back to article Broadband isn't broadband unless it's 25Mbps, mulls FCC boss

US comms watchdog the FCC wants to increase the minimum speed ISPs must deliver in order to label an internet service as broadband. Chairman Tom Wheeler hopes to scrap today's minimum of 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up, and instead require carriers to provide 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up if they want to claim broadband internet service in …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    12Mbps is more achievable

    And since a reliable 12Mbps connection lets you watched your vid in 1080p*, I think this is a reasonable definition of bare minimum broadband. More than that and we're looking at FTTC and FTTP. I can't imagine any of the big US ISPs having the stomach for rolling out either, at least outside of those areas with the greatest density of population.

    * It's also supposed to the the bare minimum for 4K streaming, but paint me sceptical 8-).

    1. Annihilator

      Re: 12Mbps is more achievable

      These go to 11...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 11? But for what percent their customers

        11 is fine. But with conventional DSL you'd need to be close to the cabinet..... My understanding is a lot of US customers are having to put up with 2-3mbps (i.e. They party like it's 2004)?

        1. Chika
          Trollface

          Re: 11? But for what percent their customers

          Hmm... It has been a while since I last watch "This Is Spinal Tap"! :)

          As for what does and doesn't constitute "broadband", given that the term was half-inched anyway, who actually gives a toss?

  2. Scott 26

    meanwhile in Kiwiland....

    5/1 is considered the minimum "broadband" speed

    (Ultra-fast broadband = 100/50, which the govt.nz wants to get to 75% of the population)

  3. Kaltern

    If this was ever implemented in the EU/UK, BT's bosses would all have simultaneous heart failure.

    But yes, I 100% agree with this - there should be something like Wideband and Broadband.

    1. dogged

      At our last house, BT supplied an astonishing 512Kb down/insulting trickle up.

      At the one before, they simply refused to admit that ADSL broadband was a thing and tried to sell us an ISDN line.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "At our last house, BT supplied an astonishing 512Kb down/insulting trickle up."

        You think that's good, how about this from the blackmailing bastards:

        We're paying for a 21Mb/s connection, we've just moved to a new home and transferred the line across. Where we were getting 15Mb/s, we're now getting 3Mb/s with spikes of packet loss up to 40% at peak times (and sometimes at 1AM-3AM). Offsite backups barely succeed anymore.

        Luckily for us, the cabinet is having another card fitted to it which will enable fibre for the area - and BT have said we can upgrade to 21-32Mb/s - meaning BT have the capability to provide what we are already paying for, they're just unwilling to provide it unless we pay an extra £20pm for fibre (to the cabinet). If we're exceptionally lucky, we might break ADSL speeds and dip a toe into fibre territory (21Mb/s+).

        I've given up trying to explain how retarded this is to BT. I don't want/need fibre, just give me what I'm fecking paying for. I'm making sure I'm around on install day and if the BT engineer tries to do anything with the line between the cabinet and the house to get it working at 21Mb/s, he's going to find himself in a very awkward position.

        This whole situation feels like we're being blackmailed into subscribing to fibre just to get the line between our house and the cabinet upgraded to support decent speeds and stop dropping packets.

        BASTARDS.

        / rant over

  4. The_Idiot

    The heck with...

    ... any definition based on the maximum upload and download speeds. Let's, rather, have a service definition based on a combination of published figures for:

    1: Minimum upload speed (in the absence of 'service failure', where 'service failure' is any period where the speed falls below a stated low water mark and is refundable to the user).

    2: Maximum capped upload speed (because even Marketing folk have to eat, but a maximum supportable from user experience)

    3: Mean average upload and download speeds over time in different use windows as experienced by users.

    4: Modal average upload and download speeds over time from sampled user speeds, gathered from samples in a geographic service area, and sampled every N Minutes, where N is measurable without having to run to the store for more zeros.

    5: Agility - much the same numbers for latency.

    It's alright. I'll go and take my red pill now....

    1. Donn Bly

      Re: The heck with...

      Broadband is a best effort service without a committed information rate. If you can a "minimum upload speed" then you have a committed rate, and it is no longer broadband. It make just as much sense to redefine "megabit" to something else. Come up with a new term and define it, invent a new word if necessary, but out officials need to quit trying to lie though obfuscation.

      I'm tired of the government constantly changing definitions to apply rules and regulations to things to which the original rules and regulations were not intended to apply. Whether it is reclassifying broadband (originally 256K, now 4M, and soon 25M), a assault rifle (from fully automatic to an airsoft toy that looks "scary"), a drug lab (originally a complex and expensive refinery, now a soda bottle that you can stuff in your pocket), or the ever popular meaning of the word "is".

      1. The_Idiot

        Re: The heck with...

        Lord Donn

        I fully recognise what broadband 'is' :-).

