FCC proposes higher speed goals (100/20 Mbps) for USF providers

Mon Jun 6 16:36:36 UTC 2022

On 2022-06-06 11:32 a.m., Casey Russell via NANOG wrote:
>
> But my point was only that if we keep arguing against change and 
> against pushing barriers, then we are what customers (or members) say 
> we are.  obstinate, greedy, uncooperative, and unsupportive of their 
> goals.  I don't think you're any of those things, I just think we need 
> to stop setting limits FOR customers and be open to a conversation 
> about how to get to (insert wild and crazy, super cool goal here).  
> All the time being as realistic as we can about how to do that.
>
After years and years of being told why it's not feasible to build out 
infrastructure upgrades to provide internet service, once I started to 
work in the industry it was pretty shocking to see how customers are 
actually treated. It's tough to gather context from the replies but I 
feel like most of the industry still sees internet service as a luxury, 
and not something potentially life-changing.

It seems like a lot of people are still missing the mark on how people 
actually use the bandwidth. The biggest complaints I hear are from 
people who are learning, teaching, or working remotely, that struggle to 
do basic tasks like move files back and forth from a corporate share. 
You can tell them to "just go to the office", but why should they? WFH 
has become such a life-changing thing for a lot of people, why not 
enable that kind of productivity? Then there's a growing industry of 
content creation; uploading to YouTube, live streaming, online gaming, 
online collaboration. All of that stuff is impossible without sufficient 
bandwidth, especially in the upstream.

When I think about the WISPs that pop up to provide coverage to 
under-served areas and then just collecting the money from customers, 
with no plans to develop any infrastructure. Makes me think of that meme 
... "I want internet" then being told "we have internet at home" but 
it's a 5/1 WISP connection with 600ms pings and 40% uptime.

I don't think the regs need to mandate more speed, because of course 
MOST people will be totally satisfied with a basic connection, but I 
feel like providers have historically used that as an excuse to NOT 
provide a better service to customers that want or need it, where "good 
enough" just isn't good enough.

K