4 ms·

1000 Mbps down / 100 Mbps up should be the minimum for any first world country. Without mandated illegality of data caps and other Comcast data and modem games

1000 Mbps down / 100 Mbps up should be the minimum for any first world country. Without mandated illegality of data caps and other Comcast data and modem games this does nothing to change the reality of boots on the ground unfortunately. These speeds only really allow you to close your data cap sooner in the month for the vast majority of customers who use Internet for modern things. A fixed data cap locks in an “era” of technology so that when the era ends (HD > 4k, 4k > 8k for example) every one of the customers ends up being a heavy user. It is a scam that should be illegal. We’ve already paid for this with multiple rural broadband bills. It’s time for change. This is woefully (and shamefully) inadequate action by the FCC but at least we don’t have to deal with Ajit’s basically sellout behavior anymore and can at least talk about solutions beyond the current regulatory captured standards. I commend them for moving, but I can’t condone their proposal as it’s truly and utterly inadequate and far behind global standards as well. If you want your country to slip into uncompetitive mess, go ahead and hamper the backbone of the new Industrial Revolution by giving away all the value to your corporate friends and leaving the innovation a generation of true broadband performance could generate laying on the shop floor. Did I mention we have already paid for broadband (ready, was supposed to be fiber rollout)? Twice? Low standards might as well be low standards FCC.

Culonavirus 3y ago
Many (most?) people do not even have devices that could utilize 1Gbit/s. My (relatively new) Galaxy Tab S7+ (11ac wifi) has a hard time going over 500Mbit/s (not sure if it's wifi or the slow internal memory, can't be arsed to find out), and it's similar with my (not that old) LG Velvet phone... All of that on a connection that can do a rock solid 1Gbps on my PC through UTP (cat 6)... What I'm trying to say is that many of these devices regular people have don't even have the capability to receive 1Gbit/s streams. It's great for us nerds or people who (also) work from home and need blazing fast connections to work servers etc, but as of 2023, it's overkill for many regular people. Datacaps should be illegal though.
- d3w4s9 3y ago
  Anyone with a PlayStation/Xbox/gaming PC -- that's a lot of people -- can tell you how much they dislike waiting for a game download. I have 300Mbps download and I still find it too slow. I don't want to start a download, wait for half an hour before I can play the game.
  - happytiger 3y ago
    It’s funny how people who don’t use gaming or need to manage large remote files for work will actively advocate for slower speeds and the lack of need for speed. It’s also about latency. But the thing people miss is that this is mandating projects for future infrastructure projects. Whatever we set at a baseline is what we will standardize on for the next generation. People donut understand these are leading values for project acceptability not minimum standards of throughout as they are being presented. Massive difference. It’s not about whether you can make it work today, it’s about what kind of projects are acceptable speed for tomorrow and whether we can call it broadband when it’s not. Just look at gaming. When it came on a CD people complained that gaming would never work on a t1 line, and 1.5 mbit was supposed to support at 25 person office (1999). Then 10 mbit was mind blowing with bonded DSL and you could support everything. Now we are having an argument about 100 and 300, but the same logic applies. What works for today isn’t the standard we should be applying to qualify infrastructure minimums for buildout (which is what this is). I mean imagine when games at 2-3TB each (it’s coming) and drives are 50GB. It’s not a question of throughput, as you said it becomes a question of time to complete — aka productivity — and that means waiting around for stuff to finish while you download. That’s what broadband standards are working against — what we think is acceptable to be installing today — not whether you can max the link with your current mix of devices and two 4k TVs. Good point.
  - Culonavirus 3y ago
    How many times a year do you download a massive AAA game? Not many times. Average console gamer downloading 6 big games a year would probably be an overestimate. There are also preloads for many big games. It's not really a problem.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  This is a relevant issue for people who call our ISP and complain they aren't getting their 250/250 and we find out they speed tested with a 6 year old cheap Android phone that only supports 2.4 GHz wireless. Wireless is a convenience feature but it gets treated like it should act exactly like a direct wire does.
- nikitoci 3y ago
  Many households have a few people sharing single connection, so it’s not that hard to saturate 1Gbit/s even from weaker devices.
gnicholas 3y ago
I have no need for speeds like this. I have kids, we have many devices, and still we have no need for this. I understand that some people want speeds like this, but it shouldn't be accomplished by eliminating choice for people who would be perfectly happy with much lower speeds. And of course, if the mandated minimum speed is set to 1000/100, then these customers would be subsidizing those who use/want the higher speeds.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  > And of course, if the mandated minimum speed is set to 1000/100, then these customers would be subsidizing those who use/want the higher speeds. Barely. Most costs to telcos are fixed costs, and upgrading the speeds of their lower speed plans shouldn't lead to a big increase in traffic.
- happytiger 3y ago
  It’s not just throughout speed it’s latency that’s important about connection speed.

