Broadband Internet Definition Changed

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A new era of peace and prosperity is upon us! Remember how great things were after they changed the broadband definition last time? There was dancing in the streets, streaming content everywhere and unlimited access to porn. Wait....

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to change the definition of broadband internet in the United States. This change, passed by FCC commissioners by a 3-2 vote, raises the minimum download speeds for broadband from 4 Mbps to 25 Mbps and minimum upload speeds from 1 Mbps to 3 Mbps. If the speeds they provide don’t reach this standard then internet service providers cannot call those connections “broadband.”
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Interesting. What if you have a combination such as 25Mbit down but only 1 Mbs up? Will the ISP change the upload speed or simply drop the download speed so it's not 'Broadband'.

This should be interesting.
 
they have these speeds in europe for some time now, we are finally starting to catch up the the rest of the world. 7 megs here with cable, I no longer have broadband.
 
So... TWC won't be able to claim like 3-4 lowest plans as broadband then?

Even their "Turbo" speed listed is 25 down and 2 up, so that plan and anything worse doesn't qualify anymore.

Not even sure how the FCC came up with these numbers, isn't there a report somewhere that shows what the average Internet connection speed is across America? Almost positive that these new numbers 25 down 3 up, are above the average.
 
lol DSL. Even a wireless 4G WiFi plan like Clearwire/Sprint is significantly faster.
 
Dekar12 said:
So... TWC won't be able to claim like 3-4 lowest plans as broadband then?

Even their "Turbo" speed listed is 25 down and 2 up, so that plan and anything worse doesn't qualify anymore.

Not even sure how the FCC came up with these numbers, isn't there a report somewhere that shows what the average Internet connection speed is across America? Almost positive that these new numbers 25 down 3 up, are above the average.
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The US average is 32.6 - http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/
 
This will simply prevent them from marketing it as broadband, which most of the advertisements I have seen lately are not doing anyway. Verizon and Time Warner keep calling it high-speed Internet service in my area. DSL tops out at 6 Mbps and cable tops out at 15 Mbps here, without the turbo package (25 Mbps or 50 Mbps depending on how "turbo" you want to opt for, at extra expense). We're definitely short of broadband by the new definition, but at least it's not dial-up.
 
and when can I start bitching to TWC about my 15 down 1 up plan?

it works just fine for what I need it... but I'm a greedy torrent/usenet whore

I either want double my speeds for the same price, or 1/2 price for the package I currently have.

Wondering when we will actually start seeing changes because of this?
 
collegeboy69us said:
Wondering when we will actually start seeing changes because of this?
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You probably wont, it simply means they cant call it broadband if it doesn't meet those specs. They can still call it high speed. The only thing this will change is the wording of their marketing material.
 
For those of us who live in monopoly zones, this means squat. For instance, Time Warner will have no incentive to raise my 7/768kbps connection because they have NO other company that services this part of the HEART of the city of Cincinnati. The local phone company has also expressed that they have no plans to expand their Fiber network to this part of the city either.
 
Pretty dumb, honestly. While I get what they are trying to do, It's a little stupid to make the threshold higher than the world wide average connection speed. is well below 25MB. Only South Korea hits the mark at 25.3MB.

http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q314-infographic.pdf

Note: I am talking average. In most cases, including places that have very high speed connections available, many customers chose slower/cheaper plans. Any place that offers Cable internet or FIOS offer several options, but there are a lot of people that would make the choice of 20MB over 25MB to save $5 a month.

Of course, changing the definition of broadband is pretty useless. Considering, I don't think the major providers actually call it broadband any more. Verizon calls it "FIOS Internet", Comcast "XFinity Internet," and Time Warner "High Speed Internet" They aren't advertising it as broadband.
 
pxc said:
lol DSL. Even a wireless 4G WiFi plan like Clearwire/Sprint is significantly faster.
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I am testing out some new cell boosters at work. I get 25/2 at home with CenturyLink DSL. I get the advertised speeds and am happy (it's the best I can do here). New cell boosters, I'm testing the speeds - I'm getting 33 down and 25 up. I'm a bit jealous. A damn cell connection is better than my wired home internet.

So, what does this mean to the end user? No speed upgrades unless marketing wants to keep using the broadband word. Otherwise, it's just high speed internet. Or does this help with 'broadband' contracts with certain places? I wonder if it'd make a lot of those municipal contracts invalid due to wording (x company is to supply broadband to the community and the city will not compete)...
 
I'm getting 1.35Mbps down and .43Mbps up. Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown FTW!

It is windy, does the government consider wind as a mitigating factor? :)
 
If I had a say, I'd require the upload speed to be 1/3rd of the download speed to meet broadband criteria. 150 down / 20 up here is bullshit. Can download the universe in 30 seconds but if I want to do a cloud backup I need 24/7 uptime.
 
I am more curious, how many websites and other sites that %99 of people use, even saturate a 10Mb line..

i have 10Mb/2Mb in COsta Rica and things load fast and fine.. i can stream amazon prime fine as well..

So 25Mbps seems a bit...high..
 
Steve said:
A new era of peace and prosperity is upon us! Remember how great things were after they changed the broadband definition last time? There was dancing in the streets, streaming content everywhere and unlimited access to porn. Wait....
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I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but why am I betting Lobbyist from Comcast are behind this proposal?
 
DigitalGriffin said:
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but why am I betting Lobbyist from Comcast are behind this proposal?
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Why? This hurts them greatly as they have a lot of areas in the US that they can no longer advertise having broadband.
 
MrGuvernment said:
I am more curious, how many websites and other sites that %99 of people use, even saturate a 10Mb line..

i have 10Mb/2Mb in COsta Rica and things load fast and fine.. i can stream amazon prime fine as well..

