FCC Now Defines Broadband As 4 Mbps

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The Federal Communications Commission finally raised the definition of broadband from 200Kpbs to 4Mbps. Whew, it’s about damn time. Aside from the people at the FCCC, when has 200Kpbs ever been considered broadband?

"This is a minimum speed generally required for using today's video-rich broadband applications and services, while retaining sufficient capacity for basic web browsing and e-mail," the FCC said. The report also outlines states that would qualify as being "unserved" by broadband.
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funny we need that here in Canada .... our LITE service's are terrible

and with the announcement of Netflix.... the 2 largest ISP's (Bell/Rogers) who are also the 2 largest for TV Cable and Satellite decreased the Data package on all their broad band packages, not to deter people from using Netflix of course over their own services....
 
I was on dialup for a long time, and a lot of people still are. It's a huge difference going from ~53Kpbs to ~200. Sure, not as fast as 4Mb, but it is a huge improvement.

Now that I'm on higher speed, going down to 1.5 Mb is a disappointment! :)
 
Damn, what are those pathetic T1s and 1.5 Mbps DSL connections going to be considered?
 
Bout time. I figured 5mb was a nice number, but 4mb. 10 years ago, everyone except the FCC considered 1.5mb as the minimum for broadband.
 
Yeah, over 10 years ago I had 1.5Mbps DSL. <3 our second world class, expensive broadband that protected "competition" has brought us. :rolleyes:
 
boss99 said:
Damn, what are those pathetic T1s and 1.5 Mbps DSL connections going to be considered?
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1.5 hell I have the 3Mbps DSL service, I wonder if AT&T is simply going to call it "high speed internet" and not broadband. Although I wonder if there aren't going to be class action lawsuits to the tune of what does "high speed" really mean :D
 
sfsuphysics said:
1.5 hell I have the 3Mbps DSL service, I wonder if AT&T is simply going to call it "high speed internet" and not broadband. Although I wonder if there aren't going to be class action lawsuits to the tune of what does "high speed" really mean :D
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i'm in the same boat
 
sfsuphysics said:
1.5 hell I have the 3Mbps DSL service, I wonder if AT&T is simply going to call it "high speed internet" and not broadband. Although I wonder if there aren't going to be class action lawsuits to the tune of what does "high speed" really mean :D
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ISP's definition: Highspeed is faster than low-speed. If you don't have low-speed, you have high-speed. low-speed is low, high-speed is high. Simple enough?
 
I got 1.5Mbps dsl as soon as it was available in the Bay Area ... when they used to have to send out a tech, and he mounted that big gray splitter box on the wall inside. That was 1999? Eleven years later and 1.5 is still the fastest DSL I can get here in Mountain View! I can nearly see MS and Google buildings from here.
 
I have FIOS 25/15. When I go visit my parents, they have Uverse, but the lowest internet they have, which is 3 mbps. It's like going back to dial up again.

What? You can't download updates from Windows update @ 2 MB/s???? It'll take all freakin day! :p
 
Wow, about a year ago I would've been classified as "high speed internet" I guess. For the longest time we only had Verizon DSL and Charter to choose from in my area. Both offered services between 1-3mbps and <1mbps up.

Then Verizon starts dropping fiber in our little town, and Charter conveniently upgrades our service to 30mbps/1mbps. This was maybe 2-3 months ago.

What. The. Hell.
 
Hmm, here in California's central valley, AT&T has four residential DSL packages - basic (768K dl, 384K ul), express (1.5M dl, 384K ul), pro (3M dl, 512K ul), and elite (6M dl, 768K ul). So according to this report, NONE of their services qualify as Broadband, even their highest package! Wonder if they'll be doing something about that...

Nah, don't really think so... :rolleyes:
 
I remember at long last being able to get DSL at my folks house back in March 2004. After years and years of waiting, calling the phone company and delay after dealy, I finally got my beloved 1.5mbps / 712kbps DSL connection. No more having to lug my computer down to the LAN party or work place and leeching off the T1 connection to get "250" meg files or larger. No more trying to play my MMO's on a dial up connection tying up the phone line for hours at a time, no more having to dream and wish about being able to play BF1942 online. It was a grand, grand day....


My cable ISP just upped my cable speed to 18mbps for free this week. Life is good....... It will get better when I move somewhere with Fiber :D
 
More surprisingly is that 1mb/s is the required upstream speed as well, which seems a tad on the high side.
 
Good to hear they aren't going to try to call the crappy old T1 here broadband. They really need a reasonably replacement. If I can get 25 Mb FiOS at home, why is the line at work only 1.5 Mb?
 
I'm stuck with 1.5 Mbps on a good day; and I live about four miles from Cox's service area.... Maybe they will finally run out to my place...
 