Culonavirus 3y ago

Many (most?) people do not even have devices that could utilize 1Gbit/s. My (relatively new) Galaxy Tab S7+ (11ac wifi) has a hard time going over 500Mbit/s (not sure if it's wifi or the slow internal memory, can't be arsed to find out), and it's similar with my (not that old) LG Velvet phone... All of that on a connection that can do a rock solid 1Gbps on my PC through UTP (cat 6)... What I'm trying to say is that many of these devices regular people have don't even have the capability to receive 1Gbit/s streams. It's great for us nerds or people who (also) work from home and need blazing fast connections to work servers etc, but as of 2023, it's overkill for many regular people. Datacaps should be illegal though.

d3w4s9 3y ago
Anyone with a PlayStation/Xbox/gaming PC -- that's a lot of people -- can tell you how much they dislike waiting for a game download. I have 300Mbps download and I still find it too slow. I don't want to start a download, wait for half an hour before I can play the game.
- happytiger 3y ago
  It’s funny how people who don’t use gaming or need to manage large remote files for work will actively advocate for slower speeds and the lack of need for speed. It’s also about latency. But the thing people miss is that this is mandating projects for future infrastructure projects. Whatever we set at a baseline is what we will standardize on for the next generation. People donut understand these are leading values for project acceptability not minimum standards of throughout as they are being presented. Massive difference. It’s not about whether you can make it work today, it’s about what kind of projects are acceptable speed for tomorrow and whether we can call it broadband when it’s not. Just look at gaming. When it came on a CD people complained that gaming would never work on a t1 line, and 1.5 mbit was supposed to support at 25 person office (1999). Then 10 mbit was mind blowing with bonded DSL and you could support everything. Now we are having an argument about 100 and 300, but the same logic applies. What works for today isn’t the standard we should be applying to qualify infrastructure minimums for buildout (which is what this is). I mean imagine when games at 2-3TB each (it’s coming) and drives are 50GB. It’s not a question of throughput, as you said it becomes a question of time to complete — aka productivity — and that means waiting around for stuff to finish while you download. That’s what broadband standards are working against — what we think is acceptable to be installing today — not whether you can max the link with your current mix of devices and two 4k TVs. Good point.
- Culonavirus 3y ago
  How many times a year do you download a massive AAA game? Not many times. Average console gamer downloading 6 big games a year would probably be an overestimate. There are also preloads for many big games. It's not really a problem.
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
This is a relevant issue for people who call our ISP and complain they aren't getting their 250/250 and we find out they speed tested with a 6 year old cheap Android phone that only supports 2.4 GHz wireless. Wireless is a convenience feature but it gets treated like it should act exactly like a direct wire does.
nikitoci 3y ago
Many households have a few people sharing single connection, so it’s not that hard to saturate 1Gbit/s even from weaker devices.

gnicholas 3y ago

I have no need for speeds like this. I have kids, we have many devices, and still we have no need for this. I understand that some people want speeds like this, but it shouldn't be accomplished by eliminating choice for people who would be perfectly happy with much lower speeds. And of course, if the mandated minimum speed is set to 1000/100, then these customers would be subsidizing those who use/want the higher speeds.

bmicraft 3y ago
> And of course, if the mandated minimum speed is set to 1000/100, then these customers would be subsidizing those who use/want the higher speeds. Barely. Most costs to telcos are fixed costs, and upgrading the speeds of their lower speed plans shouldn't lead to a big increase in traffic.
happytiger 3y ago
It’s not just throughout speed it’s latency that’s important about connection speed.