        Rather, I'm suggesting that if we're going to mess around with _changing_ the current definition of what it is - let's _change_ it. Rather than give it a new coat of non-weatherproof paint and wonder why, after we've left it out in the storm that is Internet provision and consumption, it looks just as tatty and unusable as it is today in a week, month, year or some other period of time.

        But I regret I did not make that clear, and my apology for my failure (blush).

        And yes. Given the often vociferously discordant discussions over MegaBit, MegaeByte, megabit, megabyte, MB, mB, Mb and such - maybe we _should_ take a run at those as well, as ye comment.

        Or not - after all, I'm an Idiot (blush).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Changing the definition of broadband is painful. We need some new terminology for the higher rates instead.

    Terms that common folk will still understand.

    How about:

    'Broaderband'

    And for higher rates, logically we'd have 'Fatband'

    Or pay to upgrade to the even larger 'Obeseband'

    Ah clearly I've missed my true calling in Branding.

    1. DJV Silver badge
      Devil

      I can't wait for...

      ... Ericpicklesband!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I can't wait for...

        Kardashianband - plenty upfront and an amazing backhaul. Fnarr!!

        1. Haku
          Coat

          Re: I can't wait for...

          And when your provider throttles your connection because you ate too much internet:

          Gastricband.

      2. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: I can't wait for...

        >... Ericpicklesband!

        Also known as 'Satellite.'

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Big band.

      (and a one and a two...)

  6. -tim

    How about investment incentives too?

    Take it one more step. Change the tax incentives so that the best incentives are only allowed for services that can carry 10g/10g today (going to 100g/100g in 4 years) even if it is too expensive every home user. With other steps at the points where the other newer forms of technology allow rollouts today. They should also take some ideas from the EPA Miles Per Gallon about how to measure speed of broadband.

  7. joed

    what about the unintended consequences?

    I can already see comcast mailing me a letter with rate increases for the better service they're forced to provide (just when I cut it down to the bare minimum only to give less to them leaches).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: what about the unintended consequences?

      Because that's always the choice, isn't it. A zero sum game that the providers always win.

      How about we claw back all the incentives already paid to the living descendants of the RBOCs (AT&T, Verizon, etc) who got the equivalent of $200 billion in incentives over the the late 1990's to build a national next-gen broadband infrastructure, but never delivered. We could take that money, and the billions of $ *not* paid to the current generation of Internet carriers, including the cable companies, to fund a TVA-like[1] agency that would get the job done right.

      [1] Although a lot of anti-government types will never admit it, a lot of Appalachia still wouldn't have electricity if they'd had to wait for private enterprise, it was the TVA that actually got it done.

  8. Mark 85
    Meh

    In some ways it's good...

    Ok... so where I live in the States, DSL will no longer be "Broadband". I'm sure the marketing hacks will find a new name. But will things really change? Will we see upgrades? Or just higher rates, larger profits, and empty promises.

    In the area I live in, what used to be Qwest and is now CenturyLink has been promising fiber in the next 6 months for like 5 years now. But they turn around and call you to take their DSL service because it's "almost as good as cable"... <rolls eyes>

  9. Winkypop Silver badge
    WTF?

    4Mbps down and 1Mbps up

    Wow!

    I'd be happy with even that.

    But then I live in Australia.

    I'm calling you out LNP!

    Where's my NBN?

    1. NotWorkAdmin

      Re: 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up

      Aye - I'd be more interested in some semblance of reality in the description of the "product" I'm paying for. Virgin says I get 30Mb down. I've NEVER seen as much as 10.

      Analogy time again. If I bought a Kilo of sugar and the package contained less than 333 grams I'd have reasonable grounds to complain.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up Re:Analogy

        If you only got 1/3 Kg when you brought 1Kg of sugar you would complain until it was resolved or a reason was found.

        With Virgin, I assume you have gathered evidence (in my experience a Speedtest or three) and ask them to check the connection. Sure it takes time to complain, but it takes time to moan on TheReg as well.

        In my experience, most DSL services will deliver what they are supposed to after a complaint unless the problem is on your home network/wiring beyond the demarc.

  10. Bunbury

    A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

    What is the point of playing with the names? If you are trying to force people to roll out faster networks to rural areas fine, but someone has to pay for that. That will either be the customers or the taxpayer. You could force the network operators to pay for it but that, eventually, will come down to the same thing (or perhaps blackouts when the operators go broke)

  11. Swarthy
    IT Angle

    Question

    This may have been covered in TFA, but if it was, I missed it:

    Is the new speed what is required for a service to be advertised as broadband, or is it what is required for a service to be regulated as broadband?

    Given Mr. Wheeler's career history and the waffling on Net Neutrality, I could see something like "broadband must be neutral, but this narrow band stuff can be shaped as needed." Leaving 90% of the US having the option to upgrade to 'broadband' or pay 2-5x for their Netflix (First to Netflix, then to the ISP for the Netflix package, then again to the ISP for 'Netflix management fees' etc.) etc.

