FCC Chair Proposes Raising Broadband Standard to 100/20 Mbps

[Tsing]

The FCC doesn't seem to think that the current broadband standard is adequate.

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[Ditchinit]

How about they regulate real, actual average delivered speed and not marketing bull**** "up to" speeds. Yeah, I can subscribe for "up to" 1 Gbps, but reality is that I'm lucky to actually get 200 Mbps at 1 Gbps prices.

... as long as we're looking at standards.

 

[Grimlakin]

How about they regulate real, actual average delivered speed and not marketing bull**** "up to" speeds. Yeah, I can subscribe for "up to" 1 Gbps, but reality is that I'm lucky to actually get 200 Mbps at 1 Gbps prices.

... as long as we're looking at standards.

I've never had that problem... EVER. Sure I don't get 1gb all the time... but 960mbit is close enough for me.

What cores me is when people subscribe to 2.5gb services because they want better netflix... like... you're **** can't even use 1gig and only just barely...

 

[Brian_B]

How about they regulate real, actual average delivered speed and not marketing bull**** "up to" speeds. Yeah, I can subscribe for "up to" 1 Gbps, but reality is that I'm lucky to actually get 200 Mbps at 1 Gbps prices.

... as long as we're looking at standards.

ISPs are bad about that, yeah. Especially DSL -- they get to claim the entire coverage area as their max theoretical speed, even though you only get it if your right next door. Cellular too. Or the Satellite that can deliver 25Mb (the old standard), but quickly hits a data cap and throttles down to about 25kb

I'd really like to see it if you are only considered covered if you have an ISP in the area that is
a) greater than the defined speed, delivered to your door, after any overage throttling that may exist
b) without data caps (I'll allow overage throttling, but see #a)
c) that follows net neutrality rules
d) and has a clear and audited privacy policy

That's way too complicated for a government agency to enforce, but that's what I think it ~should~ be.

 

[Zarathustra]

They should make part of the requirement that upstream matches downstream...

 

[Brian_B]

They should make part of the requirement that upstream matches downstream...

I agree, but for 99% (random made up number) of households, the only upstream traffic they have are video games and TCP ACK packets. Most households, if given the choice between symmetrical up/down speeds or a lower up/higher down of identical bandwidth -- will chose the latter.

I'd fall into that category - I'd rather have 175 down/25 up than 100/100. So long as the Up is enough, my traffic is heavily weighted in the downstream direction.

I realize that isn't everyone though. A few people run servers out of their homes, and businesses and the like are each unique. I have a lot of sites at work where we pay for the opposite - higher upload than download.

 

[MadMummy76]

My first broadband connection was 384/64....kilobits.

It was still 10 times faster than dialup.

 

[Grimlakin]

Yep I recall have 144k ADSL and it was the best I could get. I also remember have a full fat 10megabit cable modem when I was first in my area with one. That felt light lightspeed. Now I can get 2 gigabit to my home if I so choose and pay 150 a month for it but it isn't worth it to me as I don't have any devices that could use that kind of badwidth and everything I do have is fully ok with the 1 gigabit serving all devices.

 

[Zarathustra]

I had nothing bu dialup until I went to college in the late 90's.

My dorm was the first on campus to be wired for Ethernet my freshman year.

After having experienced always on LAN there was no going back.

My first non-compete broadband was AT&It's Roadrunner Cable Modem. If I recall it was 1.5Mbit down, and like 384kbit up or something like that, and it was glorious!

This was back when using a router was against the terms and conditions. A cable modem was for a single computer only, and the cable guy installed it directly on your PC.

You could get routers, which I did, but you had to spoof the Mac address on the WAN port to match the PC used during setup, or it wouldn't work. They disapproved, but they weren't willing to stop taking your money, so they didn't boot you off.

Wireless routers weren't a thing yet. I had some HP branded wired only consumer router.

But that was over 20 years ago.

Crazy how far we've come. Feels like just yesterday.

 

[DrezKill]

I had nothing bu dialup until I went to college in the late 90's.

Same. In high school I had a friend that had DSL, another with cable, and even one guy with ISDN. But I myself only had dial-up until I went to college, where I had access to T3. Between that and being on the same network with the other people in my dorm building where we could freely share files at high speed, my mind was blown. Not only is this how I first truly experienced broadband, but this is also the first time I played games online. I'm not into online multiplayer, I'm mostly a single-player gamer, but back then I had never tried playing a game online, I was brand-new to that sh1t, and the experience was amazing. At least until I realized that everyone online was waaaaaaay better than me, and I would get my *** soundly handed to me every time. So then I went back to offline and bots HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Eventually my parents got Comcast cable, so I could still have broadband whenever I was home from college. Man it was so amazing to be able to surf the 'Net and grab sh1t at high speeds without tying up the house's phone line!

Unrelated, my freshman year of college is also when I first got a cell phone. My parents got me one cuz they wanted to be able to easily contact me whenever, so I was the first person in my family to have a cell phone. Nokia and Cingular baby. No flip-lid, no touchscreen, no keyboard, just a small old-school single-color LCD display for showing phone numbers. It was very weird to have a phone that I could carry around with me all the time, with a private number that goes just to that one phone. When people called, they weren't calling the house. They were calling me. It was quite strange indeed.

After having experienced always on LAN there was no going back.

D4mn straight. It was hard for me to process at first, always being online. The Internet was always readily available. I did not first have to run through the house asking everyone in my family if they needed the phone line, then dial-up, then hope no one tried to use the phone when I was online. Then whenever I was done using the Internet for whatever, I had to disconnect. These days I have no idea how to live without a constant always-on connection. The only time I don't have that is when the actual Internet service goes out (a common occurrence with Comcast, very very rare with Verizon FiOS).

They disapproved, but they weren't willing to stop taking your money, so they didn't boot you off.

Hahahahahahaha, of course!

Also reminds me of when I had a hacked cable modem for waaaay faster speeds than what Comcast was offering us, but I had to keep the regular cable modem connected to make the connection look legit and stop Comcast from terminating service. I forget all the details involved, that was a very long time ago.

They should make part of the requirement that upstream matches downstream...

I am so happy that FiOS does this. It's really f*cking handy. It sucks whenever I am stuck on my phone with 5G (or stuck using my phone for Internet access on a PC via USB tethering). The 5G down speeds are waaaaaay higher than my FiOS down speeds, but the 5G up speeds are some real @ss. If I need to upload sh1t from my phone I have to hope there is a WiFi connection available, or I just don't bother.