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AT&T Says 10Mbps Is Too Fast For "Broadband," 4Mbps Is Enough 533

Posted by samzenpus from the lets-slow-things-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes AT&T and Verizon have asked the FCC not to change the definition of broadband from 4Mbps to 10Mbps, contending that "10Mbps service exceeds what many Americans need today to enable basic, high-quality transmissions." From the article: "Individual cable companies did not submit comments to the FCC, but their representative, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), agrees with AT&T and Verizon. 'The Commission should not change the baseline broadband speed threshold from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream because a 4/1 Mbps connection is still sufficient to perform the primary functions identified in section 706 [of the Telecommunications Act]—high-quality voice, video, and data,' the NCTA wrote."
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AT&T Says 10Mbps Is Too Fast For "Broadband," 4Mbps Is Enough More

AT&T Says 10Mbps Is Too Fast For "Broadband," 4Mbps Is Enough

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  • Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:29PM (#47856341)

    F your ISPs in the US and F your corrupted "FCC"

    • Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by David_Hart ( 1184661 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:21PM (#47856945)

      F your ISPs in the US and F your corrupted "FCC"

      I agree, but not because of this particular issue. No matter what the FCC calls it or what the rates are set at we still have the same problem: Collusion among the ISPs to ensure that they have monopolies with little to no requirement to roll-out new infrastructure and increase services. This is just a smokscreen for the FCC not doing their jobs and taking care of the big stuff...

      Until this is fixed all they are doing is arguing over whether the last peanut butter chocolate chip cookie in the cookie jar is peanut butter cookie or a chocolate chip cookie when what we really need is more milk...

    • Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:35PM (#47857091) Journal

      Agreed - I suspect that the translation from AT&T is as follows:

      "Please don't up the definition... we suck, and don't want to have to explain why we can't provide "Broadband" to the majority of our customers anymore."

      The sad part is, I bet that all the other ISPs are silently cheering AT&T on. :/

  • Sorry guys, but you are full of shit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:31PM (#47856371)

    If you asked them not to change the definition because "broadband" technically refers to how data is transferred (10gbit ethernet is not broadband, despite the speed, it is baseband) then ok, you can be cpt pedantic.

    However this is just you lying. 4mbps is not "enough" for the modern Internet. Currently I find the breakpoint to be about 20mbps. That is the point after which normal users won't notice much, if any, improvement. As such, that is my baseline for recommendation to people. 10mbps is serviceable I guess, but is a pain for video streaming. 4mbps would be a real issue, even low bandwidth streams wouldn't work well.

    The minimum needs to keep rising. We keep finding more to do with our net connections. These companies are just whiny because they don't want to have to roll out FTTH, they want to keep doing DSL and pretending like that works.

    • I'm on 3mbps and unless I'm really pushing the quality of the video I find that the network isn't what's slowing me down. It's the software. Lately for some strange reason I've noticed that YouTube works better with Firefox than it does on Chrome. Some Chrome update in the past few weeks must have left in debug code or something. It chokes every 5 seconds, just freezes and becomes unresponsive. Firefox plays the video just fine. Once again though, I'm not pushing the quality. I guess if I were trying

    • Sorry guys, but you are full of shit (Score:5, Funny)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:43PM (#47856527)
      I use a 28.8 modem from Telix to post on slashdot using Lynx on my DOS machine with 640k of memory and it's blazing fast. Now that's what I call broadband. Should be good enough for anyone.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HnT ( 306652 )

        > DOS machine

        I didnt know George RR Martin was using Lynx and procrastinating on slashdot but now the many years between GameofThrones books start to make much more
        sense...

    • Re:Sorry guys, but you are full of shit (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Strider- ( 39683 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:45PM (#47856539)

      The minimum needs to keep rising. We keep finding more to do with our net connections. These companies are just whiny because they don't want to have to roll out FTTH, they want to keep doing DSL and pretending like that works.

      Heh, I operate one site that has ~60 people connected to 1.2Mbps/300kbps satellite, which also carries up to a dozen phone calls in the evening. Would we like more? sure, but the current system already costs $5000 a month (which is a pretty good deal for raw satellite capacity). Does it suck to use? sure, but once you give up on things like Youtube and put some strong QoS in place, it's remarkably useable assuming a little patience.