  12. Delta-Dude

    Dump Copper, Nothing But Fiber

    It's called dump 100 year old twisted copper pair and settle for nothing less than fiber.

    http://wsrl.org/pdfs/vtel-install-all.pdf

    The problem is simple. The solution is easier yet.

    http://wsrl.org/fiber.htm

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remove the monopoly first

    The US needs to remove the monopoly the phone companies have.

    I have the option of Comcast, Comcast or... Nothing.

    Because there is no competition in most areas of the US there is no incentive for them to increase speeds and give better service.

    1. Oninoshiko

      Re: Remove the monopoly first

      The US needs to <del>remove the monopoly the phone companies have</del> keep the streets ripped up conenuously.

      FTFY

      Seriously, phones are a natural monopoly because of the cost and inconvenience of building networks. what they should do is split services and network maintenance into two companies, and allow anyone who wants to offer different services to use the network at the same price.

      Hell, I'm willing to say nationalize the network and allow different companies to use it to deliver different services, and I'm normally a free-market nutter.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Remove the monopoly first

        For phones we actually did that once, in 1984.

        But the telcos reorganized, in some cases died and resurrected like zombie hordes, to recreate those monopolies to at least figuratively eat all our brains.

        Cable started out as a noble idea: Community Antenna TeleVision (CATV). Give outlying rural communities TV who were way too far from broadcast towers in our urban centers. The concession of monopolies was considered necessary to give those first small cooperatives a chance at survival. At some point that morphed into "Pay TV", where you paid directly for lots more channels and commercial-free content, including much that didn't have to adhere to the then straightlaced "broadcast standards for decency" (e.g. HBO). Somewhere along the line wall-to-wall advertising was reintroduced and those monopoly concessions given to cable providers solidified into competition exclusion zones for both TV and broadband.

        You could say the mess we're now in was the result of a lack of regulatory due diligence. After all, it was Jerry Ford's Justice Department who originally went after AT&T (which continued to press on under Jimmy Carter), but Ronald Reagan's that settled with them: followed by several generations of "business friendly" regulators who cravenly identified the public interest with the interests of monopolists so openly that if he were alive,Teddy Roosevelt would have run them (the regulators) down on horseback for the traitors to the public trust they were (no doubt he would have had an even more severe penalty in mind for the monopolists themselves).

  14. Marty McFly Silver badge

    Rural Oregon

    I feel lucky just to get even DSL. I am 11k wire feet from the CO box. They currently have me rated at 8Mbps, and it is a good day if speedtest.net can clear 6Mbps. 768Kbps upload.

    I would love an upgrade to better performance. I don't know if the technology exists though. That is a long distance to push bandwidth through a plain old copper pair.

    Now to think outside the box... There are two pair of wire running to my house (standard just in case I wanted to add a 2nd POTS line). I wonder if that 2nd pair could be used to increase the overall bandwidth??

    1. Steven Jones

      Re: Rural Oregon

      Look up bonding, although your ISP has to support it. Failing that, it's possible to do line balancing but that doesn't allow for a single data stream with 2 x the bandwidth. What it allows is several independent data streams which can be useful if the problem is congestion due to multiple users.

      Of course, it's expensive. Two lines, two broadband accounts a modem/router which supports bonding.

      Failing all this, you are wholly dependent on your telco bringing fibre closer to your property.

  15. Wilseus

    To be honest, ~20Mb is more than enough for nearly everyone. Yes I could get fibre but at a cost of about 4 times I am paying now, I'm not even remotely tempted, although I guess I'm one of the lucky ones because I'm paying for 20Mb and that's pretty much what I get.

  16. Anne Nonymous

    Its a power grab.

    There's a law in the US -- it's called Section 706, and you can find it if you Google 47 USC 1302 because that's where it wound up in the law books -- which the FCC believes gives it all kinds of power to regulate and meddle in the Internet. But it can only make this week argument if it "determines" that people don't have broadband and aren't getting it in a timely way. So, guess what? To keep its power as broadband is rolled out everywhere, the FCC has to keep on claiming that the minimum requirement for broadband is higher and higher. 25 megabits is completely unnecessary, but Wheeler is claiming that it is so that he can try to justify sticking his nose into more and more things and regulating the Net more and more heavily.

  17. buttman

    Cost

    No one ever talks about cost per-month. 25 mb is great but I am not paying $80 to $100 per month for it. We need to be talking about the price for basic internet. Many people just want to have basic internet (over 2 million people in the USA still have AOL dial-up!) for them basic DSL is high speed. The current system is full of haves and have-nots. We need to make basic internet the same as your water/gas hookup (price controlled cost and a right to all). We need what the interstate highways system did for roads done for the internet (not just for money or market share but for public good).

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