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

Mon May 23 23:08:24 UTC 2022

On 5/23/22 3:43 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> I think a gig is not an unreasonable target… It’s 100Mbps plus adequate headroom for the likely oversubscription models and the occasional downloads that are modern day reality.
>
> Nobody is going to consistently use 1Gbps, but the difference in wire time for a large download between 100Mbps and 1Gbps is significant.
>
> Making 1Gbps available in today’s network technology isn’t significantly harder nor is it any more expensive than making 100Mbps available when you consider oversubscribed bandwidth which is inherent in today’s residential models.
>
> I’m not so unreasonable as to suggest dedicated gig CIR everywhere, but something close to 100Mbps CIR with 1G burstability isn’t an unreasonable target IMHO.
>
> Anything over 1G gets more complicated and more expensive with available technology today, though that silly 2.5G stuff is not unlikely to gain traction in the residential aren in the near future.
>
> 10G or 40G are pretty absurd because the average residence can’t possible make realistic use of it… Most residences have a 1G bottle neck to the modem.

I agree that it probably doesn't change much for the ISP's (my rural ISP 
installing fiber apparently disagrees tho). The thing is that if you're 
talking about downloads, the game manufacturers will just fill to 
whatever available capacity the pipes will give so it probably won't 
ever get better.

Maybe there a Next Big Thing that will be an even bigger bandwidth eater 
than video. But I get the bigger limitation these days for a lot of 
people is latency rather than bandwidth. That of course is harder to 
deal with.

Mike