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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday August 12 2017, @03:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-latency-than-never dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai is signaling new broadband policy changes that can only be described as friendly to ISPs and hostile to consumers. In a "Notice of Inquiry," a public comment step often taken ahead of rule changes, the commission proposes that both fixed and mobile can be counted as broadband under Section 706 of its rules. That differs from the current standard, developed under Tom Wheeler, that requires timely deployment of both wired and wireless networks in the US.

On top of that, the FCC has suggested that if mobile networks are providing this "broadband," all one needs is 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds. That's less than half of the 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up speeds currently required to fit the definition of home broadband. At the same time, the Notice of Inquiry proposes to leave home speeds at the current level.

The FCC says the "statutory language" gives it the right to scoop mobile and land transmission into one broadband basket. Section 706, it says, defines advanced telecommunications tech "as high-speed, switched, broadband that enables users to original and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics and video telecommunications ... without regard to any transmission media or technology."

[...] The FCC's Democrat Commissioner Mignon Clyburn doesn't agree with gist of the Notice of Inquiry. "We seek comment on whether to deem an area as 'served' if mobile or fixed service is available," she wrote in a concurring statement. "I am skeptical of this line of inquiry. Consumers who are mobile only often find themselves in such a position, not by choice but because they cannot afford a fixed connection."

[...] The Notice of Inquiry calls for public comments at this link until September 7th, with reply comments due by September 22nd. So far, the commission has done a lousy job of handling comments about net neutrality, with intermittent or no access during an eight-hour period on May 7th, 2017. That was either due to a DDoS attack or, as some security professionals think, just a bad commenting system. Anyway, even if lots of folks express their disapproval, the FCC doesn't really care.

I'm guessing they just don't want to have to provide actual broadband to unserved areas to qualify for special perks and subsidies. Which is precisely why I live in a town rather than fifteen miles away from the nearest one.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/10/fcc-mobile-data-as-broadband-slower-speeds/

Also at: Ars Technica.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:41PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:41PM (#552890)

    The fucking internet is symmetric. So why aren't our last mile connections?

    Anybody allowing asymmetric lines to be resold or produced doesn't understand the fundament design of the internet, or is intentionally trying to subvert said design to financially benefit themselves or their cronies.

    As an added poll: Outside of the US, and exclusing cellular data plans, how many people have asymmetric internet connections?

    As a personal anecdote the only times I had asymmetric internet were with POTS and ADSL, both due more to legal limitations on transmit power/phone line design/cost, rather than any technical limitations on supplying the same data throughput in both directions.

    Until 56k modems came about, all internet connections were symmetric.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:57PM (#552928)

    time to drop your mobile contract

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:14PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:14PM (#552932)

    The internet isn't symmetric. Netflix and YouTube alone account for most of the traffic. Most other traffic is small enough not to hit the cap.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:18PM (#552947)

      Methinks you miss the point. Capitalists want to replicate the broadcast model of Television, without the Public Responsibility proviso, so anyone uploading anything is probably a criminal violating copyright. The tubes are the same size going both ways, you know.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:19PM (#552949)

      he's not talking about how the slaves use the internet, he's talking about the infrastructure.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @11:55AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @11:55AM (#553602)

    The fucking internet is symmetric. So why aren't our last mile connections?

    Maybe because most people really do use a lot more down than up?

    Anybody allowing asymmetric lines to be resold or produced doesn't understand the fundament design of the internet, or is intentionally trying to subvert said design to financially benefit themselves or their cronies.

    I think you're overstating the case. For something like DSL, there's a fixed amount of bandwidth (depending on distance and line quality) available for both directions. If someone offered the same 6MB/s total as the customer's choice of 3/3, 4/2, and 5/1, how would that be wrong? In fact, I would probably take the 4/2 option.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @03:12PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @03:12PM (#553701)

      The fucking internet is symmetric. So why aren't our last mile connections?

      Maybe because most people really do use a lot more down than up?

      If that were true, then there would be no need to limit the uplink speed. You'd make a symmetric connection and people don't use upload that much. Done. Generally, you put limits on something because you want to limit it, not because nobody is doing it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @06:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @06:39PM (#553795)

        No, dipshit. DSL has an actual, physical limit to total bandwidth (depending on line quality and distance, like I said), and this is partitioned into up and down segments. 1:1 (aka SDSL) means LIMITING the downlink to half the total available.

        Sure, for stuff like cable internet, it's just a cap. For cheapskates buying slow ADSL even though they're close enough to get more, it's just a cap. But sometimes it's a hard physical limit, and asymmetry actually gives the customer more downlink than is physically possible with a 1:1 ratio.