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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.
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.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
Support SETI@home
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
"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.