- Reaction score
- 1,675
After hinting at such a move for some time, the FCC today voted (along partisan lines, of course) to bump the standard definition of broadband from 4 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, to 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up. It's a change the broadband industry and friends aren't happy with, because it will only further highlight the fact that a lack of competition has left large portions of the country with pricey and slow broadband service.
Under the current 4 Mbps standard, roughly 6.3 percent of households can't technically get access to "broadband." Under the new 25 Mbps metric, nearly 20% of U.S. households are unable to get broadband, thanks in large part to DSL networks telcos are refusing to upgrade.
The FCC notes that to receive subsidies, deployments will need to be at least 10 Mbps.
The FCC originally defined broadband as anything faster than 200kbps, then upgraded that definition to 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream. Only in 2010 did the agency bump the definition to 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. The broadband industry fought each one of those reclassifications every step of the way.
Read more here. (FCC)
Under the current 4 Mbps standard, roughly 6.3 percent of households can't technically get access to "broadband." Under the new 25 Mbps metric, nearly 20% of U.S. households are unable to get broadband, thanks in large part to DSL networks telcos are refusing to upgrade.
The FCC notes that to receive subsidies, deployments will need to be at least 10 Mbps.
The FCC originally defined broadband as anything faster than 200kbps, then upgraded that definition to 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream. Only in 2010 did the agency bump the definition to 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. The broadband industry fought each one of those reclassifications every step of the way.
Read more here. (FCC)
