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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.
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.
It said to 100 million homes. How many of those homes are in densely packed cities? It's probably not as hard as it sounds. It would however require upgrades to the infrastructure that they seem to desperately want to avoid spending money on.
Of course, most likely nothing will come of this so it doesn't really matter.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Because 100mbps is the bandwidth required for the telescreens?
There is a war going on for your mind.
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?
...that 100 million people by 2020 should have a pretty pony. This will result in 50 people receiving tainted horse steaks by 2035.
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I, for one, welcome our new pony-mandating FTC overlords and our rainbow-mandating EPA overlords. Every American should have the government-granted right to upload pictures of their pony galloping under a rainbow at 100 Mbps speeds!
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!
They should federalize all franchising so that local and state governments cannot limit which telecoms and cable companies can operate where.
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
Japan has 1Gbps internet. I had it when I lived there a few years ago. Even at 100Mbps we would be way behind.
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!!!
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?
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.
For $140/month you'd be able to get a 1000/100 connection in Sweden (if you live on the right address that is).
Never attribute to laziness what might better be attributable to avarice, greed, and malice.
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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
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.
Yes but then I'd have to deal with you damn swedes. Sorry, no offense, but I recently had to work with a guy from Sweden who we'll just say was difficult.
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
Which would be a good idea if it were true. Sadly it is not
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.
"There was no governement mandate for Verizon to do this, and Verizon spent a boatload of money laying all the fiber."
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - we were supposed to have had 45mbit symmetrical a few YEARS ago.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Verizon's incentive is also driven by moving people off copper pairs, since they have to share those pipes with anyone who wants to lease them cheaply (CLEC, alarm company, etc). VOIP over fiber is very different from POTS from a regulatory standpoint.