FCC: 68% of US broadband connections aren't broadband

Emil

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The FCC has published a new 87-page report titled "Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2009." The report explains that 68 percent of connections in the US advertised as "broadband" can't really be considered as such because they fall below the agency's most recent minimum requirements: 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.

In other words, more than two-thirds of broadband Internet connections in the US aren't really broadband; over 90 million people in the country are using a substandard broadband service. To make matters worse, 58 percent of connections don't even reach downstream speeds above 3Mbps. The definition of broadband is constantly changing, and it's becoming clear that the US is having a hard time keeping up.

The report also notes that wireless service subscribers with mobile devices and data plans for full Internet access grew 48 percent to 52 million in the second half of 2009. Furthermore, for all connections over 200 kbps, mobile wireless is the leading technology at 39.4 percent, ahead of cable modems and ADSL, at 32.4 percent and 23.3 percent, respectively. For connections over 3Mbps, however, cable modems account for 70 percent share.

While it's important to remember that the report focuses on what broadband speeds consumers are actually choosing to purchase, as opposed to availability, it's still worth noting that the overall picture is a poor one. Consumers may have higher speeds available to them but if they are opting to subscribe to significantly lower speed tiers, competition isn't fierce enough and thus the overall situation isn't changing very much.

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and that's the problem without competition the cable company will still keep there price at $50 a month for there standard speeds...they have been $50 for years it would be nice if they could go down to maybe $30 but without competition that probably will never happen
 
How would people want something more expensive than they use? I mean... who would get a 10 mbps or more to read news on the web?

Normal people with normal needs go with cheaper connections that suits and are more than they really need.
 
Kibaruk said:
How would people want something more expensive than they use? I mean... who would get a 10 mbps or more to read news on the web?

Normal people with normal needs go with cheaper connections that suits and are more than they really need.

Those normal people are also streaming high definition videos and other highly intensive bandwidth program then ever before. I know this just from working on the average home consumers computers. The days of just reading the news and streaming 480p movies is rapidly disappearing.
 
Would you dare make a number for that % prosercunus?

I could also say that console kids play over internet or download games, trailers, demos but then again could not even be close to an amazing % at all as to call them "normal" users.
 
I find this funny. Because canadian internet is more expensive and I'm still able to run a 70mbps connection on my budget.
 
I have 2.5mb down and .42mb up for $32 /month. It was advertised as 3 down and .5 up, but I guess I live too far away from the DSL center. All in all it gets me by, but gaming is laggy and I can't go higher than 480p streaming videos. Guess I can't call my Internet broad band anymore.
 
Guest said:
I have 2.5mb down and .42mb up for $32 /month. It was advertised as 3 down and .5 up, but I guess I live too far away from the DSL center. All in all it gets me by, but gaming is laggy and I can't go higher than 480p streaming videos. Guess I can't call my Internet broad band anymore.

This is why I prefer cable. As cable runs through fiberoptics until it hits your house and it doesn't matter how far you are from where the internet center.
 
Kibaruk said:
Would you dare make a number for that % prosercunus?

I could also say that console kids play over internet or download games, trailers, demos but then again could not even be close to an amazing % at all as to call them "normal" users.

How could I randomly throw out a percentage? It is a fact that people use more bandwidth nowadays then they did even five years ago. Even ISP's have acknowledged this, I am sorry you don't.
 
I was so blind until I realized that Mb/s was different from MB/s. I was so looking forward to my brand new 12 MB/s download speeds and then I realized it was actually closer to 2....... It's bull.
 
Love my comcast line 45-60 Mbps *( on a 20Mb teir)

pings 20-90ms with jitter of 2ms to 4ms

all in all the speed i have i pay 54.95 a month.
good news comcast is still spreading to new areas and upgrading along the way, like they did here in Northern Cali.
 
I've got 1 Mbps downstream and 384 Kbps upstream. Fine for surfing and light downloading but sucks for watching internet video. Fortunately, I don't do multiplayer games over the internet. I bet that would suck big time too on my connection.
 
xclusiveitalian said:
They want to make the most money by giving us as little as possible, simple as that.

100% correct. The carriers have almost unlimited bandwidth at their disposal, but throttle the **** out of it. A 4Mbps connection in Europe is like dial-up in the US.
 
Kibaruk@work:

Ok they use more broadband today, that doesn't mean they use their full speed conections nor that they need 10mbps. Also I rather you didnt write condescending messages if that is not to hard for you (See what I did there?).

Not even myself a big downloader use the full broadband every given time I'm online.
 
I get 4.5 Mbps download and 0.35 upload; I am paying for 6 Mbps download and 0.5 upload.
Sad, but I can't do anything about it. Although that translates to about 500 Kbps in real world downloads (steam, cnet, filefront, etc...), downloaded insurgency in ~forty minutes (1800 MB), so I don't have anything to complain about other than the high price I am paying.
 
These speeds sound horrible oO In Greece we pay ~20 dollars/month for an unlimited connection that goes up to 24Mbits, depending on how close to the DSLAM you live. For example in my case I synch at 18Mbits and get download speeds of up to 1.8MBs. I'd be really depressed if I were to move in the US..
 
Guest said:
I was so blind until I realized that Mb/s was different from MB/s. I was so looking forward to my brand new 12 MB/s download speeds and then I realized it was actually closer to 2....... It's bull.

It isn't bull. Anyone who does their research knows that there are bits and bytes.
 
princeton said:
This is why I prefer cable. As cable runs through fiberoptics until it hits your house and it doesn't matter how far you are from where the internet center.

Have to agree like my cable, just wish I had a faster up speed (only about 0.5mbps.)

But there are many areas that can't get cable. Area I live in only has cable for about 10miles outside the city limits then you have DSL or Satalite...and with the weather around here you really only have DSL.
Several people I know are stuck with DSL, and rather poor latency because of the distance from the DSL hubs :(

But back on the original topic - its really not all that surprising report. The USA is really behind on their communication infrastructural - specifically for internet. We were hot on it when the internet first became big and ran everything on copper. That made us king for a while, until the countries that were a little behind got into the race and at that point fiber was just as easy to lay, and skipped a lot of the copper stage. Now the US sits with a lot of copper lines and has to convert them all to fiber to catch up with the rest of the world.
 
So if the price is $50/month steady (more or less) for a decade, that means it's gone down in real dollars.
Consider the value derived for ~$600/year. People pay at least that much just for the insurance on their cars and it's not considered wildly beyond the pale. Broader availability of high speeds is something to shoot for.
 
Ladies and gents, I often use SpeedTest.net to see if my ISP is lying about my broadband speeds.

For a few more months I am getting Comcast basic cable TV and their highest speed internet for $55. It's nice, but my promotional deal with them ends soon so I'll be finding a different ISP. My results are:

Download: 21.14 Mb/s
Upload: 3.67 Mb/s
 
That sucks Pygmus. Get Verizon Fios if you can, then you'll see that lame upload speed get faster as well and you won't have to share your pipe with your neighbors.
 
For me, a current broadband definition should be: 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.

That is, for "download speed" is necesary a speed of an old ethernet (or 10Mbs), while I can agree with "upload speed" of 10% of an old ethernet (or 1Mbs).

But now, a more strict definition of broadband should be: 10 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream, ans that's a old ethernert network.

Anything less than the speed of a local area network (ethernet of 10Mbps) is not broadband.

Thanks for you appreciation.
 
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