FCC Definition of “broadband Internet” always lags behind the reality of actual user needs, by about a decade.
Various sources show that Internet bandwidth consumption increases at about 29% CAGR.
If you extrapolate from the previous increases and intervals of the FCC's changes, the definition of broadband should be a minimum of 100Mbit/100Mbit in 2021.
When I hear incumbent providers insisting that 25/3 is still good enough, my answer is: "sure, I can agree with that, if you can do that PER DEVICE in the home."
They don't like that argument.
The only reason 25/3 is still the FCC definition is because of lobbying by those that are still limited by twisted pair copper infrastructure.
On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 8:40 PM Eric Dugas via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:I'm not in the US but in Canada it's been 50/10 since 2016 and we're just "almost" there yet. IMO the target should have been more like 100/30 or even 50 of upload.
100/100 might be a bit short sighted considering it'll take years to accomplish the necessary last-mile/distribution upgrades in rural areas.On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 8:31 PM Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
What should be the new minimum speed for "broadband" in the U.S.?
This is the list of past minimum broadband speed definitions by year
year speed
1999 200 kbps in both directions (this was chosen as faster than
dialup/ISDN speeds)
2000 200 kbps in at least one direction (changed because too many service
providers had 128 kbps upload)
2010 4 mbps down / 1 mbps up
2015 25 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up (wired)
5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up (wireless)
2021 ??? / ??? (some Senators propose 100/100 mbps)
Not only in major cities, but also rural areas
Note, the official broadband definition only means service providers can't
advertise it as "broadband" or qualify for subsidies; not that they must
deliver better service.
--