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The FCC Is Preparing To Weaken the Definition of Broadband (dslreports.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from DSLReports: Under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, the FCC is required to consistently measure whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans uniformly and "in a reasonable and timely fashion." If the FCC finds that broadband isn't being deployed quickly enough to the public, the agency is required by law to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market." Unfortunately whenever the FCC is stocked by revolving door regulators all-too-focused on pleasing the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast -- this dedication to expanding coverage and competition often tends to waver.
What's more, regulators beholden to regional duopolies often take things one-step further -- by trying to manipulate data to suggest that broadband is faster, cheaper, and more evenly deployed than it actually is. We saw this under former FCC boss Michael Powell (now the top lobbyist for the cable industry), and more recently when the industry cried incessantly when the base definition of broadband was bumped to 25 Mbps downstream, 4 Mbps upstream. We're about to see this effort take shape once again as the FCC prepares to vote in February for a new proposal that would dramatically weaken the definition of broadband. How? Under this new proposal, any area able to obtain wireless speeds of at least 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps would be deemed good enough for American consumers, pre-empting any need to prod industry to speed up or expand broadband coverage.
What's more, regulators beholden to regional duopolies often take things one-step further -- by trying to manipulate data to suggest that broadband is faster, cheaper, and more evenly deployed than it actually is. We saw this under former FCC boss Michael Powell (now the top lobbyist for the cable industry), and more recently when the industry cried incessantly when the base definition of broadband was bumped to 25 Mbps downstream, 4 Mbps upstream. We're about to see this effort take shape once again as the FCC prepares to vote in February for a new proposal that would dramatically weaken the definition of broadband. How? Under this new proposal, any area able to obtain wireless speeds of at least 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps would be deemed good enough for American consumers, pre-empting any need to prod industry to speed up or expand broadband coverage.
I still have the 3200baud modem
Is it broadband?
Then just drop the target.
So it no longer means "Frequency-Division Multiplexing"?
It also blows my mind how many people in the field don't know the difference between broadband and baseband.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
But honestly 10 megabits is perfectly fine. I live in rural Mississippi and have a 10 mbps cable connection that loads everything perfectly fine from emails and websites all the way up to 720p netflix steaming. The 25down/4up definition is only 2 years old, and going to 10down/1up as a modification will still be much better than the pre-2015 definition of only 4down/1up.
Wasn't getting rid of all those burdensome Obama era net neutrality regulations going to create massive new investments from our telecom companies? And the Tax changes are going to create all sorts of jobs! If we survive the next 3 years w/out falling so far behind the rest of the developed world it'll be a miracle.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
The FCC is actively working against us. Although lobbyists and their money control Washington, the pandering to these lobbyists usually isn't nearly as good as this. I do hope that the White House might not be in favor of this. Trump wants to push through a large infrastructure bill that would bring high speed internet to rural areas. If the FCC can claim more of those areas already have high speed internet, it works against Trump's efforts.
So, the DSL speed I had more than a decade ago now qualifies as broadband? Dosen't a Republican-stuffed FCC realize that consumer commerce is increasingly transacted on the Internet, and their precious businesses will suffer? If I can't see the pretty pictures on the Internet, how can I support my impulse-buy mindset?
The books get cooked to make the "solution" look better than it is.
Who are you going to complain to?
Repealing Net Neutrality may be the first step in a five-step plan from cable companies to combat their competition and cord-cutters:
Thoughts?
I can only get about 6 from my crappy WISP. I live on a loop road, and people on either end of the loop can get Cable or DSL, but I can get neither. Mediacom is actually advertising 1 gig cable in my area, but I can't have it.
It's hard for me to care about whether the rest of you can get more than 10 Mbps when I can't as much as 10. In fact, I don't care even a little bit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
All this fuss over the FCC, FTC, and Net neutrality is stupid and unproductive.
What's holding back internet speed and greater access is local monopolies. Even if the FCC did, "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market." It still wouldn't enable a city or small business from starting their own internet provider company and put up lines in neighborhoods.
Simply eliminate all local monopolies on internet access and you will see all manner of companies jumping into the fray.
BTW, these monopolies are created by local governments. So instead of whining about the Feds, call up City Hall and give them a ration of shit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The books get cooked to make the "solution" look better than it is.
Who are you going to complain to?
