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Re:FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband,... by paxys on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @04:07PM (#38104235)
Well it should be true in the concrete sense. If they can't consistently serve you at 100mpbs or whatever else then they shouldn't advertise it. "But everyone else is using it at the same time so too bad" wouldn't work as an excuse in any other industry.
Re:FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband,... by 542458 on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @04:14PM (#38104367)
> If they can't consistently serve you at 100mpbs or whatever else then they shouldn't advertise it.

But that's true of almost every industry. Your bank advertises that you can withdraw your money at any time, but if everybody withdrew their money simultaneously there would be issues. A store advertises next-day shipping, but if everybody ordered simultaneously there would be issues. A house might have 100A power service, but if every house started burning 100A simultaneously there would be issues.

Put another way, what you're proposing is dramatically slower speeds for most users. ISPs are profitable, but they're not that profitable. Actual average usage on most lines is probably sub one percent. I just checked my line - my average use is about 300kB/s (for a total of about 800GB per month), or about 0.3% of my speed cap. I'm a heavy user, most people are probably below 0.1% of their speed cap.

Re:FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband,... by cortesoft on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @04:19PM (#38104470)
If you want every ISP to provision the full bandwidth for every customer, so that their network can handle all their customers using their full bandwidth at the same time, it is going to cost each subscriber a LOT more money or get a lot lower peak bandwidth. I think MOST people would prefer to pay less and be able to use the full speed for a fraction of the time.

If you want to know how much more expensive the connection would be if you expect to use the full bandwidth 24/7, just look at the cost you pay for transit in a datacenter. It is multiples of the cost home consumers pay at a per-bit level.

Most users are best served by being told the speeds they will usually get if they stay within average usage patterns, because that is what most people do.

Re:FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband,... by vasachi on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @04:16PM (#38104410)
Yes it would work in any other industry. Users can overload a power grid. Users can overload a telephone network. Users can overload a grocery store. NO industry can deal with critical overload without problems.
Re:FCC to propose a minimum 100mbps to qualify as broadband,... by ceejayoz on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @04:21PM (#38104499)
> "But everyone else is using it at the same time so too bad" wouldn't work as an excuse in any other industry.

Go to a grocery store in Florida before a hurricane and try to buy bread.