FCC reevaluates US broadband competitiveness, finds 14 to 24 million lack access

bealtine

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/22/fcc-reevaluates-us-broadband-competitiveness-finds-14-to-24-mil/

The National Broadband Plan may one day bring broadband to everyone in the United States but, as a new report from the FCC itself reveals, there's still quite a ways to go. According to the report (issued every year by the agency), between 14 and 24 million Americans have no access to broadband, which is now defined by the FCC to be a 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. That's a significant revision from the previous 200kbps downstream standard used by the annual report, and brings it in line with the minimum goals set by the National Broadband Plan. What does that mean for the 14 to 24 million without broadband access? Not much at the moment, unfortunately. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says that those individuals are mostly in "expensive-to-serve areas with low population density," and that "without substantial reforms to the agency's universal service programs, these areas will continue to be unserved." Of course, that finding is just one part of the report -- hit up the source link below to check out the whole thing.

watty

The Midband & Broadband forum FAQ/Charters now updated.

History
Before DSL, the minimum definition of "Broadband" was Primary ISDN, 1.5Mbps in USA and 2.048Mbps in Europe. Dialup, 1 channel ISDN and 2 channel ISDN was regarded as "Narrowband"

Because on very long lines 256kbps is possible on DSL, the definition was downgraded by FCC to 200kbps and 256kbps by OECD, even though most Telcos / ISPs will not in practice supply DSL on a phone line that can't sustain 1Mbps.

The Oireachtas Committee for Communications was way ahead of FCC in 2004

The Joint Committee has concluded, for the Irish market, that speeds of anything less than 512kbs is not broadband but is in fact in a class known as ‘mid-band'. This would include such services as ISDN connections and 124 and 256kbs DSL connections. In this respect the Joint Committee's definition of broadband differs from that in use by other groups and significantly differs from the definition currently to be found in Section 8 of the Finance Bill 2004. The Joint Committee believes that all connections at speeds of less than 124kbs, currently the majority in the Irish economy, have to be regarded as narrowband connections.

...

... define broadband as a service that provides at least 512Kbs connectivity and set a target of the widespread availability of 5Mbps connections by 2006 and with a further suggested target of 10Mps connections by 2008.

via http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chapter02.htm and http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chairmans_Preface.htm
Sadly it suited Government then and since to believe the invalid arguments of some that
* There is no demand.
* It's too expensive.
Neither of these are true.
Nothing of the 2004 Committee recommendations was implemented. Except for some lucky people getting some of Magnet's UPC's and Digiweb's services that don't depend on eircom. Eircom belatedly has been installing ASDL2+ but seems to have little intention of upgrading original ADSL (instead re-marketed this up to 8Mbps, average 3Mbps product as NGB, "Next Generation Broadband" as they years later than anyone else replace slow ATM backhaul with higher capacity, lower latency, native IP backhaul).

So much for our Smart Economy, that has highest line rental in world and on many stats the worst Broadband. Also the Cheek to offer 3G Mobile (Midband) as rural Broadband (NBS)

clohamon

Good recap.

watty wrote: »

Sadly it suited Government then and since to believe the invalid arguments of some that
* There is no demand.
* It's too expensive.
Neither of these are true.

The government and senior civil servants were happy to make those arguments all by themselves.

The trick was to get across the idea that rural residents and businesses either don't need to use the internet or use it in a completely different way to urban dwellers and so only require slow connections.

Anyone who disagreed and complained was labeled as unpatriotic.

CelticTigress

clohamon wrote: »

Good recap.




The government and senior civil servants were happy to make those arguments all by themselves.

The trick was to get across the idea that rural residents and businesses either don't need to use the internet or use it in a completely different way to urban dwellers and so only require slow connections.

Anyone who disagreed and complained was labeled as unpatriotic.

I nearly spilt tea on my keyboard over that one.:D LOL!

Then everyone is trying to get us to switch to banking online, submit tax returns online, shopping online and wonder why we can't.......

bealtine

CelticTigress wrote: »

Then everyone is trying to get us to switch to banking online, submit tax returns online, shopping online and wonder why we can't.......

That thought is unpatriotic

Eamo Ryan is fond of telling us that everybody will have broadband soon.
Sadly his idea of broadband is mobile midband...