The FCC has continuously debated on what “broadband” should be considered when companies market it. What does it mean in today’s time when technology is continuously moving forward? It hasn’t raised the bar on these requirements for close to ten years now and a change was necessary.
In 2015, the FCC updated the requirements of what can or cannot be marketed as broadband. When this happened, the minimum speeds were raised to 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. When you think about it, this isn’t really that fast at all. It was 20-25 years ago when dial-up was still somewhat popular, but not so much in 2015 when 25 down and 3 up would more better be defined as basic entry-level speeds. Not “broadband” since broadband should point to speeds much higher than your entry-level options.
Now that fiber and hybrid fiber-coaxial have been taking off all throughout the country, 25 Mbps and 3 Mbps begins to sound like punishment. Some ISPs are now offering up to 8 Gbps, with 1 Gbps becoming more standard than ever in most the states. So yes, it was time for change.
The FCC has risen the minimum to a bit more of a reasonable speed that makes sense. Raising it to 100 Mbps down and 25 Mbps up. It may still sound a bit low to some, but it is somewhat fair as some companies are still taking their time to roll out fiber and HFC solutions, which is only slowing their capable progress down more and more as they do that (shooting themselves in the foot). Planning ahead will only make rolling out future upgrades a little easier, but some have prefered to milk things. Raising the bar on what can or cannot be referred to as “broadband” helps to motivate them to try harder and not to just focus on their shareholders as they sit and ferment on the profits drawn in by the services they already have.
The only issue with these speeds is that it will likely be some time before they update it again. By the end of 2025, those numbers will likely be even funnier to consider as companies like Google Fiber continue to roll out with serious efforts. Pushing to get multi-gigabit access to more Americans each month. Thankfully, the FCC does mention a “long-term” goal of 1 Gbps and 500 Mbps, which seems like a fantastic place to be within the next 2-3 years. Although, it hasn’t stated what “long-term” means and I’m sure it will likely end up being another 10 years or so.
For now, anything less than 100 Mbps down and 25 Mbps up will either have to be marketed as something else, or companies will need to increase their packages to adapt. Because anything less is now officially to 2024 like dial-up was to 2000.
