FCC Officially Approves Change In the Definition of Broadband 430
halfEvilTech writes As part of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps, which effectively triples the number of U.S. households without broadband access. Currently, 6.3 percent of U.S. households don't have access to broadband under the previous 4Mpbs/1Mbps threshold, while another 13.1 percent don't have access to broadband under the new 25Mbps downstream threshold.
What are the practical results of this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Interesting)
verizon can no longer milk the broadband tax incentive cow to quite the degree that it was.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope - instead it'll milk the (soon to be announced) 'broadband improvement initiative' tax incentive cow for all that's worth.
Silly rabbit, corporate tax loopholes can be found wherever your lobbyists can dig them. ;)
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of mindless cynicism, don't resign to it, and don't joke about it. Campaign to stop it.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you going to accomplish? Both parties in this country are bought and paid for by corporate interests so there's no way to change the status quo until that duopoly is broken up. And good luck getting Joe Sixpack to think beyond the bumper sticker slogans provided to him by the talking heads in the media (who are in the same pockets as the politicians).
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are more than two parties. The trick is that you have to care about them at the local level first in order for them to become relevant at the national level later.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two parties. Plus a few fringe groups that have no power and no way to leverage themselves into political power. You're kidding yourself if you think you can break through the corporate/media/political duopoly/oligarchy that is in power. All they have to do is keep the unwashed masses foaming at the mouth over social issues and they won't notice that they're being completely screwed over by the system. Hell, most people couldn't name their local representatives. Forget them doing enough research to see how their representatives actually vote on their behalf. The only thing the average person cares about is what their representatives tell them during the very well financed campaign. Just take a side (for or against) on gun control, abortion, and gay marriage and your constituency will either line up for you or against you (depending on the district). The average voter doesn't have any time to pay attention to 3rd parties (who are usually extremeists or way out past the outfield bleachers anyway). They care more about making sure the "wrong" candidate doesn't get elected by voting for the "lesser of two evils", not realizing that they're voting for someone who doesn't give two shits about them.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
If only I had mod points...
The closest any third party has come to a presidential election was Ross Perot, in 1993. He had a very well-oiled hype machine and a shitload of money, which is why he got as far as he did. Even after he began stumbling and his campaign imploded (hard), he still got 13% of the vote... pretty impressive by most standards of the modern era.
On lower levels, Bernie Sanders (nominally a member of the Socialist party, but caucuses with the Democrats 99% of the time) is the only national candidate period to have made a national office since what, the 1950's?
It's going to take a radical change in attitudes, a really rotten national situation overall, and an even more radical amount of disgust with the current system before folks wander off to vote for a third party. Even when some ideological icon does run on his own (e.g. Ralph Nader), you will see the immediate (and dishearteningly effective) rallying cry of the threatened major party (in Nader's case, the Democrat party immediately started screaming "OMG you'll split the vote and then they will win!")
It'll take a lot to get a third party off the ground. Not impossible, but it'll take a lot to happen nonetheless.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the propaganda network is very effective. A family member posted a false quote from Elizabeth Warren he got from FoxNews facebook page.
I pointed out that this quote is false, she never said it. Ever. It is a quote from Joseph Stalin.
All the Fox fans jumped on board swearing it is real, that Snopes is lying, and they heard her say it themselves.
The quote remains false, yet this pack will go to the polls thinking one candidate is Stalin because Fox told them so.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:4, Insightful)
I fully believe that this did (or at least could) happen in modern America.
But sadly, the right doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of loony behavior. They tend to be more vocal and rabid right now but the left has it's share of BS flowing from their talking heads. Though to be fair, right now the only thing the left has to do to rally the troops is to point out how crazy the right is right now. There's plenty of material to work with.
What I wouldn't give for a quality centrist party that's willing to compromise and work out policy that meets somewhere in the middle rather than having notthing but weird fringe parties who are way off to the edge in one extreme or another.
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Guess what, you're that Joe Sixpack. They've successfully convinced you that it's not worth the effort of trying.
