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

Jamie Bowden jamie.s.bowden at raytheon.com
Tue May 24 14:39:53 UTC 2022


As much as I hate giving C&P/Bell Atlantic/Verizon praise for anything ever, my 1gb FIOS connection reliably delivers 900+mb/s in both directions any time I care to test it.  Generally, if I can’t fill the pipe it’s the other end’s lack of available bandwidth.

Thanks,
-- 
Jamie

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+jamie.s.bowden=raytheon.com at nanog.org> On Behalf Of David Bass
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 7:34 AM
To: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: [External] Re: FCC proposes higher speed goals (100/20 Mbps) for USF providers

The real problem most users experience isn’t that they have a gig, or even 100Mb of available download bandwidth…it’s that they infrequently are able to use that full bandwidth due to massive over subscription .  

The other issue is the minimal upload speed.  It’s fairly easy to consume the 10Mb that you’re typically getting as a residential customer.  Even “business class” broadband service has a pretty poor upload bandwidth limit.  

We are a pretty high usage family, and 100/10 has been adequate, but there’s been times when we are pegged at the 10 Mb upload limit, and we start to see issues. 

I’d say 25/5 is a minimum for a single person. 

Would 1 gig be nice…yeah as long as the upload speed is dramatically increased as part of that.  We would rarely use it, but that would likely be sufficient for a long time.  I wouldn’t pay for the extra at this point though. 

On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 8:20 PM Sean Donelan <mailto:sean at donelan.com> wrote:

Remember, this rulemaking is for 1.1 million locations with the "worst" 
return on investment. The end of the tail of the long tail.  Rural and 
tribal locations which aren't profitable to provide higher speed 
broadband.

These locations have very low customer density, and difficult to serve.

After the Sandwich Isles Communications scandal, gold-plated proposals 
will be viewed with skepticism.  While a proposal may have a lower total 
cost of ownership over decades, the business case is the cheapest for 
the first 10 years of subsidies.  [massive over-simplification]

Historically, these projects have lack of timely completion (abandoned, 
incomplete), and bad (overly optimistic?) budgeting.


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