13% of you no longer have broadband!! Yeah!

[ivwshane]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/29/fcc-redefines-broadband-speed/

Here's the thing to remember about the FCC: It doesn't have the power to ring up Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner and all of their money-grubbing ilk to say "make your internet faster or else!" All it did was change what counts as "broadband" internet -- from here on out, it's up to service providers to change how they play the game. And you know what? We expect they will.

Lol! This ought to be fun watching companies like AT&T sell their slow as shit and not be able to call it broadband!

Who is against this?

 

[z1ggy]

They'll just come up with some fancy and pleasing name to make it sound good.

...but do people even use ATT for internet..?

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

The problem is all I see this doing is providers changing the wording used. "High speed DSL, Fast Cable Internet, blahblahblah". Now 'broadband' will just disappear in the wording but fail to change anything.

 

[maddogchen]

I'm too far from the local phone hub to qualify for DSL... So I just settle for the 100Mbps cable

 

[ivwshane]

They'll just come up with some fancy and pleasing name to make it sound good.

...but do people even use ATT for internet..?

Sadly most people don't have options. In smaller towns it's usually AT&T or some other small time provider.

Either way, I hope they continue upping the requirement.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally Posted by z1ggy
They'll just come up with some fancy and pleasing name to make it sound good.

...but do people even use ATT for internet..?

Sadly most people don't have options. In smaller towns it's usually AT&T or some other small time provider.

Either way, I hope they continue upping the requirement.

Our daughter lives in a small town in Georgia. The only choice they have is Windstream DSL. They keep upping the price for super slow less than 1 meg speed every year. Started off at $25 a month and now it's $55 a month.

Total rip off but they have no choice.

America is disgusting now.

 

[cbrunny]

From article:

Now service providers will have to offer speeds of 25Mbps down/3Mbps up if they want to apply that label. Need a little perspective? The average American home broadband connection pulls down around 11Mbps, while some 17 percent of Americans technically don't have broadband internet anymore.

Math doesn't compute.

Does it mean that 17% of Americans were considered Broadband but now are not? If so, that should not be in the same sentence as a fact that states the average is 11.

 

[maddogchen]

Google Fiber will come save us all!

 

[realibrad]

I just left comcast because of quality issues that I had for about a year. I had 50Mbps speed with comcast down, and with ATT I now have 6. I am now apart of the 13% because I am well under 25Mbps. I would love for fiber to be in my area, but regulations are hold it back. Yay for consumer protections!

 

[Jaskalas]

Lol! This ought to be fun watching companies like AT&T sell their slow as shit and not be able to call it broadband!

Who is against this?

Is this finally the end of their 6mb DSL?

I switched to 100mb cable a few years back.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

13% of people now have high-speed internet instead of broadband.

Amazing change.

 

[werepossum]

Cool beans. My wife's best friend just upgraded from dial-up to AT&T broadband, but I think hers might be fiber. Otherwise it's going to be rather embarrassing for AT&T having to say "I know when we sold you this last week we told you it was broadband, but now the government is requiring us to tell you it really isn't."

I've posted this before but Chattanooga did something majorly cool. Like all utilities, our local Electric Power Board was looking to eliminate the cost and liability of meter readers. There are several ways to go, but they chose to put in a fiber network with smart meters. To leverage that cost, they also got into the broadband Internet & cable TV market. Although they had to fight off court challenges from AT&T and Comcast, now every single household and business with electricity has access to competitively priced broadband Internet & cable TV from a well run not-for-profit utility - including unthrottled gigabit Internet for $70/month. In fact, over its four year life 1 Gig Internet has dropped from $300/month to $70/month, because the data side only has to be self-sustaining. No government mandate to use them, just honest competition.

https://epbfi.com/
What every power company should be doing.

 

[Engineer]

It seems that the biggest change (that's been missed here from what I can tell) is that government subsidies to the ISP's has been changed to a minimum of 10Mbps. No 10Mbps, no government subsidies.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

...but do people even use ATT for internet..?

I have uVerse Max Plus internet (via fiber) 18 Mbps download /2 Mbps upload.

 

[ivwshane]

It seems that the biggest change (that's been missed here from what I can tell) is that government subsidies to the ISP's has been changed to a minimum of 10Mbps. No 10Mbps, no government subsidies.

Yep! The article didn't cover that but that was my thinking/hope as well.


Now all we need to do is demonize the phrase "high speed internet" and make it synonymous with garbage speeds and, in my opinion, the rest will take care of itself.