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Both parties in this country are bought and paid for by corporate interests so there's no way to change the status quo
Why do people always say this? Although both parties receive contributions from whoever wants to contribute, they most definitely don't behave the same. This FCC decision is a prime example: the two Republicans voted lock-step with the cable lobby, but the three Democrats had the balls to stand against it [arstechnica.com] to at least try to drag the United States into the future. So, thank you, Democrats, thank you, particularly for calling out the industry's lobbying bullshit [arstechnica.com], testifying that 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up is
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You know.... I'm politically active. I've spent time in my capital, which is a not insignificant drive away. I have my reps as contacts in my phone. I've spent a lot of time talking to my local state reps. I've seen the lobbyists walking around.
The thing that gets to me is how LITTLE people talk to our reps. They WANT to hear from people. Everyone seems to have YOUR attitude, and frankly... All the problems that this country has are YOUR fault. To quote a famous man "All that evil needs to succeed are for
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I can toss in $100. That and your $100 ought to totally destroy the $890,000,000 the Koch brothers have announced they are tossing in to the ring this election cycle. Though the money that large PACs like Verizon belongs to will match the Koch brothers, then our $200 will be hard pressed to compete.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Informative)
In a reversal from 2012, liberal billionaires top the list of biggest super PAC donors with a little more than two weeks to go before Election Day. Three of the top five givers lean Democrat, while the king of unlimited money mountain — environmental crusader Tom Steyer of California — is lapping the competition, a Sunlight analysis finds.
also note, neither kochs make the top 10 donor list
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
My reading of the orignal author's point is that indvidiually most of us can buy very little influence with our contributions (Maybe $100 or so each), while extremely wealthy folks like the Koch Brothers can buy extraordinary influence with theirs. You're reply enitrely ignores that point and instead focuses on making this partisan (both sides do it! Liberals are even worse! etc). Ultimatly none of that matters in the long run. The important point is that a very small number of people in the world hold tremendous influence over the direction of the planet, and that power is becoming more and more concentrated (the top 0.01%'s share of the world's wealth has quadrupled in the last quarter century). Regardless if you think those folks are on your side of a particular issue, the truth is that ultimately they are all on their own side.
This isn't a Conservative vs. Liberal issue, this is a society vs top 0.01% issue.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with "The dems raise as much money as republicans" is that, either way, the election becomes about the issues that moneyed donors care about - and almost nothing else. I believe Obama raised more money through smaller donations than Romney did, but even if not - he didn't appoint the Citizen's United faction to the SCOTUS.
Money in politics is a problem - whether it favors one side or not. And it sure seems like the right wing of the SCOTUS thinks it favors their side - because political money is bribery as much as it's speech. And one-person-one-vote democracy doesn't work with one billionaire $100 million worth of speech vs 1 normal voter, 10 bucks.
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How do you propose unions help workers without getting political? Scott Walker, NCLB, ALEC, Wal-Mart, right-to-be-fired laws, privatization, NAFTA...and that's off the top of my head. All political issues.
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Billionaire hedge fund operator and “green” energy magnate Tom Steyer has pledged $100 million in the 2014 election cycle to help Democratic candidates who oppose the Keystone pipeline and who favor “green” energy over fossil fuels. Steyer claims to be a man of principle who has no financial interest in the causes he supports, but acts only for the public good. That is a ridiculous claim: Steyer is the ultimate rent-seeker who depends on government connections to produce subsidies and mandates that make his “green” energy investments profitable. He also is, or was until recently, a major investor in Kinder Morgan, which is building a competitor to the Keystone pipeline. Go here, here, here, here, here and here for more information about how Steyer uses his political donations and consequent connections to enhance his already vast fortune.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Subsidies for deploying "broadband" to rural areas (like mine) are going to be yanked since they actually have to have some actual bandwidth now.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why common carrier status should come in. Not providing good Internet to rural areas basically allows local providers to choose who wins and who loses when it comes to business. There are few businesses that can operate without good Internet connections now, and that number is sure to decrease.
