# Internet providers don't think you need fast internet. Cable industry opposes 25Mbps broadband defin



## MannDude (Jan 25, 2015)

Normal people don't need 25Mbps down or 3Mbps up, cable lobby says.

Read more here: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/no-need-for-speed-cable-industry-opposes-25mbps-broadband-definition/



> The cable lobby is opposed to a Federal Communications Commission plan to define "broadband" as speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps up.
> 
> Customers do just fine with lower speeds, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) wrote in an FCC filing Thursday (thanks to the _Washington Post's_ Brian Fung for pointing it out). 25Mbps/3Mbps isn't necessary to meet the legal definition of "high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology," the NCTA said.


So, what do you guys think? I'm sure there are a lot of people here who have 25Mbps or greater download speeds at their home. (Hell, my local small town ISP does 1Gbit fiber to homes...) Is anyone here actually using and pushing their at-home internet to it's limits, even if in spurts?

At this time I've got 15Mbps up/down and it seems to suit me fine, but I don't do much streaming or gaming and I live alone. I'd imagine 25Mbps would come quite handy when applied to a house hold where there could be gaming, streaming, and just general random use being done at the same time. (Son playing WoW, sister streaming Netflix, Dad streaming Pandora in the garage, Mom uploading photos of her Etsy trinkets or whatever).


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## William (Jan 25, 2015)

We have ~100/30Mbit via LTE - I *easily* use 10Mbit sustained for Netflix in HD alone. Add YouTube, Spotify and some downloading (Usenet) and you get to 500GB+/Month or ~15Mbit 95%. I guess others use even more than that.


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## mikho (Jan 25, 2015)

With all these streaming services popping up the bandwidth requirements will be increased.


Even my reqular TV channels are streamed now.


In my house there is always a couple of them running when there is people at home.


No torrents or stuff like that running anymore but I recently found that I "needed" to upgrade from 10mbit to 100mbit.


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## KuJoe (Jan 25, 2015)

I don't think the average consumer *needs* 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up. I think the majority of nerds *want* more than 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up.

Need is a strong word and 20 years ago I wouldn't even classify the internet as a need but in 2015 it is a need for a lot of people. That being said, the internet is a need while the faster speeds is a want.

A need is something you cannot live without, the average person can live without 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up.

_I'm basing this post off the title of this thread and the first link in the post. I'll read the rest later and comment on it separately._


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## drmike (Jan 25, 2015)

Well I have 50Mbps....  so my bill says... them delivering it... bahahaha good luck at 4:15AM maybe....

It's not hard to chew serious pipe up.  I usually have a gazillion terminals going...  some file transfer 25% of the time.  Streaming music too...

Then in other places here I have other folks doing good bit of the same and often up to two video streams.  

All of that is during busy prime time hours when my bandwidth stinks - think 10% of advertised....  Since they are overclogged, there is packet loss and high latency.

Which in turn makes everything slow and things like VOIP and streaming unusable too often.

People need speeds, they don't usually use much of it sustained... bursty... get file now... watch movie for and hour.... start is bursty, resumes after pause may be bursty...  

I'd think it would be interest of providers to get packets there ASAP and close connections and chatter all over their network.  Not going into what I think such companies should offer and how in theory.  Saving that for my next ISP style customer.


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## DomainBop (Jan 25, 2015)

> Need is a strong word and 20 years ago I wouldn't even classify the internet as a need


I would have classified it as a need 20 years ago but only because I had an Internet business 20 years ago.

My non-business related Internet usage is actually very low: a few news sites and trolling forums like VPSBoard.  No streaming media, game playing, uploading photos to NSAbook, etc.



> Is anyone here actually using and pushing their at-home internet to it's limits, even if in spurts?


Home no, business yes.  50/5 wastes my time (uploading files to servers, etc) so I do most of my work on a remote desktop that is 1000/1000 .



> Normal people don't need 25Mbps down or 3Mbps up, cable lobby says.
> 
> Read more here: http://arstechnica.c...and-definition/


Normal people need at least 100 Mbps according to our governor.   Cuomo announced a $1 billion universal broadband coverage initiative last week that will require 100 Mbps in most areas by 2019.



> Unprecedented broadband speed. Broadband providers must provide internet speeds of at least 100 Mbps, with funding priority given to those delivering the highest speeds at the lowest cost. In certain limited cases, providers may offer 25 Mbps speeds to the most remote unserved and underserved areas of the state (more than three times the current standard) scalable to 100 Mbps or more - if this provides the best means of achieving universal broadband access to the region.


https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/2015-opportunity-agenda-restoring-economic-opportunity-1


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## tonyg (Jan 25, 2015)

The whole point of the cable industry to limit download speeds is to save their business model.

If households are allowed high download speeds, that means video is smooth as silk and easily viewed online.

Why subscribe to a cable TV package if you can get the same thing online either for free or minimal cost?

So yes, I can easily see why the cable companies are in favor of limiting network speeds.


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## devonblzx (Jan 25, 2015)

If you can stream a 1080p video at 6mbps through Netflix or Youtube then I find it hard to define the minimum requirements of broadband at 25mbps.   I like how they put "high-quality voice" in the description.  So what is that?  Like 96kbps?

On the other side, for video communication, 3mbps up would struggle to put up a 720p stream.

I understand about cable companies limiting upload speed though.  I mean, you see the threads about people hosting servers at their home everytime they get access to upload speed more than 10meg.  Cable companies also have special peering arrangements that give them access to inbound bandwidth at a much cheaper rate since corporate clients don't use as much inbound.


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## William (Jan 25, 2015)

The upload limits on DOCSIS3/Cable have some reasons though - There are *LOTS* of downstream channels on the spectrum allowing up to ~30x300Mbit on a single multiplexer/fiber uplink (generally either installed as FTTB or FFT"B" (block)) but upstream channels are more scarce due to usage of most channels for downstream, maximum possible on a single multiplexer is ~30x25Mbit.


