> Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough
that is insane. How having no internet is fine because 20mbps is enough?
That could be a good argument against fiber (which i also think is overkill, decent cooper is lower maintenance and with enough repeaters as good as) but it is hardly an argument against it being available to all as a public utility.
> And, by the way, the FCC thinks I have a dozen options for broadband. That is false.
and the real enemy shows up. FCC, from the bush-omaba-trump admin become the most corrupt organization one can think of. They openly lie and laugh when someone point out the lie.
> from the bush-omaba-trump admin become the most corrupt organization one can think of
I don't know whether they were corrupt, but Tom Wheeler did a fantastic job from a consumer rights & Internet health perspective during the Obama admin. Most notably he implemented Title II regulations to enforce net neutrality (since undone by a Republican), but also supported municipal broadband (since undone by a Republican), fought against several huge communication company mergers (since undone by a Republican), and supported content providers against ISPs charging interconnection fees.
on his first year he passed the "internet fast lane" regulation, against net neutrality, and made lots of profits for his cable and wireless business.
only to four months later start a huge campaign with obama pro net neutrality for the classification of ISPs as utilities under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (with profitable exceptions). Opening the floodgates on direct white house influence on the FCC and permanently making it the political tool which Ajit Pai wields.
> on his first year he passed the "internet fast lane" regulation, against net neutrality, and made lots of profits for his cable and wireless business
No, he proposed a net neutrality regulation that would allow fast lanes, and said he was open to a stronger rule if it had enough support. The comments on the first proposal overwhelmingly favored a stronger approach, and so the final rule that he actually passed was the Title II reclassification.
He took this approach because the courts had struck down the Open Internet Order of 2010, and this was the safest way to restore as much of that as possible without doing a very politically difficult and risky Title II reclassification.
And what do you mean "his cable and wireless business"? In the distant past he had held executive positions in first the main cable trade group, and later the main wireless trade group, but the first was something like 30 years before he was on the FCC and the second something like 10 years before he was on the FCC.
The cable stuff was so long ago that it was just television--the cable modem had not yet been invented. It was also a time when the cable industry was the disruptive new kid on the block trying to bring competition for the big entrenched OTA broadcast networks.
Same thing when he worked for the wireless industry. It was when they were the new thing trying to make inroads against the big landline telecom companies.
What choice is there when congress can't/won't legislate?
The regulation is (still) badly needed. We see the shortcomings of the current delivery system laid bare but if a company won't invest to keep a competitive advantage, again what choice is there?
Yeah we should encourage executive overreach - clearly title II was not for the internet and the FCC has no role. If congress wants to give them that role - then that is the job of congress.
I'm not sure why you think "decent cooper" is as good as fiber. Unless you can deliver me 1Gbps symmetrically like my current fiber, you're inadequate. I currently have two kids doing remote learning, a wife who's starting to VPN at times, and I myself work remotely at least 9 hours a day for the last 20 days.
My podunk town has FTH through a municipal partnership. It works great. If my town can do it, I expect every other town above a population of 300K to do it as well. It's not rocket science.
The problem is with people saying crap like "good enough." The Network Director at my company said that a wireless (GSM) connection of 1Mbps was "good enough." I laughed and said that explains why our LAN and WAN speeds are so bad. WiFi in a conference room with an access point directly overhead fails half the time.
Good enough...
Times are changing. 20 years ago I worked at a distance learning company creating H.S. courseware. Cutting edge stuff that was lost in a market that didn't care. Too many competing interests. But I bet all those education administrators wish they had invested in more than Chromebooks that don't have courseware.
> Unless you can deliver me 1Gbps symmetrically like my current fiber, you're inadequate. I currently have two kids doing remote learning, a wife who's starting to VPN at times, and I myself work remotely at least 9 hours a day for the last 20 days.
This really shouldn't require such exotic internet. Unless you are downloading large files, it's hard to use more than a few megabits per person on average.
Often the nice thing about fiber is the surrounding infrastructure is newer and better.
> it's hard to use more than a few megabits per person on average.
With the coming rise of streaming services(currently using 6 to 12 mbps) and other things I can regularly see each individual person using 25mbps or more with the rise of 4k. And in a house of 4. That means the house needs 100mbps real capacity. And then it needs to not be bottlenecked on the street with dozens of other houses.
And not just streaming of games. But of movies. Education. Meetings. And tons of other streaming related activities compounded on potential normal usage non streaming.
And lets not forget that my predictions are based on the short term (<5 years) time frames. Infrastructure shouldn't need replacing every 5 years, but perhaps every 10-15 years at the lowest. So in that regard I'd bump it up to say at minimum every household should be able to sustain 500mbps symmetrically during peak concurrency strain hours.
Perhaps offer up to 1 gbps to 10 gbps during non peak times and during short spikes.
>This really shouldn't require such exotic internet. Unless you are downloading large files, it's hard to use more than a few megabits per person on average.
You're assuming averages, but just looking at Youtube buffering, it downloads videos in bursts, despite being a "streaming" service. Combine bursty behavior with latency sensitive applications like video conferencing or gaming, and having that headroom is nice.
That said 1000/1000 may not be absolutely needed, but 100/100 or even 100/10 does not seem like it should be that big of an ask.
Try living in a place with only 3 mbps down. You'll find your various computing devices are constantly pegging the connection doing nothing but downloading updates.
I have a lot of computing devices. Probably more than the average American. But both of those numbers are only going up.
This is interesting. Do you have a reference for that? Everything I've read seems to claim that fibre is lower maintenance than copper -- but I'd love to read something to the contrary.
that is insane. How having no internet is fine because 20mbps is enough?
That could be a good argument against fiber (which i also think is overkill, decent cooper is lower maintenance and with enough repeaters as good as) but it is hardly an argument against it being available to all as a public utility.
> And, by the way, the FCC thinks I have a dozen options for broadband. That is false.
and the real enemy shows up. FCC, from the bush-omaba-trump admin become the most corrupt organization one can think of. They openly lie and laugh when someone point out the lie.