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bullshit. What you're suggesting is more anti-free market than what I suggested. What statements like this always forget that "free market" is assumed that the people involved are somewhat equal. It's not "free market" to allow one group of people to choose winners and losers. Not every small business is free to just pick up and leave, either.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do the Libertarian crowd always claim that letting the already established huge companies have free reign will result in a more free market? It is mind boggling how utterly and willfully ignorant these folks are.
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I'm lean moderately libertarian, but understand what a natural monopoly is. It's not libbys per se, more a Tea Party thing.
Some people are so seduced by the simplicity, the elegance, of an ideology, that they never pause to consider whether it is actually *correct*. They don't want to let annoying things like facts mar the beauty of their True Beliefs.
Having tried to teach them a few things, I have learned the hard way that they are paranoid, ignorant, and completely reject any information that doesn't co
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is only so much space on the utility polls and under the streets. The number of companies who are allowed to run network cable has to be limited. It's the same with electric, gas, and phone line. I don't see why people don't understand this. It's government enforced monopoly because it's the only practical way to do it.
With common carrier regulation the companies that have the right to use PUBLIC lands for profit must lease their lines to other companies at a fair market value.
The real solution to all of this is the government should build the infrastructure using tax dollars and then lease it to private companies. If I was Bush/Obama in 2008 during the economic crisis I would have used the bail out money to build a nationwide Internet service. Would have hired a lot of people for quite a few years and we'd be better off as a nation for it.
Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:4, Informative)
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Let the market decide what the best use of investors money is.
A new yacht for the CEO, which they continue to screw the so called customers ?
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Re:What are the practical results of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs can no longer use false advertisement to try and trick ill-informed consumers (ie. grandma) into paying for garbage.
Hopefully, the result would be that these companies would strive to do better to please their customers. Realistically, the result will be that these companies still know they own a government-sanctioned monopoly over their area(s) and make you pay for shitty service or get no service at all.
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ISPs can no longer use false advertisement to try and trick ill-informed consumers (ie. grandma) into paying for garbage.
Easily solved:
BUY NOW!! Super-fast-ultra-speed internet** is available in your area!!
**Up to 1Mbps or beyond!
(And oh yeah, we'll still hijack DNS NXDomain responses, throttle Netflix/bittorrent, keep connectivity records, and spy on your traffic w/o a warrant.)
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Steam is faster along with xbox downloads. itunes and google play is hit and miss. some apps download fast others are like watching trees grow. same with streaming video on netflix and vudu. on vudu i've noticed older content is SLOW and cuts out a lot of times, most likely because it's not on a CDN
not much considering that your speed is mostly dependent on the CDN that your content is being hosted on and it's relation to you.
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"Now available in your area Ultra Super-duper awesome speed internet!!"
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Not until they have real competition. Most areas, you have 1 option and 1 option only. Don't like it? Tough shit, talk to the hand.
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My area (30 minutes outside one of the 100 largest cities in the US) has two choices for wired internet:
Time Warner Cable @ ~$50/month for 20/1 bandwidth (and massive throttling at times)
Verizon DSL @ ~$45/month for 1.5m/512k bandwidth
Time Warner increased speeds 3 years ago, but Verizon hasn't bothered to ever increase their speeds. However they do now offer 3G service in my area (woo) which offers fairly similar cellular speeds, though service is spotty and it's easy for your house to not get reception.
I
Still not good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Still not good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true those countries are more compact, making economies of scale easier, BUT even well-populated areas of the US still have limited, unreliable, and gimmick-heavy choices. I'm one. Thus, population density is not the full reason. We are doing something wrong in the US.
It looks and smells like oligopoly-based crony-capitalism controlling the strings, but you are welcome to present alternative explanations.
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Don't forget the normal voter who just doesn't want to have more taxes. Even if it means that they will pay more for Internet service.
Americans in general, have a distrust of the government. And prefer to have more personal power even if that means they are putting themselves in a disadvantage. But that way it is their mistake in their lives not someone elses.
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How is it your own mistake if you can't get decent internet ?
Re:Still not good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Still not good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, you can realize that Broadband is as simple as building out a new Fiber infrastructure, replacing Cable, using the model I've suggested.