512Kbps ADSL here. Does anyone know how to get in contact with the FCC to get Northampton County, NC added to the "We need some internet!" list? There's no way they concluded that we weren't under served unless Centurylink lied to them.
 
Zarathustra[H];1035982692 said:
I'm thoroughly enjoying my Verizon FiOS at 25Mb/s both up and down :p
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That's all? Step your game up brah!! You need some mo' fiber in ya diet! 50/20 bitches!!!

All joking aside, 120Kb/s was awesome back in the day using two modems and multi-link on Windows NT. I can see how 200Kb/s was defined as broadband. But 4Mb/s is more reasonable these days. Is DSL able to provide that speed in real world usage these days?
 
Aside from the people at the FCCC, when has 200Kpbs ever been considered broadband?
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to this very day, thanks to very tired telco infrastructure, the best even a 56k dial-up modem can pull here is 28.8
 
the-one1 said:
ISP's definition: Highspeed is faster than low-speed. If you don't have low-speed, you have high-speed. low-speed is low, high-speed is high. Simple enough?
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Plus they have all those cool titles with X in them. Xtreme!
You know you're rockin' the connection when you got a cool name like that.
 
Maybe my internet will then be upgraded from 3 to 4 pretty soon then.
 
tesfaye said:
That's all? Step your game up brah!! You need some mo' fiber in ya diet! 50/20 bitches!!!

All joking aside, 120Kb/s was awesome back in the day using two modems and multi-link on Windows NT. I can see how 200Kb/s was defined as broadband. But 4Mb/s is more reasonable these days. Is DSL able to provide that speed in real world usage these days?
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at 25/25 I'm getting transfer speeds of over 3MB/s on the rare occasion my speeds aren't server limited.

I grabbed my Windows 7 Pro free upgrade DVD image from the MS online store in under 15 minutes, if I recall correctly.

I could upgrade to a higher plan, but I think this is sufficient, as most of the time my transfers are server limited at well below that level anyway :p
 
So now my 3Mb DSL is no longer "broadband". But it's not narrowband or baseband either. What the hell do I call it now? Midband? Enhanced dial-up?
 
Does this mean that DSL coverage in the USA dropped dramatically to about 10%?
 
Zarathustra[H];1035983119 said:
at 25/25 I'm getting transfer speeds of over 3MB/s on the rare occasion my speeds aren't server limited.

I grabbed my Windows 7 Pro free upgrade DVD image from the MS online store in under 15 minutes, if I recall correctly.

I could upgrade to a higher plan, but I think this is sufficient, as most of the time my transfers are server limited at well below that level anyway :p
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Oh, and I can't even begin to explain how liberating an experiece it was o finally be abe to ditch the evil bastards over at Comcast.

Verizon - while also a large evil telecom - is so much better than Comcast it's hard to even express.
 
pxc said:
Yeah, over 10 years ago I had 1.5Mbps DSL. <3 our second world class, expensive broadband that protected "competition" has brought us. :rolleyes:
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While not as good as some places where it is common to get affordable 100mbit/100mbit connections (*cough* Sweden *cough*) It's gotten a lot better, at least in my area as of late.

This is probably because Comcast and Verizon have been battling it out. As soon as FiOS became available our old Comcast broadband magically (and unannouned) went up from 3mbit to 5mbit and then to 8mbit, but it was really only useful on paper, as they would throttle the bandwidth down to next to nothing if used intesively for more than a half an hour. This gave me the desire to switch to Comcast. then when comcast discontinued our TV service plan and wanted us to pay 2.5 times more for the same channels, I called Verizon and haven't looked back since.

It's amazing what some compentition can do though.

It my be different other places (I'mnot sure) but up here in Massachusetts the decision wheter or not to let a new TV/Broadband competitor in on the market rests with each town. There are many towns holding up letting Verizon bring FiOS in, which seems insane to me, as a little competition would benefit all their residents.

I guess they are either extremely hard headed old geexers that don't see the need for another internet and TV provider, or they have some sort of multi-year single source contract signed with Comcast providing them exclusive access in the market in exchange for agreeing to wire the entire town.

One thing is certain. Unless something major changes in th einternet provider market, I will not be moving anywhere where FiOS is not available any time soon.
 
Does this mean I can sue Verizon for false advertisement now since their 1.5mbps National Wireless Broadband is no longer Broadband?
 
Jutsu said:
Does this mean I can sue Verizon for false advertisement now since their 1.5mbps National Wireless Broadband is no longer Broadband?
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If you are really sue happy you probably could, as long as they still advertise it as Broadband after the new rules go into effect. :rolleyes:
 
I just ran the FCC speed tester tool and it is totally wrong. Its saying my T1 is running at around 7Mbps instead of 1.544Mbps...
 
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