FCC Moves Slowly To Update Definition Of Broadband To Something Still Pathetic
FCC Moves Slowly To Update Definition Of Broadband To Something Still Pathetic
For decades, the FCC has maintained an arguably pathetic definition of “broadband,” allowing the telecom industry to under-deliver substandard access. And despite some new rhetoric from…
FCC Moves Slowly To Update Definition Of Broadband To Something Still Pathetic::For decades, the FCC has maintained an arguably pathetic definition of "broadband," allowing the telecom industry to under-deliver substandard access. And despite some new rhetoric from the agency under Biden, that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon. Broadband was originally defined as any 200 kbps connection. In 2010, that pathetic definition was changed to…
TL;DR 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, because cable pushed back on 100 symmetrical.
This is just so people can't self host media, right? Why else would they obsessively cap upload speeds?
DOCSIS (AKA internet service over coaxial cable) deals in some number of bonded channels, meaning portions of the total available bandwidth on the wire. They asymmetrically allocate channels to download speeds to overcome the limitations of the older copper wire technology. 100Mbps symmetrical is beyond what most of their existing "Broadband" infrastructure can support in rural and underserved areas, so they complained about it being unreasonable. 100Mbps symmetrical is certainly possible over DOCSIS, but speeds are only as fast as the weakest link... And there are a helluva lot of weak links outside of high population density areas.
The tubes might get clogged if they push too many jiggabits!
God, I'm so tired of the morons and the corruption of this country's leadership.
The FCC is exlusively operated by past, present and future industry lobbyists. They are a perfect example of "regulatory capture" manifest.
In the 90's they started auctioning off broadcast licenses to the highest bidders, turning the FCC into a profit machine while completely destroying small, private radio and TV stations. Media belongs exclusively to corporations now because of the FCC.
There is absolutely no reason to respect the FCC at all. Not even a little. They need to be completely erased and replaced with a legitimate oversight organization that cannot be so easily taken over by corporations.
For anyone using cable, 20 mbps up would be a nice improvement. Real hard to do remote backups and share files with friends when the speed is so much lower than that.
Got it, enough to claim progress but not enough for us to be able to claim that major ISPs make backdoor deals to stay out of each others turf to create an effective monopoly because garbage internet service can claim to have “broadband speeds”.