Municipalities build out the infrastructure using one time Bond money, building a CO-LO facility and auction space to CONTENT and INTERNET providers. All last mile connections terminate in the CO-LO and a network technician processes connection requests from customers, "I want Time-Warner" or "I want Comcast", or "I want Google", who then patches customer to provider.
The cable is not owned by any single vendor, and there is competition for customers individually. No need for any regulation, and market forces will lower costs to the end user. AND things like the Comcast/Netflix argument simply disappears.
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Too much of anything is bad. Some water is good for you, too much and you drown. Some big company influence is good for us; but too much and we get corporate fascism and/or corporate communism (which may degenerate to regular communism).
The slippery-slope fallacy can be used to justify any position.
Overly-influential banks already had a big hand in crashing the world economy recently and almost got us into another Great Depressi
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Here are a couple differences between drinking too much water and too big of government: 1) the number of affected people (one vs Millions), 2) You have to try to drink too much water vs natural progression of governance.
Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy not because it isn't true, it is a logical fallacy because it isn't always true; sometimes is not good enough in logic. The question is, have you seen government that has grown too big?
Here are a few acronyms that most citizens hate: IRS, NSA, CIA, DHS ..
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Why do you think that being for expansion in one area means you're for expansion in all areas? Clearly, government needs to do more to promote competition in the ISP business, and just as clearly, government is overreaching with the TSA and spy agencies, which need to be more limited. It's no so simple to say "fuck big government" or "let's expand government", either of which is such an extraordinary simplification of the fact that it blows me away that people take either side seriously.
BTW, people will ha
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Then why do those that claim big government is bad keep expanding it?
The government only shrinks under those who do not make these claims. it only grows under those who do make these claims.
Re:Still not good enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ask these questions:
How much competition is allowed for providing Internet access in any given US locale?
Why can we not have municipalities plant/string and own the local fiber/cable/POTS lines, then rent them out to competing ISPs for residential access purposes (see also Utah's UTOPIA initiative)?
Find the answers to those questions, and you'll find the root cause of the non-logistics problems that broadband faces in the US.
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It looks and smells like oligopoly-based crony-capitalism controlling the strings...
All brought on by voters that won't kick out corrupt politicians. *We built this city.* Now we have to live with it or fix it. The choice is ours.
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One of the things we're doing wrong, as has been discussed to death on Slashdot, is municipalities striking exclusive deals with a single cable and internet provider, preventing any competition from entering the market. Franchise fees are another example of what we're doing wrong; they're often prohibitively expensive and are effectively the same as an exclusive agreement. Other places limit access to utility poles to their one chosen, favored provider.
Competition works. Lower prices, better products, happi
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What conservatives often fail to grasp is that "less government" and "more competition" are sometimes at odds. We need referees to enforce a competitive environment. It's too easy for big co's to buy away competition. We want them using their resources to make better & cheaper mousetraps, not to keep out other mousetrap makers.
you're a well populated area? (Score:4, Funny)
even well-populated areas of the US still have limited, unreliable, and gimmick-heavy choices. I'm one.
you are?
investor returns, perhaps? (Score:2)
many of the countries with 100 Mb and gig to the home almost universally do not have for-profit privatized telcos.
they have nationalized telcos, and if the leader of their administration says "run fiber, not wire," they get the money and power to do that.
the rest back up "requests" to speed it up with subsidized dollars to make it work.
in the US, if you can't make your dividends and trench down fiber, the fiber doesn't happen.
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Don't blame it on that. I've lived in Chicago (in the same building that housed all the routers and fiber), as well as LA, DC, and other large metros.
Even in Chicago, I could not get a reasonable 'broad-band' speed.
(If you don't believe me, it's 732 S. Federal St. in Chicago that hosts all the fiber and electronic broadband. Look it up.)
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That doesn't sound bad (Score:2)
So, if I get this right, 80% of the US Americans have at least 25MB/s download. This is not really that bad, I have a fiber connection but only subscribe to 20/20 (for 30eur/month) because it's good enough for pretty much anything. From the complaints I hear on Slashot I thought only Google offered more than something like 5MB/s.
