AT&T Says 10Mbps Is Too Fast For "Broadband," 4Mbps Is Enough

An anonymous reader writes AT&T and Verizon have asked the FCC not to change the definition of broadband from 4Mbps to 10Mbps, contending that "10Mbps service exceeds what many Americans need today to enable basic, high-quality transmissions." From the article: "Individual cable companies did not submit comments to the FCC, but their representative, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), agrees with AT&T and Verizon. 'The Commission should not change the baseline broadband speed threshold from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream because a 4/1 Mbps connection is still sufficient to perform the primary functions identified in section 706 [of the Telecommunications Act]—high-quality voice, video, and data,' the NCTA wrote."

Comments

Re:Pirst Fost

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, no. Had they actually defined 10Mbps as a broadband service, you might have a chance.

Sorry guys, but you are full of shit

[zifn4b]

I use a 28.8 modem from Telix to post on slashdot using Lynx on my DOS machine with 640k of memory and it's blazing fast. Now that's what I call broadband. Should be good enough for anyone.

Look at this way

[Anonymous Coward]

4Mbps = 400KB per second. Which means that the connection could transfer the entire contents of a personal computer's memory (640K) in less than two seconds.

Re:Why aren't there versions

[sixshot]

Because then you're promoting the idea or notion that they will name it "SuperSpeed Broadband3", "Ultra Broadband", and lastly "Super Ultra Mega-Broadband 2 Championship Turbo Edition +Alpha"

Re:Demographic

[jeffb (2.718)]

You'll notice that whenever companies engage in discussions about this sort of thing, they seem to be talking about households of one person. I have no idea how 10MBPS would suffice in a house of, say, four people.

Why, they're all gathered around the radio in the evening, while Father smokes his pipe and Mother does her knitting.

Er, TV, not radio.

Hah! Oh... Thanks...

[Greyfox]

I needed a good laugh. I suppose as a potential investor, I'm happy to know that his company is woefully unprepared to compete in a rapidly-evolving marketplace. It's kind of surprising to encounter such honesty in this day and age. Of course, he probably doesn't realize that he just admitted his company is woefully unprepared to compete in a rapidly-evolving marketplace, but that's one of the root causes of them being woefully unprepared to compete in this marketplace, isn't it?