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

Mon May 23 22:59:49 UTC 2022

On May 23, 2022, at 6:39 PM, Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> wrote:
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> 
> On 5/23/22 3:26 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> Is it?
>> 
>> What’s the bandwidth of a good quality 4K stream? What about 4 of them + various additional interactive technologies, software downloads, media downloads, etc.?
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>> Looking at the graphs, my household (which isn’t average by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a household) doesn’t need a gig very often, but there are the occasional multiple hours where my Gig downstream does flatline at about 950Mbps.
>> 
>> So I’d say that I make sufficiently frequent use of the gig that is available as to render it unlikely I would be satisfied with less bandwidth.
>> 
> If you're going to use downloads as the benchmark, what about 10G or 40G as the baseline? I mean, that's an unwinnable treadmill.
> 
> But from my reading about 25Mbs is just on the edge of being ok with 4k. Certainly 100Mbs would be fine for multiple streams.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
There is the other significant problem — using downloads as the benchmark. This ignores  being the family “IT consultant” doing remote support. This ignores voip telephony, hosting Zoom meetings with friends and family, class reunions, show and tell, informal classes, and eventually, shared Virtual scenarios. If the FCC ignores upload speed parity and BufferBloat controls, the end result will probably not be favorable from the user viewpoint. And I haven’t yet mentioned virtual presence at the SpaceX launch control center.