Re:That doesn't sound bad (Score:5, Informative)
problem is typically there is only one provider offering this, cable, utilities have been sitting on their asses enjoying govt subsidies at 4 mb/download without working to improve the speed. there is no competition in US, the home of the free market.
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Well, what does "get" mean? Has purchased? As in nobody wants to pay for faster service? Or can obtain, as in everybody else is too far from the nearest DSLAM? I would expect to see the lowest speeds in the most economically depressed areas simply because people have other priorities. Although I'm all for removing various tiers of service. Gigabit for all, I say!
Re:That doesn't sound bad (Score:5, Informative)
So, if I get this right, 80% of the US Americans have at least 25MB/s download.
No. 80% of Americans HAVE ACCCESS TO 25 Mb download. As in they have the option to subscribe to. They may not be able to afford it, or they may choose not to subscribe, or they may be choosing to subscribe to a lower tier.
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Yes. I have the option to buy a 25BM/s line. The price is ridiculously high, however.
Residents in my neighborhood shouldn't be considered as having broadband since just about no one pays that much for internet (except my one neighbor who works in IT from home, and he deducts it as a business expense).
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It is important to notice the difference between having 'access to' 25Mb/s download and having 25Mb/s download. I have 'access' to 100Mb/s download, but I do not see the need for it or wish to pay for it, so I only have 15Mb/s download.
It would be interesting to see how many people actually have 25Mb/s download.
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We're talking about megabits per second here, not download speeds in megabytes per second.
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They sell up to 25mb/s. the network can handle up to 25mb/s. The reality is that they cannot sustain it.
"The FCC wants to test our lines. Kick everyone off and remove all the throttles. test complete? We barely passed? Sweet! no upgrades this year. Let the users back on!"
Reality is, you get dialup speeds at prime time, and little better than 1mb/s the rest of the time.
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True, sorry about that, replace B with b everywhere.
U-verse (Score:3, Insightful)
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Real-world LTE speeds only qualify as broadband if you're very close to the tower. By the time you get into two-bar territory (where their LTE network is "available"), you'll be lucky to get EDGE speeds, and at one bar, you'll be lucky to get any data at all. Yet technically, LTE is available in all those places. That's the problem with wireless; the speed falls off a cliff as distance increases.
aw sum (Score:3)
Now when I say my peak rates are less than 25% of broadband speed, maybe I can get some sympathy
"Broadband" is a stupid name (Score:2)
Broadband is a description of the technology, not of bandwidth. The FCC is a technical organization, so why can't they use the correct name?
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Broadband is a description of the technology, not of bandwidth. The FCC is a technical organization, so why can't they use the correct name?
Because the people who vote on this change are not technical people. And because most Americans would not understand a good technical name.
Re:"Broadband" is a stupid name (Score:5, Insightful)
Broadband is a description of the technology, not of bandwidth.
Well, to be pedantic, "Broadband" and "Bandwidth" are descriptors for how much spectrum a given signal occupies, and has very little to do with throughput. 802.11b occupies 6MHz of bandwidth to carry 11Mbps, while a QAM256 carrier on cable sends 36Mbps using 6MHz channels. Both of these are broadband, and both have the same bandwidth, but they have significantly different throughputs.
The correct term would really be data rate, or throughput, or something along those lines.
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To be equally pedantic: the meaning of words change over time, most especially when technical terms are adopted by the common population. When speaking of frequencies, transmissions, filtering, etc, broadband means exactly what you describe. When speaking of internet access, broadband means "high speed".
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Because the term has been redefined to mean "high speed" by non-technical sorts. Same reason they call it a a DSL or cable modem, despite the fact that nothing is being modulated or demodulated. It happens, deal with it. Hell, there was a time when "awesome" meant something that inspired awe, and "faggot" referred to a bundle of thin sticks to be used as fuel.
Meanwhile the term "broadband" has been enshrined in law, and is the basis for various government subsidies, etc.
