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The 25Mbps standard is one year old – see the updated status

August 10, 2016

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The proposal of FCC chairman Tom Wheeler (dating January 2015) regarding the minimum broadband standard of 25Mbps further turned into an yearlong controversy where opposing parties disputed how much broadband is enough for usual customers.

The industry claims that the previous definition of broadband (a minimum of 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up) is enough to describe fast Internet (OK, perhaps not a particularly fast connection, but in any case Internet providers and industry lobbyists united their voices in protesting against the 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up new standard). Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable all appeared in Wheeler’s list as unsatisfactory providers when it comes to pondering their different speeds offered to different customers.

Slower connections are not compatible with the Internet of today in the USA, at least in FCC’s vision; nor do they prepare the connectivity of tomorrow, when IoT needs will increase both private broadband consumption, as well as community and public data traffic needs.

While the move towards faster, better Internet received support from some Democratic commissioners (note that Wheeler is also a Democrat, appointed by President Obama), the republican voices argued that FCC continually moves the goalposts, setting impossible standards. The “26 Mbps are too much” calculations, however, when analyzed by specialists, seem to take into consideration a household where a single Internet-connected device runs only one application.

Numbers were run back and forth, and it turned out that 80 percent of the Americans are able to access and use 25Mbps/3Mbps connections – thus making it an organic standard, as well as a regulated one. The industry should strive to make the other 20 percent catch up, especially that rural broadband is lagging behind, although the infrastructure reportedly holds the potential for better connectivity.

The bottom line on one front of this dispute (25Mbs/3Mbs) would be this: telecommunications industry members are holding back on specific market segments due to the lack of profitability, motivating that there is no need or capability to offer better services. In fact, the infrastructure is solid and received substantial funding, and the need for better service also exists in more rarefied, less populated areas – since it all has to do with what these customers are being refused, not with what they are being provided with. Modern services and applications require better broadband; more devices per household also need improved connectivity. The providers shouldn’t double standardize their services depending on the way they perceive different areas as profitable or not – or at least they are expected to tune down this approach.

What happens now with the 25Mbps standard?

One year later, and a situation assessment showed that politicians still complained against the 2015 FCC vote and subsequent decision on the new broadband standard. You may see here a petition as it was forwarded to the Honorable Tom Wheeler, and the concerns laid down by a six senators on the FCC “power grab” attitude.

The next round of Connect America Fund 2 (CAF-2) broadband subsidies will see the “baseline performance” speeds as per the new FCC formula: 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up. There will be also a minimum performance equation, lower than the baseline one: 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps. For more details on how this standards will influence subsidy bids, check this article.

Meanwhile, at a distance of over 17 months from the initial FCC announcement on this matter, the average US connection speed proved to be still far from the new rule – although the speed increased from 12.6 Mbps in Q3 to 14.2 Mbps in Q4, it remained lower than in many European states. Considering how the new standard global adoption rate in Q4 was of 74 percent compared to 2015, yet not one US state managed to score the new standard speeds – the overall image is one of high discrepancies, with power spots counterbalanced by widespread slow connections areas.

AT&T is the first (and only, until mid-June 2016) provider who threaten a Supreme Court challenge of FCC’s decision. Even so, Wheeler manifested his confidence that the ruling would be upheld if it should come to this, since the Commission’s arguments are sound, making the chances of Supreme Court helping the industry’s protest “slim to none”.

Standards versus reality

The Verge appreciated that FCC’s move should force the main providers improve their broadband, offering better speeds for everyone. This consideration was back in 2015. As we could see above, the standard remained valid, but so did the old broadband speeds. Of course, taking in a new parameter does not happen overnight, but the mega Internet providers seem to be stuck into the protesting stage. In any case, it is clear they aren’t in a hurry to meet the new standard, at least not before being forced to meet it, in order to benefit from subsidies.

Also dating from 2015, here is a broadband deployment map from Ars Technica, as well as few FCC-issued bullet points on the USA Internet connectivity situation. Baseline, the broadband availability gap managed to close only by 3 percent the year before January 2015, which is an unacceptable rate for a developed country, as well as for the early IoT deployment stages to come.

Although 17 months later the standards have not been accepted, and evidently are not yet implemented, they represent nevertheless a step ahead. Controversies, discussions and judicial threats included, in order for the broadband services to step into their future stage, a new, improved standard was supposed to appear and be enforced.

We will see in the future how the FCC manages the enforcing part of this action. Meanwhile here is a welcomed piece of news on the average broadband speed in the States: for the first time it rose above 50 megabits per second, but let’s remember that average still means discrepancies between various areas.