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

Tue May 24 15:48:26 UTC 2022

I have two fixed wireless Internet connections here.  One is 25/5, the other is 35/5.  There is no cable, no fiber, no cellular, not even DSL from the phone company.  That is reality in metro Denver, CO (actually, the foothills, 25 miles from the state Capitol building).

Regarding Starlink, no, you can’t get it.  I paid my deposit a year and a half ago and I am still on the waiting list.  Every time that I get close to the date they promise, they change the promise. Maybe I will get Starlink service some time in the future, but, not any time soon.

Oh, yeah, and 25 meg down costs $75 a month.  If you want VoIP, that is another $20+.

So not only is it slow, it is expensive too.

So yes, there still is a problem, right here in America.  And not just in the boonies.

Mitch

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+mitch=mtanenbaum.us at nanog.org> On Behalf Of Matthew Huff
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 9:38 AM
To: Brian Turnbow <b.turnbow at twt.it>; David Bass <davidbass570 at gmail.com>; Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: RE: FCC proposes higher speed goals (100/20 Mbps) for USF providers

I grew up in rural Texas where my mother still lives. She has adequate speed internet, the biggest issue is reliability. The whole town (there is only 1 provider) has an outage for about an hour every week. Two weeks ago, there was no internet for 3 days. Cellular service is 4G and not even that reliable for data even on the best days.

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+mhuff=ox.com at nanog.org <mailto:nanog-bounces+mhuff=ox.com at nanog.org> > On Behalf Of Brian Turnbow via NANOG
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 9:35 AM
To: David Bass <davidbass570 at gmail.com <mailto:davidbass570 at gmail.com> >; Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com <mailto:sean at donelan.com> >
Cc: nanog at nanog.org <mailto:nanog at nanog.org> 
Subject: RE: FCC proposes higher speed goals (100/20 Mbps) for USF providers

Here in Italy there have been a lot of investments to get better broadband.

Such as government sponsored bundles for areas with no return on investments, for schools etc with a lot of focus on reaching gigabit speeds

The results have been mainly positive even though there are delays.

On the end user side in 2020 one of the largest ISPs started offering 2.5Gbps service

Adds all over and users started asking for it, even though they don’t have a 2.5 nic or router,  so now all of the major providers are rolling it out.

Illiad one uped them a couple of months ago pushing  a 5Gbps service and now I get people asking me if we offer 5Gbps fiber lines.. pure marketing…

I have a 1Gbps/100Mbps line and it is plenty enough for the family rarely do we even get near the limits.

It’s kind of like when I ask for an Italian espresso in the states and get a cup full of coffee, no I just want a very small italian style espresso..

The response is Why? you are paying for it take it all 

Bigger is better, even if you don’t need it, reigns supreme.

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 <sean at donelan.com <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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