It looks more a Trump solution to me in that it is full of shit like everything else Trump touches.
Companies and governing bodies should be forced to run on the minimums that they set. If the minimum isn't good enough for them, then they should raise it until it is.
In fact, I don't care even a little bit.
we get it, you are the only person in the whole world who actually matters
maybe you can complain to your parents and they can upgrade your internet for you
- Oy, comrade, what was the production target for cars this year?
- Let me see.... 100 000.
- But we only made 30 000.
- Is no problem, we change the target to 10 000. Now we achieved 300% of the plan! Great success!
In Eastern Europe, 500Mbs is de facto standard, already. And this even in the countryside, rural area.
I can't tell if my comment makes you angry, or frightens you. Pls advise.
there are no remaining traces of high-level brain activity
It's only 1bps, but it's coming over fibre optics, so it's broadband.
They are appointed into the position just like most mega corporations. When was the last time to saw someone currently working at the FCC promoted to the position of power? For that matter any part of the government? Crony capitalism stinks the same as corruption.
Personally I think ISP's would be better served being forced to provide what they advertise rather then claim these peaks, or charge ridiculous fee's for speed many don't need. I know for me Comcast would love to sell me on a higher broadband tier that their system simply has trouble maintaining. Not only that but my wireless average speed cannot even take advantage of. I would rather see a minimum average that must be met to consider it broadband. 15 mbps would seem a fair speed for a multi device household, and I know several ISP's who claim 5mbps but really average less then 3. I will give credit to cable broadband as probably having overall the best average speeds.
Was he not elected for celebrating his own self-centeredness? Surprisingly, his followers still believe his self interest is their self interest. To their and others demise, Trump only produces some racist rhetoric and gives money to the rich (and himself) exactly what the GOP wanted all the Obama years. Next they will ruin ACA (alias Obama Care), education (only the rich will have good schools). I hope for you in the US that there will be only 4 years of Trump.
Clearly the answer is "both"
Come blow some modpoints on these comments too, kids. I've got the karma to spend, and I'm happy to do it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
100% broadband penetration, ho! Took 'em long enough.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
The foxes are well and truly running your hen house now. You'd be better off disbanding the FCC altogether.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
and ketchup counts as a vegetable on school lunches!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Can we finally disband the FCC and let the ISPs themselves take over their agenda? It's not like anyone really still believes that they're not a 100% subsidiary by now anyway.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm sure I'll be flamed here for this, but I always thought the 25Mbps definition was too high as a "minimum definition." An HD NetFlix stream is 5Mbps. 10Mbps allows two simultaneous HD streams, or one HD stream plus plenty of headroom for other normal activities. I would rather that the FCC define it to be 10Mbps, but actually check that this bandwidth is available consistently during peak usage. The reason to make it as high as 25Mbps is because the telcos rarely actually deliver their promised speeds.
I've got the karma to spend, and I'm happy to do it.
our next mass murderer is getting more confident
> Under this new proposal, any area able to obtain wireless speeds of at least 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps would be deemed good enough for American consumers
Almost twice what I'm getting right now!! Where do I sign up?
Yeah, the public keeps electing the rich people the parties put in front of them to public office, and acting surprised when these same people keep making law that favors the rich, and keep selecting agency officials that favor the rich, and keep further enriching themselves through the system.
So, yeah, it's stupid. Because the voters are stupid. It's been this way since I've been paying attention (the 1960's, and likely long before that.)
This isn't getting fixed by saying "FCC, FTC, and Net neutrality is stupid", though.
Sigh. No, it's not getting fixed by that, either, even if we could do what you say, which we can't, first because we don't make the laws, and second, because we are, as we have demonstrated repeatedly and consistently, utterly unable to get worthy individuals elected who will actually represent the people for public office.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Seriously, who decides how fast is fast? If you want uninterrupted 8K Netflix movies, well, perhaps you should pay more for that because plenty of people are happy with 4K and most people only own an HD TV. Pay more for that level of service. A library probably doesn't need to stream video nor does a Starbucks. Of course, the ISPs aren't too honest about their tier performances. The basic service usually doesn't give you enough data per month to allow for nightly streaming movies. They know this too but their performance charts are nebulous at best until you get dinged for using too much data.
South East Asia too.
Surprise!