      The biggest killer? sites like Facebook going https by default. Facebook used to cache really well. As soon as they went https by default, my cache hit rate dropped 50% or more. (It's also a BYOD environment, so I'm not doing SSL MITM etc...)

      • Your .sig is less persuasive in the context of your post; it sounds like you are practically on tin cans connected by string up there!

        My kids have practically no concept of TV, not because they're too good for it, but because it has been replaced by youtube.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Strider- ( 39683 )

          Your .sig is less persuasive in the context of your post; it sounds like you are practically on tin cans connected by string up there!
          My kids have practically no concept of TV, not because they're too good for it, but because it has been replaced by youtube.

          The site in question is actually in the US, north-central Washington State. The surrounding terrain is extremely rugged and federal wilderness. We've looked at fixed microwave, but that would require two self-powered mountain-top repeater sites (never mind the fact that one of them would actually have to be built in the Wilderness area, which would require an act of congress to approve). Also, conservative estimates put the price tag on the system at about $250k, and ongoing maintenance wouldn't be cheap

    • I kind of agree with you, but I'm not sure what difference it makes whether you call it "broadband" or something else. Is the issue that there are laws requiring them to provide "broadband" to cover certain areas?

      I don't really care what you call it, but 4mbps by1 mbps is not "enough". At this point, Americans should be able to anticipate a 10mbps symmetrical "dumb pipe" connection to be available for their home or business, and at a reasonable price. Of course, someone always objects, "So you think AT

    • How much video are you streaming? I've found very little if any issue with 10mbps on my home line, and I find that every once in a while that I'm streaming to my living room, the basement play room, a 2DS, and 2-3 computers simultaneously. I might not be streaming 1080p to every device, Heck, 1080p is over rated. Give me 480p or 720p as long as it's 16:9. The only time I notice a significant issue is when someone logs on with their un-synced phone, and steal all the upload bandwidth sending all their photos

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      However this is just you lying. 4mbps is not "enough" for the modern Internet.

      You are quite right to put "enough" in quotes. What I don't understand is, how you can seriously accuse anyone of lying (without quotes) on a matter as subjective as this.

      The minimum needs to keep rising.

      Sure. And it will — when multiple providers begin competing with each other for each home [wired.com]. Until then, attempting to force incumbent monopolies to improve service will remain a losing proposition — they talk directly [politico.com]

  • Demographic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:32PM (#47856379)

    4/1 is sufficient for my 2 year old daughter, my dead grandmother, and my cat who mostly just wants to chase the mouse around the screen. Pretty much everyone ELSE in the house wants more than that.

    AT&T wants to sell the fantasy that people who want more bwidth really just want UVerse TV, not internet bandwidth. Which is false, anti-competitive and in a more rational world would involve lining them up against a wall and allowing "many americans" to stone them.

    • Re:Demographic (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:47PM (#47856561)

      You'll notice that whenever companies engage in discussions about this sort of thing, they seem to be talking about households of one person. I have no idea how 10MBPS would suffice in a house of, say, four people. If two people are watching HQ videos (netflix, youtube, etc), that's easily 8-10mbps *minimum*. Figure the other two are listening to music and playing online games and maybe you have a guest who is using skype or something... bandwidth just doesn't go very far in today's world, unless you're living like it's still the late 90s as far as your entertainment consumption and communication.

      • Re:Demographic (Score:5, Funny)

        by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:28PM (#47857023)

        You'll notice that whenever companies engage in discussions about this sort of thing, they seem to be talking about households of one person. I have no idea how 10MBPS would suffice in a house of, say, four people.

        Why, they're all gathered around the radio in the evening, while Father smokes his pipe and Mother does her knitting.

        Er, TV, not radio.

  • 'And it comes with an optional 10 mega byte hard drive! What could you possible do with all that space!?!" A quote someone actually said to me about the original IBM PC. (ya, i'm old).

  • Ask anyone still on Dial Up (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AaronLS ( 1804210 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:33PM (#47856387)

    Give anyone 4 mbps connection who is living in an area that still has dialup as their only option, and ask them if its broadband. If someone works to bring 4/1 mbps connections to more areas, they should be able to advertise it as broadband.

