New minimum speed for US broadband connections

Tue Jun 1 00:19:42 UTC 2021

I think it has been true for many years that:

a) a vast majority of residential gigabit/symmetric customers, or gigabit
asymmetric (docsis3 500-1000 down, 16-50 up) no longer have a device in
their home with a 1000BaseT port on it, or don't know if they do. in some
cases literally the only cat5e cable they have may be a 3' piece from their
cable modem to 'router', and everything else is wifi.

b) don't understand the difference between the service speed delivered via
the wireline connection and demarc/handoff device, whatever that may be,
and their perception of service over the wifi.

c) are unwilling to go through troubleshooting steps requiring them to
directly connect a device to the modem/demarc by 1000BaseT and run speed
tests, possibly necessitating a service call (this can be partially avoided
by the install technician doing a *wired* speed test in front of the
customer at the time of install, from their laptop, and taking a couple of
minutes to explain the difference)

d) may be using badly configured wifi things that stomp on each other,
sometimes provided by the ISP (I have seen set-top boxes from major MSOs
that broadcast a 2x2 MIMO 802.11ac 80 MHz wide channel, now imagine ten of
these all in wood framed houses/condos/townhouses all very close to each
other, in addition to the wifi from the demarc modem/router device). There
are lots of other things in the common consumer environment that render
some environments a CSMA mishmash, like smart TVs, printers and things that
all create their own AP for some reason.

e) may be using their own randomly purchased-from-best-buy wifi "range
extender" devices to create weird forms of mesh networks in their home,
further halving their bandwidth with each half duplex hop.

On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 4:54 PM Tim Burke <tim at mid.net> wrote:

> This is a good point as well… you can have the largest pipe in the world,
> but in many cases, in-home service issues are caused by crappy CPE.
>
>
>
> Example… my neighborhood has 1000/50 GPON (rather silly to offer such poor
> upload speed, but that’s irrelevant in this case) provided by a local
> outfit, Entouch (now Grande/RCN) as part of HOA dues… Many people in the
> neighborhood do not use it and blame the ISP for offering “mediocre
> service”, simply because there is no fancy CPE included as part of the
> service offering. Yet as soon as you swap that $25 Netgear router
> pre-installed by the home builder’s structured wiring contractor for
> something that’s worth a damn, the pipe is actually usable…
>
>
>
> With that said, if there needs to be regulation on minimum broadband
> speeds, should there be regulation to require home ISPs to provide high-end
> 802.11ax-capable network gear, so the average clueless home user with a
> 1gbps FTTP connection can actually use the service they’re paying for?
>
>
>
> V/r
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> *From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+tim=mid.net at nanog.org> * On Behalf Of *Josh
> Luthman
> *Sent:* Monday, May 31, 2021 12:55 PM
> *To:* NANOG list <nanog at nanog.org>
> *Subject:* Re: New minimum speed for US broadband connections
>
>
>
> Was that the fault of the broadband provider or was that the fault of the
> indoor WiFi?  Is it possible the router has so much interference from all
> of the neighbors and everyones using 2.4 GHz?  What if that example had a
> cable connection with 960/40 mbps and they're limited to 5 mbps up because
> of the in house WiFi solution?
>
> Would upping the broadband plan to 1000/1000 fix that problem?
>
>
>
> Josh Luthman
> 24/7 Help Desk: 937-552-2340
> Direct: 937-552-2343
> 1100 Wayne St
> Suite 1337
> Troy, OH 45373
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 28, 2021 at 2:56 PM Chris Adams <cma at cmadams.net> wrote:
>
> Once upon a time, Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net> said:
> > "Bad connection" measures way more than throughput.
> >
> > What about WFH or telehealth doesn't work on 25/3?
>
> More than one person in a residence, home security systems (camera,
> doorbell, etc.) uploading continuously, and more.
>
> I know multiple people that had issues with slow Internet during the
> last year as two adults were working from home and 1-3 children were
> also schooling from home.  Parents had to arrange work calls around
> their kids classroom time and around each other's work calls, because of
> limited bandwidth.
>
> The time of the Internet being a service largely for consumption of data
> is past.  While school-from-home may be a passing thing as the pandemic
> wanes, it looks like work-from-home (at least part time) is not going to
> go away for a whole lot of people/companies.
>
> --
> Chris Adams <cma at cmadams.net>
>
>
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