European countries have much smaller territories. Since rural areas are not so distant from urban centers, it's more cost-effective to connect them. The USA has high population density in the coasts, but also MASSIVE areas of very low population density. For instance, Texas is larger than France, but its population is less than half.
By others with 10,000 down and you have 10 like in Japan.
the author of option piece that other sites are pointing to was forced to admit that what he stated was a a guess and there was no facts behind it.
This is almost as bad as all those people claiming that with Title 2 now gone they have been having issues with ISP blocking sites and throttling access. When in fact Title 2 rules are still in effect.
Well, in major cities I could certainly agree with you. But most of the US has far lower population density than most any other developed nation, as well as considerably lower median incomes (and the rural areas are mostly especially bad). The result being that there's just no economic justification for providing most of rural America with cutting-edge internet connections. Not even if we managed to eliminate the rampant price-gouging in the market.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I have a household of 6.
I telecommute
I've never noticed any symptoms of insufficient bandwidth.
But I do pay way too much.
isn't it funny how nobody else in your house has an opinion!
so it's you and your five other personalities, so it's really just you
Because nobody works from home, nobody ever uploads anything to the Internet, and everyone lives alone and has the connection all to themselves.
If you work from home, that's a business expense. Who cares whether it's called "broadband" or not, your employer needs to pay what is required for you to get the job done.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Simply eliminate all local monopolies on internet access and you will see all manner of companies jumping into the fray.
Exactly how do you think that would play out? It costs HUGE money to build out a wired network and less but still a lot for wireless. We have local monopolies because for the most part they are natural monopolies. Understand what that means before you say any more. You think AT&T or Comcast is going to play nice with a new entrant? Anyone jumping into a market larger than a single community had better have tens of billions in funding to build a (redundant) physical network from scratch. They already tried forcing ISPs to allow competitors on their networks and that went terribly nor did it decrease costs. (Hint: competitors cannot provide services for less money than the company that actually owns the wires and guess which company the wire owners are going to prioritize for repairs and service?)
Now what they should do is pass a regulation so that companies can either provide content or deliver content but not both. And you regulate the pipe providers so that they cannot discriminate among content providers and have to provide services for reasonable and non discriminatory prices just like we do for electricity.
BTW, these monopolies are created by local governments.
No, it was local governments combined with the economics of the product. You can take away the local monopoly but there won't be a rush to compete against already existing incumbents because it is too expensive to build the network. A well regulated monopoly in this case is actually the lowest cost option in most locations.
My broadband supplier is soon upgrading me from 10/100 to 100/100 since that's their lowest offering on media I have. That's sufficient for my needs.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The problem is that the federal law would be even allowing LESS competition because reasons.
How could it allow less? I have precisely one reasonable ISP option to my house right now. (Comcast in my case) The only "competitor" is Frontier Communications which offers substantially slower DSL service or my other option is to go entirely wireless which would be problematic for various reasons.
What needs to happen is that a law needs to be passed that companies can deliver content or they can deliver the pipe but not both. And the pipe providers need to be regulated to a similar degree as the electric companies to ensure fair and non-discriminatory access at rational prices even to rural areas.
So your position is that you can't make money laying your own lines...like the company that did it previously.
That's absolutely correct. The company that did it previously was a subsidized monopoly. Once the money is already spent to string one set of wires to a house there it considerably weakens the business case to string a second set of wires. The first competitor in has a nearly insurmountable cost advantage over any later competitors. It's one of the cases where more competition does not actually reduce prices.
But if you have the Government standing in the way keeping anyone from even trying, then what's the point?
The government can get out of the way entirely and it would still fail because the services we are talking about are good examples of natural monopolies. Adding competitors . You don't seem to comprehend what a natural monopoly is. Anyone building a new network where Comcast already exists is going to be at an almost insurmountable cost disadvantage.
Case in point...Power companies are researching sending signals over the power line.
They already have a network in place. That is a different situation than trying to build a new one from scratch. Without getting into the weeds I'd welcome more competition but you're talking apples to oranges here.
Other options, erecting local WiFi towers. There could be a perfectly viable business case there.
WiFi? Do you comprehend how short the range for WiFi is? You would have to have a dense population and positively blanket the place with towers. WiFi is a terrible solution where I and many other people live - my nearest neighbor is actually out of range of my base station. Furthermore there are problems with the limited amount of spectrum available for WiFi.
