New minimum speed for US broadband connections

Fri May 28 13:18:30 UTC 2021

I fear there are too many areas that are still limited by *dsl
technology so trying to define a certain minimum for upstream
transmission rates is problematic. (Also a pet peave of mine since it
makes moving video and audio project files areound a PITA.)

Personally, I think we're probably best sticking with the current
figures until what is widely available as a top end service begins to
reflect different figures and I don't see that that has happened yet.

-Wayne

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 08:29:08PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> What should be the new minimum speed for "broadband" in the U.S.?
> 
> 
> This is the list of past minimum broadband speed definitions by year
> 
> year  speed
> 
> 1999  200 kbps in both directions (this was chosen as faster than 
> dialup/ISDN speeds)
> 
> 2000  200 kbps in at least one direction (changed because too many service 
> providers had 128 kbps upload)
> 
> 2010   4 mbps down / 1 mbps up
> 
> 2015   25 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up (wired)
>          5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up (wireless)
> 
> 2021   ??? / ??? (some Senators propose 100/100 mbps)
> 
> Not only in major cities, but also rural areas
> 
> Note, the official broadband definition only means service providers can't 
> advertise it as "broadband" or qualify for subsidies; not that they must 
> deliver better service.

---
Wayne Bouchard
web at typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/