Besides, broadband isn't that stupi
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Same reason they call it a a DSL or cable modem, despite the fact that nothing is being modulated or demodulated.
Where did you get this idea? Both Cable and DSL modems are in fact modems. In the case of cable modems, the data is carried in a set of 6MHz channels (Same bandwidth as analog TV) at various frequencies on the cable. The data being sent over these channels is encoded with QAM (typically QAM-256) and contains a certain amount of Forward Error Correction (to compensate for noise in the line). Thus, your cable modem demodulates these carriers and sends the data out over the ethernet jack, and conversely mod
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It is no less applicable than "Hi-Fi" or "Solid State". "Broadband" is just another term for wide bandwidth. It implicitly encompasses higher data rates as a consequence of using more of the spectrum. Coding techniques have almost reached the Shannon limit so the only way to improve data rates is with more bandwidth. This terminology stems from radio engineering which, incidentally, is precisely what the FCC oversees.
A more useful application of pedantry would be to wage a war against all the dullards who c
What has the world come to ... (Score:5, Funny)
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DSL? (Score:2)
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Why ? I have 52Mbps DSL right now.
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VDSL? [wikipedia.org]
That's what U-verse uses. Last summer I finally switched over from 6m/600k DSL to 24M/8M(?) since 2004-ish, though my line (about 500 wire feet from the pedestal) syncs at 64/24 or so on a single wire pair. (I think U-verse can bond two pairs) I get only Internet/VoIP because I refuse to pay for television. (MythTV gives me nice unrestricted .mpg files from my antenna.) Then they silently upgraded me to 32M down, which I only noticed when I started half a dozen torrents one Saturday morning.
US Robotics 56K (Score:5, Funny)
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they took our Broadband!
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the irony of the similar circumstances and reactions is sweet.
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The Influence of Netflix (Score:2)
So 25Mb is the new broadband minimum?
Just wondering, did Netflix traffic get counted in that determination, or will Netflix service bypass all of this and soon be deemed a mandatory Right, protected under the 28th Amendment?
Does it pass the test? (Score:3)
It's not truly "high speed internet" until it can pass this test:
http://messagebase.net/Home/Re... [messagebase.net]
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leading from behind... way behind.
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Uh, they changed the standard so that those who are milking on the USF can't continue to give their customers 1990's internet speeds with your money...
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That's less than 4MB/s after overhead - awful handy for downloading multi-GB ISOs, streaming high-def videos, etc.
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Correction - less that *3* megabytes per second. 25Mbps = 3.125MBps, minus overhead.
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Steam and Battle.net updates, Xbox/Playstation/Wii downloads, etc.
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Replace "25Mbps" with "640kb" and maybe you'll see why that was a stupid thing to say.
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You can't stream HD video on 4Mbps, you can't get large patches is a reasonable time with 4Mbps, you can't Skype in HD with 1Mbps of upload, it takes forever to seed a cloud backup with 1Mbps (I put a few hundred GB in Crashplan and it took a month, I have more data than that but I had to pick the important data because my upload was so limited), etc.
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I guess the crux of the matter is with this quote from TFA:
With the US currently ranked 25th in the world in broadband speeds,
With 4Mbps as a limit for "broadband intenet access", you just can't boast about being a leader in internet accessability. And not being able to boast hurts the American psyche.
Because 4k TV is a Basic Human Right. Right?
Re:Doesn't suddenly make your DSL faster (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't legislate technology.
Ever read the National Electric Code ?
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Classic ADSL (the original 1998 version) goes to 8M/1M. If all you can get is 3M down, then that's because Verizon sucks. I had a less ambitious 6M/600K for years from AT&T until I upgraded to U-verse last year.
ADSL2+ (Annex M 2008) supports 24M down / 3.3M up and the telco side gear should be compatible with classic ADSL CPE. VDSL1 supports 55M down / 3M up and should also be backward compatible with ADSL. Both of these are probably where FCC got their numbers.
And Verizon also sucks because they're n [slashdot.org]
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You also used to be overweight, so stop complaining!