France/Population: 66.9 million (2016)
Texas/Population: 27.86 million (2016)
Texas should have 200Mbps.
#DeleteFacebook
He was elected because he managed to con a large segment of the population into believing that he would fight for the working person against the waste and corruption that is permeating Washington, well along with a fair sprinkling of nationalism, racism, etc. What's even worse is that it worked despite the fact that it was just about the most obvious con in political history, he has spent years gloating about his own corruption, dislike of the poor/middle class, use of foreign manufacturing, tax evasion, etc.
And the pipe providers need to be regulated to a similar degree as the electric companies to ensure fair and non-discriminatory access at rational prices even to rural areas.
You forgot about free ponies for everyone.
Save your snark. We subsidize rural access to phone service because it is important and have for decades. We should do the same for internet access and I don't mean dial up.
Broadband by whatever definition you choose is really cool to have, but in no way shape form or fashion approaches a basic need.
To most people it is more of a need in today's world than phone service is and phone service is FAR more regulated. Internet service is a utility of national importance and should be regulated as such.
Growing up in a tech-heavy bubble doubtless makes it hard to comprehend how much of society gets along just fine without it.
Well since I'm old enough to pre-date the internet and FAR older than the web I think I have a better handle on what life is like without internet access than most of the people reading this. While it's perfectly possible to get by without internet service, I don't buy the argument that it isn't a utility of the same importance as phone or mail and just a step behind electricity. It's certainly more important than Cable TV.
Those and a land line may be what passes for "broadband" once Idjit Pai finishes dismantling everything the FCC has previously done.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It's a nice thought, and we certainly have the technology available, but where's the profit motive, or even the money/manpower to fulfill that desire?
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Also think of the poor TLAs, imagine the datacenter they'd have to assemble to warehouse all that data... (only modest sarcasm intended)
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
And yet, Canada, a developed nation with a lower median income and 1/10th the population density is aiming for everyone to have access to a minimum of 50/10. Rural areas should still have decent speeds, even the ones that are a thousand kms from their neighbouring town.
The economic justification is having to compete in the 21st century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
And yet, Canada, a developed nation with a lower median income and 1/10th the population density is aiming for everyone to have access to a minimum of 50/10. Rural areas should still have decent speeds, even the ones that are a thousand kms from their neighbouring town.
The economic justification is having to compete in the 21st century.
Canada also does crazy stuff with their telecoms and utilities, though. Offhand I know a case where they replaced miles of cable to get a single DSL connection working. Their prices are also much higher than in the US if you use a lot of bandwidth.
about the FCC, but I feel that way about the EPA and NEA. So we have that common ground. Good for us.
This will be quickly followed by a Donald Trump tweet stating how much better the US is now because under him more people have broadband access than under Obama.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Trump seems to be like "fuck it, let's
push this country back 30 - 40 years ago".
I guess Donald misses the days when
both New York and Los Angeles had
a 1,000+/yr murder rate, technology generally sucked compared to now, ignorance ran amok, very few people
dared questioned the gov't,
gays and transgenders couldn't leave the house without fear of being beaten to death
by baseball welding thugs, where mega
church "pastors" fleeced their congregations
by the millions and bought themselves big
mansions and expensive luxury cars,
and we had the threat of nuclear annihilation
over our heads.
Yee Haw!, those were the days! Oh, but he
does want to build a nice big invasive
and violent police state at the same time!
Great, so now we will have the worst of the
past combined with the worst of the future!
Way to go, Donald!
Are you tired of Winning yet?
All bandwidth is shared by the subscribers. Let's say we have a 10 Mbps link that is used by 10 users. The government then decides that 25 Mbps is the new definition of broadband. The ISP can then change the 10 Mbps link to 25 Mbps and increase the service group to 25 users.
Does Ajit know he's been set up to be the fall guy?
When things go south, Trump's going to fire him and no one will hire him ever again.
But honestly a bicycle is perfectly fine. I live in an urban center and a bicycle that can reach up to 15 MPH is perfectly fine for riding two miles to work, or half a mile to the store, and it even has a basket that can hold two bags of groceries or a small backpack. I don't understand why anyone would need a car, or why we should build roads to accommodate them.
My point is, everybody's usage case is different and most of us aren't okay with something being just barely good enough.