- In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the six senators pointed out that popular video streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon only require a fraction of the 25 Megabit per second (Mbps) Internet speeds that the FCC has set as the baseline limit to classify as broadband Internet.
- "Looking at the market for broadband applications, we are aware of few applications that require download speeds of 25 Mbps," the senators wrote. "Netflix, for example, recommends a download speed of 5 Mbps to receive high-definition streaming video, and Amazon recommends a speed of 3.5 Mbps."
1. These guys do not get that a single person is using the internet in a family home.
2. Buffering does not exist in Senatorland.
3. Latency is not understood by these Senators.
4. We need to get money out of politics.
5Mbps is also for 720p. For anything above that you'll need more (ultra HD, which I think is 4k?, would need 25).
But that's also assuming that this is where you want data flows to stagnate. With a bigger pipeline companies could start to stream more interesting stuff, like 360 videos in 4k. That's like saying, "the roads are big enough for the sedans of the average family, so why would we make them bigger for the 18 wheelers of a few companies?"
I think though, what's the most interesting, is that once homes start to get fiber speeds and more home network wireless devices, we're going to have to come up with new solutions to an over populated wireless spectrum. Should be neat.
- In the agency's latest report, it found that 10 percent of the population — 34 million people — do not have access to broadband Internet with a download speed of 25 Mbps and an upload speed of 3 Mbps.
I wish there was an "affordable" in there somewhere. It's crazy that I live in a decent sized city, only six miles from downtown and I have two options:
1 - Comcast at reasonable speeds for ass-raping prices
2 - US West/Qwest/CenturyLink at reasonable prices for 12Mb/s
oh well... first world problems...
We have Time-Warner. On the bright side, Time-Warner has a "Business Class" service, through which they will sell you fiber with a not-great-but-much-better-than-cable SLA for expensive but not ridiculous if you work out of your home amounts of money. On the not-so-bright side, they are still a cable company. You have not lived until you have called Time-Warner to report an outage and had two hours of
"Can you try resetting the cable modem?"
"I have fiber, not cable. I have no cable modem to reset."
"Is there a device plugged into both the cable outlet and your computer?"
"... why don't you save us both some frustration and escalate me now?"
"I can't do that until you try resetting your cable modem."
- You have not lived until you have called Time-Warner to report an outage and had two hours of
ME: My cable is out.
They: Try resetting your modem.
ME: Upstream signal is offscale low and I cannot hit the core DHCP server located in the colo on market street....
They: sir, please hold I'm escalating you.