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FCC Proposes 100Mbps Minimum Home Broadband Speed
oxide7 writes "The US Federal Communications Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday that would require Internet providers to offer minimum home connection speeds by 2020, a proposal that some telecommunications companies panned as unrealistic. The FCC wants service providers to offer home Internet data transmission speeds of 100 megabits per second to 100 million homes by a decade from now, Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said."
That would be all well and good if it were the Government's place to mandate minimum speeds. Frankly I'd rather see them focus on keeping the 'net free and neutral or forcing the telcos to expand broadband coverage like they were supposed to after all the incentives they got. Let market forces deal with bandwidth.
...I'm going to have to side with the ISPs on this one. I think requiring them to offer high-speed internet to that many people is realistic by 2020, but at that speed? That's pushing it...
The only way to really get ISPs off their collectively slow asses is to increase competition. Too many areas of the country are stuck with only one or two choices...which isn't a choice at all.
Living With a Nerd
Bad idea. Have you seen what most ISPs charge for 15?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I like how we Americans think its fine that the rest of the world is surpassing us in everything else, bandwidth included.
World's most powerful nation going at the speed of fail.
This is the IT equivalent of Bush's "We're going to Mars" announcement.
It will be followed by actions which will make it impossible. (The equivalent of cutting Nasa's budget and programs)
So my money is on...reducing competition, letting infrastructure fail, and killing net neutrality for the Trifecta.
Who'll give me Vegas odds on these?
WTF is the FCC doing, making suggestions about my dealings with my local ISP over a link that doesn't cross state lines?
That rhetorical question has kind of a quaint ring to it. Let's face it: America has certain expectations from their government, regardless of legal concerns. So let's just legalize it. I propose two constitutional amendments:
Congress shall have the power to do whatever they think is a good idea. All previous amendments conflicting with this, are hereby repealed.
The right to be subject to physics shall not be infringed; other rights are negotiable.
Pretty soon, we'll have 1Gbps connections to-the-home with 1GB monthly transfer limits. I can't wait. I'll be able to transfer my monthly quota in mere hours now!
Speeds doesn't matter one god damn when usage is so restricted. Telcos and Commcos win again!
In the mid-90s the Telecom industry was given 200 billion dollars to roll out 45 megabit internet across the country. Nothing ever came of it, and the telecom industry got to pocket that $200 billion.
Sounds to me that the telecoms should know a good thing when they hear it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The only way they could do that is by increasing the bundled price; there's certain fixed costs of your service that don't increase proportionally to how many subservices you have.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Hmmm. 100 megabits/sec. At that rate, my 2 gig cap would be reached in
2000 megabytes * 8 bits/byte / 100 megabits per sec = 160 seconds aka 2 minutes 40 seconds
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It'll only catch up when we unbundle, which will never happen as long as they have lobbyists.
$ make available
You are clearly a conspiracy theory nut job.
IEEE-USA has been advocating bi-directional gigabit broadband for several years. The telcos have offered dumbed-down, legacy speeds because they are trying to become more closely associated with the entertainment industry than with telecommunications. The entertainment and other content industries do not want the competition that comes when every subscriber can become an originator.
The failure to mandate that broadband is at least 100 mbps places the US way behind other countries and makes our innovators much less able to develop new concepts in broadband-based applications. That is why Japanese who come to the US are said to feel like they are entering a telecommunications third world.
The FCC is moving to have the US join the developed telecommunications world.
Good!!!
Basically everyone with a phone in the USA has been paying an extra fee for decades now to fund rollout of broadband to rural areas. Not only have the rural areas not gotten it, even a lot of built-up areas don't have it. In fact, when municipalities have tried to create their own high-speed networks, the telcos have gone so far as to sue to prevent it. Taking $200 billion to do something, then making efforts to prevent that something from even happening? Evil.
I'd like the FCC to ask the telcos where the $200 billion went... and if the telcos want to claim things are impossible, maybe the FCC can ask them to give that $200 billion back, since we all know there's a company (Google) that's chomping at the bit to install super-fast FTTH.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Ten years ago I was surfing the internet at 56kbps. Today I can get a 30Mbs connection for around the same price I was paying for my metered 56kBs a decade ago. That represents more than a 500 fold increase over a decade. To think that the next ten years will only provide a mere 3 fold increase is somewhat depressing.
Avarice, greed, and malice would imply some thinking. :)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Considering 2160p TV's will have been shipping for 4 years by 2020 and will require 4x the bandwidth needed for 1080p (about 45megabits at 24fps). Considering 2160p may not even be the highest possible specs for viewing in 10 years (see 4320p and 9334p) 100mbits may likely not even end up being enough by 2020.
New slashdot layout sucks.
You must be new here.
The Constitution grants the Federal Government the right to pass laws to deal with some things not specifically addressed in the Constitution, and the States rights to deal with others.
Given that radio waves, much less fiber optic internet, had not yet been discovered in 1787, this is a very clear case in which one needs not simply heed the Constitution, but all of the law built on top of it since.
You may now return to drinking that teabagger kool-aid.
-Dave Haynie
Yes the Constitution does have a process for dealing with situations outside the founders vision. That process is called AMENDMENTS.
How about instead of throwing "teabagger" insults you instead encourage the Federal Government to work within its legally provided framework?