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## drmike (Jan 25, 2015)

Cable needs to go the way the telcos did in the 1990's... into deregulation and forced open networks.  Public right of ways accessible at fair/reasonable prices.  Franchise agreements with these clowns need yanked hard and them forced to do right.  If they won't goodbye, someone else gladly will come in fill the need.

In the US cable companies in most areas are living on the deployment and hard work of prior acquired assets that are over a decade old on design, network, etc.  Maybe they've bumped to DOCSIS 3, but everything between you and there is a damn ancient mess.  It's quite embarrassing.  They surely can provide better and faster services, they just don't find it economically advantageous to do such.  Such would get in the way of their mass profiteering. 

Cable companies decided to get into bandwidth.  No one forced them.  If that is cannibalizing their video buy in then oh well.  What's accelerating customers dumping video services are the INSANE prices.  Not uncommon to see folks with normal packages and hitting $100 mark or close thereto.  Throw internet on top of that?  How about $150-200 a MONTH total???  Throw on that cable's treatment of customers - new customers get sweet low pricing, while long term customers get their rates year after year to be at times 2x more than the new customers.

Same cable companies are stomping customers on the bandwidth side.   Not in a contract?  They want to pop you in pocket for ~ $50 a month then throw the speed upgrades on top of that... Meaning $100 bill for shit over sold consumer crap is attainable, especially where you factor in modem fees, taxes and other bullshit line items these idiots pass onto consumers DIRECTLY as line items.

I remember the lingering days of ISDN, later T1's were luxurious but somewhat outside of traditional telco spectrum,   then the promise of fiber to home or fiber to anywhere... Then very limited fiber roll outs for meh, last 10-15 years.  Sad that in many large population centers (i.e. 30k+ people) you at best have two bandwidth options - DSL from the local telco or the cable monopolies horrendous service.

The US needs to get it's act together.  No regard here for infrastructure anymore.   Bandwidth and internet access is an infrastructure item as much as a highway is.  Regulators from local to federal level are too busy taking bribes and sitting with their feet up on their desks.

I am seriously contemplating moving to a rural area elsewhere in relative proximity to a town that has fiber to everyone.    It's a matter of economics to me.   I do work online, run businesses online and that's the highway I travel many miles daily.  Locality, County or State doesn't understand that, maybe they will understand the continued out migration of successful people living in today's world.


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## AnthonySmith (Jan 27, 2015)

the 'need' is hard to measure but regardless I dont think that the ISP's should be allowed to define this, they only provide the backbone so to speak it is the technologies that make use of this that should dictate the need.

You dont build the frame of any structure without knowing what weight it has to hold, if the weight bearing elements i.e. the netflix, developing technologies etc give a guideline of what will be required a mean avg calculation should be possible and that should in turn dictate what the ISP's must be able to provide in order to not impede progress.


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## perennate (Jan 27, 2015)

Well ISP's aren't defining it, they lobby in the same way that content providers like Netflix are doing in the other direction; I mean, I don't think the regulatory agencies should just define it without consulting anyone first. From the small segment that I read, NCTA has a point, given legal definition and history maybe redefining it (especially with the upload speed) doesn't make sense. That said, typical broadband user is never going to use more bandwidth if they are not able to get more bandwidth affordably; so if redefining broadband somehow will improve network connection speeds and pricing, I'm all for it.


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## Dylan (Jan 30, 2015)

For anyone who didn't see yesterday, the FCC did vote to change the definition (3-2, on party lines).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0129/DOC-331760A1.pdf

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/fcc-chairman-mocks-industry-claims-that-customers-dont-need-faster-internet/

As one of the 17% of Americans lacking access to 25/3 services, thank god. 12/1 DSL is painful to work on.


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## robbyhicks (Jan 31, 2015)

I'm tired of paying $400/mo for cox 100/20 business.  I'm thinking of pairing 4x residential lines together to get around the bandwidth caps.


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## blergh (Feb 2, 2015)

You know it´s way beyond greed when you´re a tech-company that should support & endorse innovation, but do the exact opposite just for profit.


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## Varcoe (Feb 2, 2015)

I'm stuck with 7 Mbps here in Canada, and I would upgrade to 50 in a heart beat if bell offered it in my area.


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## DomainBop (Feb 2, 2015)

Nobody's mentioned it yet, but one of the reasons Comcast and TimeWarner were so opposed to raising the definition of what constitutes broadband is anti-trust concerns about their proposed merger.  Under the old guidelines the 2 companies had a 37% non-mobile broadband marketshare.  Under the new guidelines their broadband marketshare increases to 56%.


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## drmike (Feb 2, 2015)

Varcoe said:


> I'm stuck with 7 Mbps here in Canada, and I would upgrade to 50 in a heart beat if bell offered it in my area.


Well give me your 7Mbps and I'll trade you this 50Mbps Time Warner bullshit, heck I'll even throw in a free house.  #screwtheunitedstates

How bad is it?  It's "prime time" now... 

This is to a speedtest.net regional point that works entirely right and fast overnight (read 2AM onward):

Ping: 856.712 ms

Download: 2.92 Mbits/s

Upload: 2.50 Mbits/s

 

Ping: 1059.6 ms


Download: 2.44 Mbits/s

Upload: 3.41 Mbits/s

 

Ping: 135.169 ms
Download: 3.77 Mbits/s

Upload: 4.95 Mbits/s

 

^---- see with these speeds satellite internet just may be an improvement.

 

Same test point 4AM today:

 


Ping: 36.466 ms

Download: 48.33 Mbits/s

Upload: 5.26 Mbits/s


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