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They should have put "you don't have a REAL choice to get another ISP". 10Mbps would not be enough for me nor most of my (even non-technical) family members.

They should have put "you don't have a REAL choice to get another ISP". 10Mbps would not be enough for me nor most of my (even non-technical) family members. Beyond that, the ones that do offer faster speeds have a cap that I would go past pretty much every month. I even live in a fairly sizeable city. If I had another realistic option than cable, I would've already taken it. The issue comes from the fact that a lot of ISPs are, for reasons above, basically monopolies. This is, by itself, a really bad thing™. Lack of NN just lets them blackmail everybody from both sides on top of having practically 0 competition. EDIT: your link actually shows you're wrong. The graph on page 6 (which I assume you're referring to) shows that 100% have multiple choices of 3+ Mbps, not 10+. 10+ only has 97%. Sure, it's only 3%, but that's still not 100% and not "patently false". In that document, they don't mention prices, anywhere. Also, on that same page, they mention: > A provider that reports offering service in a particular census block may not offer service, or service at that speed, to all locations in the census block. Accordingly, the number of providers shown in Figure 4 does not necessarily reflect the number of choices available to a particular household and does not purport to measure competition.

paulddraper 9y ago
> 10Mbps would not be enough for me nor most of my (even non-technical) family members. !!! I won't say that is impossible to use that much. But Netflix -- who, if anything, is pressured to overestimate -- advises only half that speed for streaming high-definition video. [1] Twenty dial-up modems is more than enough to make for a workable internet, outside of 3+ HD video streams, downloading disk images, etc. [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
- epicide 9y ago
  I know of several homes where more than one Netflix stream is common, then throw in a Twitch/YouTube stream on top of that. Realistically, you don't always see speeds at what you pay for (especially during peak hours). At least I don't. So, I think it makes sense to pad your max speeds a bit. As far as 20 dial-up modems: I don't see where you get 20 from or even why that comparison matters. We aren't just using geocities and AIM anymore.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    Sorry, 20 was a typo. I meant 200 modems, which is the equivalent of 10mbps.
- timthelion 9y ago
  "who, if anything, is pressured to overestimate" um, why would they be pressured to overestimate. They don't want to scare away customers who would think "well I'm not sure if my internet is fast enough..." HD video streaming is surprisingly not the most bandwidth intensive activity. Facebook is actually more intensive. As is online gaming. And HD streaming is especially easy when its done by netflix which already has a network non-neutral setup https://www.beet.tv/2013/05/netflix-2.html https://www.beet.tv/2013/05/netflix-2.html. You may think "well, that 10Mbs is the same whether or not it is being streamed from next door or across the ocean", but you'd be wrong, due to the fact that low latency network connections are much more efficient at using that bandwidth.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    > why would they be pressured to overestimate Because it's an easy out if there are issues: it's not Netflix's fault; it's your internet. Get to the airport three hours early; talk your accountant; have plenty of bandwidth.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      The experience of a small portion of poor customers who cannot afford fast internet and have trouble streaming at full quality and realize that they are not streaming at full quality and decide to do something about it doesn't typically interest large companies. People have bad experiences all the time. My parent in laws bought and paid for digital HDTV, and had a set-to-box that only delivered standard TV format. They didn't even realize that there was a problem until I pointed it out to them. And they aren't even poor and uneducated. It's not like someone who has <10Mbs connection and finds netflix to be crappy is going to lawyer up and sue netflix and win.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  10Mbps isn't broadband anymore. Nor should it be classified as such. You can likely watch a single 1080p Netflix stream if that's all you're doing. Unless of course your laptop, desktop, phone, gaming console, etc happens to download an OS update at the same time. Or someone else wants to watch YouTube at the same time. And forget watching 4K anything entirely. And don't forget that that 10Mbps connection is likely only 512K up, so you can mostly forget about cloud backups or uploading your video for friends to see. Side note: Everyone downloads disk images these days. Windows' quarterly update files are 3GB which will take over 41 minutes to download at 10Mbps if you do nothing else at the same time.

paulddraper 9y ago

> 10Mbps would not be enough for me nor most of my (even non-technical) family members. !!! I won't say that is impossible to use that much. But Netflix -- who, if anything, is pressured to overestimate -- advises only half that speed for streaming high-definition video. [1] Twenty dial-up modems is more than enough to make for a workable internet, outside of 3+ HD video streams, downloading disk images, etc. [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

epicide 9y ago
I know of several homes where more than one Netflix stream is common, then throw in a Twitch/YouTube stream on top of that. Realistically, you don't always see speeds at what you pay for (especially during peak hours). At least I don't. So, I think it makes sense to pad your max speeds a bit. As far as 20 dial-up modems: I don't see where you get 20 from or even why that comparison matters. We aren't just using geocities and AIM anymore.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Sorry, 20 was a typo. I meant 200 modems, which is the equivalent of 10mbps.
timthelion 9y ago
"who, if anything, is pressured to overestimate" um, why would they be pressured to overestimate. They don't want to scare away customers who would think "well I'm not sure if my internet is fast enough..." HD video streaming is surprisingly not the most bandwidth intensive activity. Facebook is actually more intensive. As is online gaming. And HD streaming is especially easy when its done by netflix which already has a network non-neutral setup https://www.beet.tv/2013/05/netflix-2.html https://www.beet.tv/2013/05/netflix-2.html. You may think "well, that 10Mbs is the same whether or not it is being streamed from next door or across the ocean", but you'd be wrong, due to the fact that low latency network connections are much more efficient at using that bandwidth.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  > why would they be pressured to overestimate Because it's an easy out if there are issues: it's not Netflix's fault; it's your internet. Get to the airport three hours early; talk your accountant; have plenty of bandwidth.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    The experience of a small portion of poor customers who cannot afford fast internet and have trouble streaming at full quality and realize that they are not streaming at full quality and decide to do something about it doesn't typically interest large companies. People have bad experiences all the time. My parent in laws bought and paid for digital HDTV, and had a set-to-box that only delivered standard TV format. They didn't even realize that there was a problem until I pointed it out to them. And they aren't even poor and uneducated. It's not like someone who has <10Mbs connection and finds netflix to be crappy is going to lawyer up and sue netflix and win.
JohnTHaller 9y ago
10Mbps isn't broadband anymore. Nor should it be classified as such. You can likely watch a single 1080p Netflix stream if that's all you're doing. Unless of course your laptop, desktop, phone, gaming console, etc happens to download an OS update at the same time. Or someone else wants to watch YouTube at the same time. And forget watching 4K anything entirely. And don't forget that that 10Mbps connection is likely only 512K up, so you can mostly forget about cloud backups or uploading your video for friends to see. Side note: Everyone downloads disk images these days. Windows' quarterly update files are 3GB which will take over 41 minutes to download at 10Mbps if you do nothing else at the same time.