To those saying e.g 10 Mbit/second is enough: Do you live with other people?

Get a family on one of those lines, and 10 will not be enough.

And the problem is, even if you think it's a fine solution to ask such cases to pay more for a higher tier of service, in many areas, there is no higher tier of service.

In my area, the phone company's line was too poor quality to support DSL when I moved in, 16 years ago. And I am not in a rural community. I'm in a dense sub-division, in the middle of suburbia.

Forward to 2 years ago, when I had a chance to talk with one of the linemen linemen regularly assigned to my area. AT&T still had not replaced that line. And, as far as I know, still has not.

It's not that a 25+ expectation is "too hard" or "too expensive". It's that many incumbents aren't even trying.

Then again, whenever a municipality wants to move forward and roll its own broadband deployment, then AT&T rolls out their lawyers.

They won't roll the trucks for upgrades. But lawyers, to stop competition? Sure thing.

This article doesn't focus on the bigger issue: Mobile internet as a viable substitute.

Right now, the FCC's policy is for all Americans to have access to both home broadband and mobile internet.

Ajit Pai is seeking to change that, so that you only need one choice, and that that "choice" may be limited to 10Mbit down 1Mbit up.

While both changes are absurd, I think that allowing mobile internet to "qualify" as home internet is the most detrimental change.

With the right speed and latency, I don't see any problem with mobile broadband substituting for fixed. Number of providers is more important for choice than if those providers fit in the “mobile” of “fixed” broadband buckets (except you need mobile whether or not you have fixed; why you need fixed if you have quality and choice in mobile, though, is less clear.)

I have 12 Mbps at home and have had faster speeds (50-100) when traveling and at work. I generally don't notice any difference when working, browsing the web, or streaming Netflix/Hulu/etc.

We definitely need to have a "broadband" threshold that automatically increases over time, but IMO 10 Mbps is functionally equivalent to 25 in most ways right now.

I run a startup from home and the only time I notice bottlenecks is when I'm uploading 100MB files. This is rare and not worth the extra $10/mo that I'd have to pay to get a higher speed.

I'd be interested to know what others think — are there big benefits out there that I'm missing out on? Has anyone gone from 10 to 25 Mbps and had a big impact on their work/life?

I'd sooner focus on the fact that sales agents at AT&T and Comcast both routinely refer to megabytes per second when they should be saying megabits...

12 Mbps may be an OK bare minimum if it's consistent.

Unfortunately, most connections I've used give you a burst, and then drop drastically down, so you only experience the 12 Mbps for a second or two, then watch it fall over 30 seconds to around 1-2 Mbps.

Right now I have 20 Mbps fiber that is consistently 20 Mbps. It's right at the threshold that I would call "comfortable". I'm not sure I would be OK with half that.

"Broadband" used to mean "really fast". Redefining it to the lowest threshold that internet is usable does not sound reasonable to me.

> Unfortunately, most connections I've used give you a burst, and then drop drastically down, so you only experience the 12 Mbps for a second or two, then watch it fall over 30 seconds to around 1-2 Mbps.

I've not experienced this. I've had Comcast and AT&T (DSL) and typically get 60-100% of the putative max speed. Sometimes it's under 50%, but then if I call in they admit that there's a problem. More importantly, I can do anything I want with 6 Mbps downstream. In fact, I had 6 until Comcast got rid of the plan, and I'd happily stick with that speed if I could pay 60% of my current bill. Maybe I'm peculiar in this regard, but we have 5 tablets, 4 computers, and 2 iPhones in our house. We're definitely not the "average" US household in this regard.

> "Broadband" used to mean "really fast". Redefining it to the lowest threshold that internet is usable does not sound reasonable to me.

Reasonable minds can differ on what this definition should reflect. If the government is going to regulate companies based on a definition, I'd rather it be closer to "minimum usable" rather than "really fast".

Then you can use that threshold with multipliers if you want, akin to how we use the poverty level threshold. (For example, you qualify for certain benefits if you have less than 150% or 200% of the poverty level.)

> I'd rather it be closer to "minimum usable"

The definition is for what is available. It explicitly means that if a community literally has no 25 Mbps option, that ISPs aren't doing a good enough job with the millions they get in tax dollars. Are you really OK with a significant population of Americans being limited to the absolute bare-minimum?

> Are you really OK with a significant population of Americans being limited to the absolute bare-minimum?

My understanding is that this definition only impacts how statistics are reported (e.g., "80% of American's have broadband access at home"). So changing the definition does not affect people's actual speed, or any incentives that ISPs have to offer different packages.

For the purposes of reporting, I do think that 10 Mbps is the more appropriate threshold. Otherwise I would be counted in the "x percent of Americans without broadband access at home". Considering how much I do with my internet, and how happy I am with my speed tier, that would be a gross misrepresentation of my situation.

The FCC redefined broadband as 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up as reported in the 2015 Broadband Progress Report (from 4Mbps/1Mbps in 2010).

https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progr...

Why do we need such a definition at all? Anyone can see that 50Mbps > 40Mbps > 30 > 10 > 1Mbps. And everyone is, regardless of any given definition, going to figure out how many Mbps will suit their purposes, and then buy the package from their ISP that they find to be the best tradeoff.

That is to force ISPs to provide a minimum level of service everywhere -- what good is it if you are prepared to pay for 50Mbps in a rural under-served area, but the ISP will not provide it to you because they don't have the infrastructure for it.

This is just such a nonissue. 10mbps is fast enough for anything regular users need.

In our household 200Mbps approaches not fast enough when everyone is using, such that we’re upgrading to 1Gbps.

With improved speeds usage patterns change. 5 years ago we would barely crack 150GB/month, and now we’re pushing 1TB/month.

What apps/services sucks up the bandwidth? I know 7-person families (where everyone has a computer/tablet) that are happy with 50 Mbps.

"Broadband" used to mean really fast, not just adequate for most people.