    • But it's not that much different to bring 10 mbps to new markets. I'd rather see them roll out 10mbps to new areas than 4mbps

    • OK, so I have five plausible choices for reliable internet access where I live: Dialup at about 31.2kbps, EDGE GPRS, satellite, or one of two crappy local WISPs. The least crappy one gives me 5Mbps when things are going well. It's fine for one person, but when two people in a household are using it, the result is that at least one person suffers.

      A 4Mbps connection is enough to pay your bills and use Wikipedia, and to run updates or torrent at night, but it's still fairly frustrating. Life seems to begin aro

    • Re:Ask anyone still on Dial Up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by maccodemonkey ( 1438585 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @06:26PM (#47857567)

      Give anyone 4 mbps connection who is living in an area that still has dialup as their only option, and ask them if its broadband. If someone works to bring 4/1 mbps connections to more areas, they should be able to advertise it as broadband.

      That's like saying I should be able to advertise my bicycle as a car if I'm selling it in an area that is still using horses.

  • The US is 22nd in the world for broadband speed. [websiteoptimization.com]. Latvia and Romania are ahead of us.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by X0563511 ( 793323 )

      Yes, well, when your whole country is the size of one or two of our states...

      The US is pretty freaking large, and we're fairly spread out - even on the coast.

      Wake me up when you can go to a random hovel in Siberia and get those speeds... because that would be a closer comparison than what you're saying.

  • Wages (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StrangeBrew ( 769203 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:34PM (#47856407)
    I think $200k top salary including bonuses far exceeds what many CEO's need for living a basic high quality life. Any more than that would just be wasted on blow and hookers.
  • Broadband was originallymeant to refer to the signal properties and not the actual speed. Another term used would be wideband. Generally the wider the signal (frequency range), the faster it would be. Go back a few generations of technology and you can see where having dialup would not be broadband, but ISDN and T1 connections would be. The latter would use multiple channels to achieve a greater bandwidth by bonding frequency ranges together. This is more likely the definition AT&T is going by from an e
  • I'm lucky, I have two choices for Broadband in my area, AT&T which delivers 6 mbps service (with an actual throughput of 4.2 mbps) and I can get Comcast service which delivers 50 mbps service with an actual throughput of 70 mbps ... though service fails intermittently (outages haven't been too bad for the last few months ... knocking on wood as I type that). Both cost about the same monthly. So I will continue to hold my AT&T stock because of the obvious profit margin, but I will buy Comcast service for my household. I have AT&T VOIP landlines so I also pay the extra to have the AT&T DSL (no U-Verse for us) as a backup for those Comcast outages.

  • Billions of dollars are at stake (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:40PM (#47856497)

    If the lower limit for the definition of "broadband" is increased to 10Mbps downloads, half the country currently receiving broadband [broadbandmap.gov] as required by the Universal Service Fund [wikipedia.org] will suddenly require massive capital improvements to upgrade service in remote areas. This has a knock-on effect for other ISPs advertising higher download speeds, which become a lesser value proposition when the minimum speed is raised.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why aren't there versions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ediron2 ( 246908 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:43PM (#47856515) Journal

    Why all this silliness on a moving target. Much like USB 1, 2, and 3, network 'Category' notation and in a human-oriented alternative to the acronym soups for SCSI, PCI and other communication protocols WHY THE HELL AREN'T WE PUSHING FOR a standard that can keep pace and inform users trivially/ steadily:

    • B1 - roadband 1 - More than 250Kbps down, 150Kbps up.
    • B2 - Broadband 2 - More than 4Mbps down, 500Kbps up
    • B3 - Broadband 3 - More than 10Mbps down, 2Mbps up
    • ... etc, as time dictates.

    Or some other ranges. I don't care about these specific numbers. I just hate that an ISP thinks they deserve to control the definition.

  • Man I hates these guys (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:44PM (#47856531) Homepage Journal

    FCC: We're redefining what constitutes "high speed broadband", as the current description is about 10 years old.
    TelcomLobby: We're good with what we have now.
    FCC: Unfortunately no. Your networks haven't really grown in capacity for the end-user in several years now. And by the new definitions, your service won't qualify as "high speed".
    TelcomLobby: We're good with what we have now.
    FCC: No, that's what we're telling you, you're not.
    TelcomLobby: Uh. Can we just bribe you not to make this change? It might affect our killer bottom line!

    While I don't own a gun, it's times like these I wish I fucking did.

