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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."
They should federalize all franchising so that local and state governments cannot limit which telecoms and cable companies can operate where.
Japan has 1Gbps internet. I had it when I lived there a few years ago. Even at 100Mbps we would be way behind.
Maybe, maybe not.
There are an awful lot of properties that only have internet because the deals the ISPs negotiated with the municipalities require a certain (high) level of coverage. I obviously don't know your exact situation, but it's very possible that the only reason that 8Mbps extends within 500ft of you is that the next town over made them run it that far. They might have been happier keeping cable 10 miles from you and only serving the city center - but in order to access the profitable part of the market they're made to serve the less profitable parts.
There are 350 million people in the US - and probably more than 400 Million by 2020. This mandate means that 75% of the population will be excluded from the mandate, and probably put on the back burner to make it law. I have decent internet (3Mb/$25) but there are folks just 20 miles down the road who pay more than $70/mo for 384k/128k service.
I like the thought, but I'd rather see better regulation of what the various terms mean. "Unlimited," or any term which suggests that there is no cap on download quantity should be forbidden for any line which does not have a allowable greater than (max burst d/l+u/l speed x 30 days). I'm okay with defining terms for internet speed, as long as all ranges have a defined name (think of RF spectrum bands).
If they want better rollout, they need to include more than just the city centers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Which is exactly why I hope they mandate this, and don't give them any money to do it.
Ten years ago I had a 1.5mb cable modem from Comcast (actually I think I got my first cable line in 1998).
Today I have a 20mb cable modem from RCN (which costs nearly 2x as much as the 1.5mb line I used to have).
Each of these were the fastest consumer lines available to me.
100mb in 10 years sounds rather unambitious really. Consumer usage (I'm assuming) is probably growing at a rate akin to Moore's Law. There would be 6 and 2/3 cycles of Moore's Law in 10 years. My 20mb line should turn into a 1300mb line in 10 years at this rate and consumer usage will probably meet the demands.
Unfortunately by this logic I should have a 96mb line available already, which isn't true at least where I live
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Consumers squeeze corps, corps squeeze consumers - agreed
Corps have industry trade groups and lobbyists, consumers have (in the USA) representatives and senators.
When it comes down to it, people decide what's ok and what's not. Corps are not people, consumers are. (except when it comes to campaign financing)
Having minimum standards sucks from the supply side, but their absence is much more damaging on the demand side. To use your analogy - ways to make flights cheaper would include doing away with seatbelts and emergency exits (the seals are a maintenance issue). Nobody uses them anyway. Also, would you even notice if aircraft inspections were reduced? The average consumer wouldn't either.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
I connected to the Internet over a phone line at 14.4 kbps in the mid 90s, which is was practically as fast as you could connect over an analog phone line to an ISP at the time. 15 years later, I connect to the Internet over cable at 12 Mbps. That's an average bandwidth increase of 57% per year, compounded annually. Going from 12 Mbps to 100 Mbps in 10 years is an average increase of only 24% per year, also compounded annually.
I think the government's effort would be better spent deregulating the industry. If ISPs were forced to compete with each other, prices would be lower, and service would probably be faster.
Actually, the cost of the upgrades should come out of the $200 Billion that Hatta (162192) mentioned below. The BIG problem with this is that it would seem the money was handed out without:
(a) A mandate with a specific goal.
(b) Mileposts clearly specified for progress toward that goal.
(c) Follow through by Government regulators (wait, could this be that?)
(d) Payment per milepost acheived, due upon delivery not upon agreement to consider delivering.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
Same thing is happening with the "Smart Grid" for broadband over power lines. The government is giving us money, everyone down the chain is saying "Sure, we can do something if we had the money", and the engineers at the bottom are saying "No! You are giving the money to the wrong people! Spend it over here and you can get it done!" But... If the engineers at the bottom yell too loudly, they get fired. As such, the engineer at the bottom will say "Sure, just give me the money and we can make something work."
So they give the money to multiple companies, hedging their bets that someone will get it done. Then, when it is all finished, none of the companies really have enough money to complete the project, and it dies because every company is asking for more money.
But, if we give it to a single company, then you get monopoly issues.
So, who do you give money to? You can't give it to the current companies. They get stuck in the past and what has worked/failed. You can't give it to a brand new company, since they don't have the experience required. So how can you make sure you have the proper company and the proper $$ amount?
Hopefully, these threats will cause the industry as a whole to focus on the higher datarates. Hopefully, the next design from Cisco/whomever will not be a cost-reduced hardware for the current system, but a higher datarate device.
IMHO, the only thing the government Can do is provide tax incentives and very low interest loans earmarked for high-speed internet. Giving money only works if the technology already exists.
Yes, many people are Luddites. But don't they have that right? Jeez! We have a problem with some people forcing their opinions on us (taking religion out of schools, etc...) but we are perfectly comfortable forcing our opinions of what is "right" or "good" or "best for the community" on others.
Maybe we should treat others with respect and promote their rights instead of just force our opinions on them.