So 25Mbps seems a bit...high..
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I have 2 Xboxes on at a time, a couple Netflix streams, upload/download for cloud backups and restores, plus websites, email, etc.. Throw in a VPN connection for my work laptop with a VNC session running for remote support, and it gets to be limiting. Sure, that's extreme and I rarely ever have all that going at once, but it happens.
 
Trimlock said:
Why? This hurts them greatly as they have a lot of areas in the US that they can no longer advertise having broadband.
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1. The are the most prepared for this new requirement

2. Great incentive for them to boost prices on areas that are not broadband. "Sorry, we have to upgrade you due to FCC re definitions"
 
pxc said:
lol DSL. Even a wireless 4G WiFi plan like Clearwire/Sprint is significantly faster.
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DSL's just a delivery medium. I'm getting 50 down, 20 up on my DSL connection. Comcast offers slightly better upstream for the same price, but no static IP. I'll stick with my DSL.
 
amdgamer said:
For those of us who live in monopoly zones, this means squat. For instance, Time Warner will have no incentive to raise my 7/768kbps connection because they have NO other company that services this part of the HEART of the city of Cincinnati. The local phone company has also expressed that they have no plans to expand their Fiber network to this part of the city either.
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You aren't missing out. While the product is great, Cincy Bell's fiber optic internet isn't worth it thanks to their awful customer service. Yes, it's even worse than TWC.
 
Redmud said:
I'm getting 1.35Mbps down and .43Mbps up. Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown FTW!

It is windy, does the government consider wind as a mitigating factor? :)
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Goodness, I didn't even know Cincinnati Bell was still offering Zoomtown. I was one of Time Warner's very first Roadrunner adopters and left after a year because it had so many problems to Zoomtown. Zoomtown was even worse as they couldn't get me a stable enough signal to get faster than 512kbps/512kbps in my neighborhood in the middle of the city. Ultimately I left back to Time Warner, dealt with the connection problems, and then signed up for business class which interestingly solved all the problems. The downside is that you pay a fortune for slow speeds, but at least I finally have a dependable connection.
 
Just means that they cant call it "Broadband" unless it meets those specs, doesnt force them to upgrade to those specs in areas where there's been a monopoly for years.

With Tom Wheeler behind things... I'd almost call this a PR bullshit move before they announce other changes that Comcast and VZ will applaud and we'll cry foul about.
 
I'm just pissed because with my "broadband" service, I'm only getting ~550Mbs down and ~480Mbs up. If I'm paying $59.00 a month for an asymmetrical Gb package, shouldn't I be getting at least 75% of that? :)
 
MrGuvernment said:
I am more curious, how many websites and other sites that %99 of people use, even saturate a 10Mb line..

i have 10Mb/2Mb in COsta Rica and things load fast and fine.. i can stream amazon prime fine as well..

So 25Mbps seems a bit...high..
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My wife and 2 kids crush our 18mb Uverse alone.

The 60mb Charter connestion if for me , with a failover to the Uverse if mine goes out of course :p
 
Limahl said:
Just means that they cant call it "Broadband" unless it meets those specs, doesnt force them to upgrade to those specs in areas where there's been a monopoly for years.

With Tom Wheeler behind things... I'd almost call this a PR bullshit move before they announce other changes that Comcast and VZ will applaud and we'll cry foul about.
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Ideally, I think the laws should rewritten so that TelCo's and CableCo's aren't allowed to receive tax kickbacks/incentives (like they already do) unless a certain percentage of their market has/qualifies for broadband service. I also think there should be a QoS clause added that prevents them from delivering < 75% of their package.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
DSL's just a delivery medium. I'm getting 50 down, 20 up on my DSL connection. Comcast offers slightly better upstream for the same price, but no static IP. I'll stick with my DSL.
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VDSL is pretty rare, but point taken.
 
amdgamer said:
Goodness, I didn't even know Cincinnati Bell was still offering Zoomtown. I was one of Time Warner's very first Roadrunner adopters and left after a year because it had so many problems to Zoomtown. Zoomtown was even worse as they couldn't get me a stable enough signal to get faster than 512kbps/512kbps in my neighborhood in the middle of the city. Ultimately I left back to Time Warner, dealt with the connection problems, and then signed up for business class which interestingly solved all the problems. The downside is that you pay a fortune for slow speeds, but at least I finally have a dependable connection.
Click to expand...

Cincinnati bell will not commit to a timeline to when their fiber is available here, so I have been toying around with the idea of Time Warner just for internet but god I hate dealing with them. I was a cable customer 16 or so years ago and it was terrible.
 
They don't market it as "broadband" anyway, they simply say "uverse internet" or "xfinity internet" or just "internet."
 
MrGuvernment said:
I am more curious, how many websites and other sites that %99 of people use, even saturate a 10Mb line..

i have 10Mb/2Mb in COsta Rica and things load fast and fine.. i can stream amazon prime fine as well..

So 25Mbps seems a bit...high..
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Steam maxes out my 115Mbps connection
 
Kor said:
The US average is 32.6 - http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/
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Correction, the US average of people who go to Speedtest.net is 32.6. i.e. a lot of people pushing sub-10Mbps connections probably test once if that, where as those who want to swing around and show off their mighty e-Penis with their new 100Mbps connection, or fiber connection probably test every other day... because why not you got fast internet!
 
pxc said:
VDSL is pretty rare, but point taken.
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Uverse is VDSL, they simply do not provision the available bandwidth for actual usage. Fake caps. Remember when modems would connect as fast as technically possible? They didn't sell dialup based on whether or not it was 14.4 or 56k.
 
One thing I just considered was the fact that several states and the federal government are again making subsidies available to ISPs to expand broadband coverage. Perhaps by redefining broadband, it will allow companies that already offered high-speed service to qualify for additional money because they are not providing broadband service?
 
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