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Maybe Americans don’t need fast home Internet service, FCC suggests

• SpikeDad 9y ago
  Well I'll say that for about 2 years I had the minimal Comcast broadband account (due to low income) at 35/5 mb/sec. It had little trouble supporting my streaming and Internet needs which included an iPhone (with WiFi calling), Netflix 1080p, a few 4K free videos and some modest Bitorrent activity. Except for the slower downloading of Bitorrent and iPhone content there were no issues with streaming - no pixilation or stalling. Now it's just me so YMMV of course but it's not impossible to scale down one's Internet bandwidth without affecting the quality. I was recently forced to upgrade to 100/10 mb/s service by Comcast due to changing contracts with my townhouse association and fortunately my financial situation is better so I could afford it but I have to say the basic QoS in my home is not greatly improved. Of course it's not that beneficial to ISPs to provide lower cost/ low speed service because they have to build out their networks anyways for high speed service so I doubt if suddenly there was some big demand for low speed home broadband there would be any change in pricing. Of course the motivation of the FCC is well known - give the industry all the advantages and the consumers none which is a shame because there is a good case to be made for lower cost and lower speed Internet AS A CHOICE and not as some corporate cost savings spurred on by the despicable FCC.