internet access (i.e. cable companies and telephone companies now selling TV).
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
I think they should only use the terms High-Speed and Full-Speed. It make so much sense for USB.
The parent post is a helpful visual diagram of how a high-capacity channel enables more traffic.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
No! No! Wrong thinking! (Local) utilities regulations require uniform service within an area if the franchisee desires to serve any one. Allowing broadband providers to claim that they don't provide service to an area even when they have already gone in and cherry picked the lucrative neighborhoods plays right into their hands.
The people just down the street from me (further from the CO, so distance isn't an excuse) have had DSL since it was originally offered by the local telco. When Verizon bought them out, they made decision to cease DSL expansion in our area (Heck, we can't even get proper POTS service anymore). They are able to to this because, unlike regulated utility service, serving one DSL customer in an area doesn't obligate them to provide service to anyone else. If it was subject to regulations, they would need to file tarrifs with the state utilities commission which establish standard fees for extending their service to anyone willing to pay. In my area, these fees are based on distance along the public right-of-way. Once any utility strings a line in front of your house, only a (standard) service drop charge can apply. They are obligated to maintain their facilities to meet added demand in areas served as a part of their operating costs. In other words, they can't say "Sorry, the cable is full and you'll have to pay for a bigger one".
Please don't let Congress create any more loopholes. We need to treat broadband access just like any other critical infrastructure.
Have gnu, will travel.
Is there anyone on /. or anywhere that doubts the importance of open and accessible roads? Of course not. Can you imagine what a pain it would be if roadways were privately owned and only accessible to those that sign up to use them? Yet we've let the opportunity to allow unfettered access to the internet cable infrastructure slip away and fall into private hands and, well, this is why 200Kbps is considered "broadband". There's simply no incentive to do more.
I'm not suggesting that local or state governments become ISPs. Anyone could be an ISP, but to get their service into a city or state, they would have to lease space on the public wires (or fiber as the case may be).
Verizon is now trying to get Massachusetts to enact legislation that would allow providers (like Verizon) to obtain a statewide franchise for their service, rather than go from city to city and have to deal with the local politicos, who always seem to be demanding more and more. I never thought I'd be rooting for the monopoly, but if it's the way we're going to get the long desired fiber infrastructure, well, so be it. Problem is, that will essentially eliminate competition for communications and it seems we'll be taking a big step backwards.
Obviously, there's much more to such a plan, and it can't be posted in a few sentences on here. I'd like to hear from the tech savvy /.ers and get some reaction to this plan. I am in no way suggesting that state or local government could do a better job than private enterprise. Connectivity is the future, and that future is a long way off for much of the US under the present structure.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
In San Francisco, at least, they seem to be doing something about this. Apparently the definition of what a "central office" is has changed. Apparently it no longer needs to be some kind of big building; instead it might be an innocuous-looking box at the end of the block. Somebody who's a telco insider will have to give more details than that, because I only know what I was told by one field tech. That, and the fact that about eight years ago I moved from an apartment at one end of this street to one at the other, and then a couple years ago I moved again, back a few blocks up the same street. The first time I moved I kept my same phone number. The second time I moved the phone company told me that I could not keep the same phone number; in fact, I couldn't even have the same prefix. I can only assume that this is to allow the local phone company to roll out DSL more aggressively here in the City.
Breakfast served all day!
As a Canadian, let me assure you: we have.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The FCC has fairly little independent power; it serves primarily to implement laws passed by Congress. In this case unbundling was part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed by Congress. The FCC implemented it and was promptly sued for it. In the U.S., the federal courts have ultimate jurisdiction to interpret legislation, so the FCC was bound by whatever the court ordered. Over the next 10 years it was ordered by the courts to reimplement and reimplement, as suit after suit was filed by the telcos. In 2006 it finally won court approval for its implementation of the unbundling rules, based on a law that was now 10 years old. So if you don't like the way it's done now, look to the courts (and the original, poorly-worded law).
Also: the distinction between a "telecommunications service" and a "data service" is most definitely NOT pedantic. In fact it is the crucial heart of the entire fight over "net neutrality." The two terms are given different definitions and treatments in the 1996 Act--in particular, telecom services are held to common carrier status, while data services are not. Thus when the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cable modem is a "data service", it exempted it from common carrier status--essentially granting permission to violate net neutrality.
Now the telcos want DSL classified the same way (it's currently considered a telecom service since it is delivered over phone lines), and they are lobbying extremely hard to get it. Plus, they are rolling out things like FiOS, which as a fiber optic line is considered a data service not a telecom service.
In the U.S., the "net neutrality" we took for granted for years was a direct result of the fact that we accessed the Internet over phone lines, and thus it was a common carrier service according to federal law. Now, with cable and fiber access, this protection is largely gone, and a fight for net neutrality protection must be waged.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.