    • While I don't own a gun, it's times like these I wish I fucking did.

      ... I'm glad you don't. I certainly hate them too, but you don't see me reaching for my rifle! Schmucks like you give gun-banners something to wield.

  • Look at this way (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    4Mbps = 400KB per second. Which means that the connection could transfer the entire contents of a personal computer's memory (640K) in less than two seconds.

  • Where I live I have one option other than AT&T, and they cost more for less speed. Instead of defining broadband I think we need to ensure there is competition for ISP's from other ISP's .
  • Where this would hit then is in advertising and semantics. Their competitors would be able to advertise "we are the only broadband provider in your area! Call now". That would hurt them.
  • He'd let us know 640kb/s is enough for anyone.

    Korea is now getting 8000 Mb/S, which is like 200x faster than 4mb/s.

    I thought we were supposed to be a first world country. Why can't we compete with Korea?

  • Not only is 4/1 not nearly enough, it needs to be symmetrical. 20/20 is just barely servicable for a household. 100/100 would be adequate, but 1000/1000 should be the standard. These companies want to stay at 4/1 so they don't have to "waste" any of their cocaine/hooker money on infrastructure.

    • Most people don't currently need symmetrical service, though I could see that changing soon if personal cloud computing and storage really took off. If people's entire library of documents, photos, etc. were in a dropbox type storage rather than on their own HD, people would start to notice how crappy normal upload speeds are.

    • Not only is 4/1 not nearly enough, it needs to be symmetrical.

      Does it really? I agree with the first part, but not necessarily the second. Let's say, 20/4 or 20/5, someplace thereabouts, as a reasonable minimum to be called "high speed" (what we should be using rather than "broadband".) And even that's insulting given a global comparison. Regardless, most of us really don't need to stream HD from our homes. Most people who need to do that need a SLA anyway. But 1 Mbps is horribly paltry these days, it makes it annoying even to send full-quality photos.

  • What AT&T says to the consumer.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:56PM (#47856665)

    The internet services offered from AT&T's website. Note that 6Mbps/3Mbps "is perfect for general Web surfing and emailing" While 12/18/24 Mbps is "for general Web use, as well as streaming music and video, downloading movies, surfing, and social media."

    So AT&T, why do you say one thing to consumers and another to the FCC?

    http://www.att.com/u-verse/shop/index.jsp

    Internet Speeds and Prices
    Dominate your online life. These are the speeds for connecting multiple Wi-Fi devices with less lag time, downloading video in a snap, and dominating your online opponents.

    Plan NamesPrice

    Power (Downstream speeds up to 45 Mbps) $81.00

    Great all-around speeds for general Web use, as well as streaming music and video, downloading movies, surfing, and social media.
    Max Turbo (Downstream speeds up to 24 Mbps) $71.00
    Max Plus (Downstream speeds up to 18 Mbps) $61.00
    Max (Downstream speeds up to 12 Mbps) $56.00

    When you need reliable speeds at a great price, these are perfect for general Web surfing and emailing.
    Elite (Downstream speeds up to 6 Mbps) $51.00
    Pro (Downstream speeds up to 3 Mbps) $46.00

  • The FCC is not self-consistant (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @04:58PM (#47856693)

    If your an ISP filing FCC form 477 broadband **CURRENTLY** means the following:

    Broadband Connection: A wired line or wireless channel that terminates at an end-user location
    and enables the end user to receive information from and/or send information to the Internet at
    information transfer rates exceeding 200 kbps in at least one direction.

    While I don't have much of an opinion about definitions... 4Mbps vs 10Mbps there needs to be consistency throughout. The FCC should not get to pick and chose what broadband means based on where in law/rules the term is used.

  • Why change the definition? 4 is more than enough to use the Internet and every single one of its major features. I do not even understand why it would currently be 4? As far as I am concerned, this broad post dial-up technology we use is all broadband, regardless of if you have a 1MB connection or a 1GB connection.

  • Easy question to answer (Score:3)

    by dheltzel ( 558802 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:03PM (#47856769)
    This is simple to determine -- The FCC jsut gets all the CEO's of the companies in question into a room and put them under oath. Then ask them what the bandwidth is to their personal residence and that becomes the definition of "Broadband" for that company. If it's good enough for the CEO's family then it should be good enough for their customers. And if investigative work proves they are getting all "weasel-like" using mifi or something to supplement, then they must do 5x what they claimed before.

