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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."
If the lower limit for the definition of "broadband" is increased to 10Mbps downloads, half the country currently receiving broadband as required by the Universal Service Fund will suddenly require massive capital improvements to upgrade service in remote areas. This has a knock-on effect for other ISPs advertising higher download speeds, which become a lesser value proposition when the minimum speed is raised.
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. If two people are watching HQ videos (netflix, youtube, etc), that's easily 8-10mbps *minimum*. Figure the other two are listening to music and playing online games and maybe you have a guest who is using skype or something... bandwidth just doesn't go very far in today's world, unless you're living like it's still the late 90s as far as your entertainment consumption and communication.
The internet services offered from AT&T's website. Note that 6Mbps/3Mbps "is perfect for general Web surfing and emailing" While 12/18/24 Mbps is "for general Web use, as well as streaming music and video, downloading movies, surfing, and social media."
So AT&T, why do you say one thing to consumers and another to the FCC?
http://www.att.com/u-verse/shop/index.jsp
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American expat in Switzerland here. Using Speedtest.net I get 246.08/15.21 Mbps. I pay the cable company the equivalent of $98 USD/month for 250/15 internet service (no data caps) and cable TV (my wife likes watching US sports, so we have the "all-inclusive" TV package that includes some US sports channels). I originally had the 35/5 plan, but upgraded to the 150/10. They discontinued that plan and switched me to the 250/15 plan, which was only $5/month more.
If I wasn't satisfied with them, Swisscom (major telco) and the electric company each offer fiber-to-the-home, with up to 1000/100 speeds and no caps. There's other options for DSL too, but not nearly as fast.
Comcast, a major US ISP, has a comparably-priced plan that goes from $89/month for the first year to $119/month for the second year and then up to $148/month thereafter. They offer a bunch of TV channels and 25 Mbps internet, plus data caps. That's absurdly awful.
As an American, I find it ridiculous that wholesale bandwidth in the US (e.g. connectivity in a datacenter) is dirt cheap and fast (as an example, Hurricane Electric offers 10GigE transit for $0.45/Mbps) but that retail bandwidth available to end-users is so expensive, slow, and limited by data caps and the like. Things really need to change.