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What Counts as Broadband Could be Changing

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

Jon Brodkin for ArsTechnica:

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is aiming to increase the agency's broadband speed standard from 25Mbps to 100Mbps on the download side and from 3Mbps to 20Mbps for uploads.

And:

The 25/3Mbps metric was adopted in January 2015 under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler and was never updated by former Chairman Ajit Pai during his four-year term leading the commission. Pai decided in January 2021 that 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds were still fast enough for home Internet users.

My current provider, Xfinity, is the only cable internet option in my area and they deliver about 5Mbps upload speeds, so 20Mbps sounds like a dream to me. I would have loved to have competition drive these standards up, but since I and so many others don't have a choice at all, I'll take a little government push.