  • Should be enough for anyone . . .

    • Mps? k? What are these odd units I'm seeing here?

      (also, that joke hasn't been funny for at least 10 years)

  • AT&T executive 45mph speed limit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dfsmith ( 960400 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:19PM (#47856929) Homepage Journal
    How can we mandate that AT&T executives must not drive faster than 45mph, which is as fast as you need to go to get basic transportation?

  • Broadband should be equal to broadcast quality (Score:3)

    by Mr_Wisenheimer ( 3534031 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:20PM (#47856935)

    Right now, the transfer rate for 1080p blu-ray is a maximum of 40 Mb/s, so that should be defined as broadband download.

    When 4K becomes a de facto standard, it should be increased to 150-200 Mb/s.

    The FCC should be given the authority to regulate the terms: high speed, low speed, and medium speed for internet connections.

    They should currently designate it:

    HIGH SPEED: > 100 Mbs
    MEDIUM SPEED: (10 Mbs, 100 Mbs)
    LOW SPEED: 10 Mbs

    ISPs should not be allowed to use any other qualitative terms to describe the speed of the connection.

    If an ISP does not provide 10% of their download stream as upload bandwidth, they should be required to drop down to the next tier (for example, 200 Mb/s download with a 5 Mb/s upload should be described as "medium speed".

    The whole "high speed broadband" term is archaic. It goes back to the day where ISDN (64-128 Kbs) or better (basically anything faster than dialup) was "high speed".

    You should not be able to describe internet as high speed unless the speed is high enough for the most demanding consumer tasks, such as blu-ray streaming.

  • On their websites they tried to encourage users to pay for the higher speed connections by saying they provide the speeds necessary for streaming video, video conferencing, and video games.

    Interestingly enough, I checked to make sure I wasn't putting my foot in my mouth and it appears AT&T changed the way they advertise broadband on their site. I guess they were smart enough to change it so they don't look like giant hypocrites but that's clearly the way they had it set up less than a year ago when I wa

  • Meanwhile. . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:47PM (#47857189) Homepage Journal

    Meanwhile, other providers are testing 10_G_bps FTTD (fibre to the desktop) for deployment, because they see the future isn't in cable TV but in providing TCP/IP (Internet, basically) connectivity. That is 10x the bandwidth any one PC you can buy off the shelf can handle without adding in a 10GbE server network card. Yes, ten GIGABITS PER SECOND over epon/dpon.

    AT&T and Comcrap are just whining and clawing because they know the future is here (streaming video on demand from providers that are NOT THEM) and they don't want it. They should do what my employer is doing and embrace the ISP side of the business as their meat and potatoes and treat cable video as gravy. Cable TV is not only a zero-growth industry, but a dying industry.

  • The Netflix Test (Score:3)

    by richardtallent ( 309050 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @05:55PM (#47857269) Homepage

    Congresscritters and the bureaucrats who make the decisions are completely incapable of understanding transmission rates and why 4 vs. 10 matters in the real world.

    Instead, we should just tell them that any definition of "broadband" should at *least* pass the smell test of meeting the recommendations for Netflix's service, which is 5Mbps for HD and 25Mbps for Ultra HD.

    A Netflix stream of course isn't a standard unit of measure, but it's at least an analogy they might understand.

  • Hah! Oh... Thanks... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @06:01PM (#47857329) Homepage Journal
    I needed a good laugh. I suppose as a potential investor, I'm happy to know that his company is woefully unprepared to compete in a rapidly-evolving marketplace. It's kind of surprising to encounter such honesty in this day and age. Of course, he probably doesn't realize that he just admitted his company is woefully unprepared to compete in a rapidly-evolving marketplace, but that's one of the root causes of them being woefully unprepared to compete in this marketplace, isn't it?

  • Circular logic (Score:3)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Monday September 08, 2014 @06:09PM (#47857407)

    ... anything we're used to will be sufficient for what we normally do because what we normally do is limited by current circumstances.

    By this logic, we wouldn't have needed electricity or indoor plumbing because at that time few people had wired their homes for electricity, owned light blubs, lamps, or had any of the appliances that use internal plumbing like toilets or showers.

    The notion that standards can remain fixed because people don't rely on things they don't have is asinine.

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