Last I heard, uverse maxed out at 25-30mbps, is that still the case? That's barely broadband speeds!

 

[MustISO]

Seems like a whole lot of nothing was accomplished. So now you can't call it broadband, who cares.

It's not going to change the ridiculous rates they charge or the terrible service. They just need to update their website and advertising material.

The average person doesn't give a shit what it's called they care about the cost and the customer service.

 

[moonbogg]

OMG Fart In My Mouth. This is going to piss a lot of service providers off. Customers will be like "My shit ain't even broadband".

 

[fskimospy]

Seems like a whole lot of nothing was accomplished. So now you can't call it broadband, who cares.

It's not going to change the ridiculous rates they charge or the terrible service. They just need to update their website and advertising material.

The average person doesn't give a shit what it's called they care about the cost and the customer service.

Read above: the government gives subsidies for broadband access. Those subsidies are now requiring a higher overall speed to qualify.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Last I heard, uverse maxed out at 25-30mbps, is that still the case? That's barely broadband speeds!

Guess it been a while as uVerse has had a Power package with speeds up to 45 Mbps for at least 2 years.

http://www.att.com/shop/internet/u-verse-internet.html

 

[ivwshane]

Seems like a whole lot of nothing was accomplished. So now you can't call it broadband, who cares.

It's not going to change the ridiculous rates they charge or the terrible service. They just need to update their website and advertising material.

The average person doesn't give a shit what it's called they care about the cost and the customer service.

Actually there's a lot of potential to change things. As mentioned already, it would allow subsidies to be tied to higher speeds as well as possibly allow for more competition in a market if it is deemed that a company is impeding the progress of broadband upgrades.

Finding a good article on this and all it's implications hasn't been that easy but so far this is the best I could find:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102355635

 

[Demo24]

Lol at Wheeler calling out Verizon:

Speaking of Verizon, for example, Wheeler said that Verizon’s filings with the FCC read, “Consumers continue to find that services at the existing 4Mbps/1Mbps threshold meet their needs for broadband services and a higher benchmark would serve no purpose.”
Verizon’s own marketing materials, meanwhile, explain that although FiOS provides great bandwidth, “you’d be surprised how fast it goes,” and specifically says that their 25 Mbps connection “is best for one to three devices at the same time,” but that a family or household with three to five devices in it should go for 50/50 or better.
“Our challenge is not to hide behind self-serving lobbying statements,” he concluded, “but to recognize reality. And our challenge is to help make that reality available to all.”

It won't change much for the end user, at this point in time. Although it does have implications for the funds ISP's can receive from the FCC for certain services provided.

 

[fskimospy]

Cool beans. My wife's best friend just upgraded from dial-up to AT&T broadband, but I think hers might be fiber. Otherwise it's going to be rather embarrassing for AT&T having to say "I know when we sold you this last week we told you it was broadband, but now the government is requiring us to tell you it really isn't."

I've posted this before but Chattanooga did something majorly cool. Like all utilities, our local Electric Power Board was looking to eliminate the cost and liability of meter readers. There are several ways to go, but they chose to put in a fiber network with smart meters. To leverage that cost, they also got into the broadband Internet & cable TV market. Although they had to fight off court challenges from AT&T and Comcast, now every single household and business with electricity has access to competitively priced broadband Internet & cable TV from a well run not-for-profit utility - including unthrottled gigabit Internet for $70/month. In fact, over its four year life 1 Gig Internet has dropped from $300/month to $70/month, because the data side only has to be self-sustaining. No government mandate to use them, just honest competition.

https://epbfi.com/
What every power company should be doing.

Hopefully this will happen more often soon. The FCC is looking to issue new rules that will override state bans on internet access offered by local municipalities. These bans were basically the result of the cable companies buying off state legislatures to insulate them from competition.

 

[ivwshane]

The term "high speed internet" may also not be allowed under the new definition based on some articles I've read but I've yet to find anything definitive.

 

[realibrad]

Why dont we just let companies build and offer service anywhere they want?

 

[ivwshane]

Guess it been a while as uVerse has had a Power package with speeds up to 45 Mbps for at least 2 years.

http://www.att.com/shop/internet/u-verse-internet.html

Interesting, the link shows 18mbps before checking availability. Maybe 45 is only in some areas.

AT&T uverse may be safe this round but if the FCC bumps it up to 100mbps they will be screwed.