The hybrid approach to regulation makes sense: in areas where there is no choice, greedy monopolies like Comcast/Xfinity have a long track record of not giving a damn about being price competitive or offering decent speeds, and according to ArsTechnica coverage, Comcast wastes millions of dollars in federal taxdollars and *doesn't* expand to underserved areas. The 1.2 TB/month data cap is a slap in the face. But in areas where there is choice and something closer to free market competition, it makes sense to scale government regulation back to let market forces compete for customer loyalty. Internet access in America frustrates me. We're one of the driving forces in the creation of DARPANET/NSFNET/Internet, yet I see European countries with $10/month fiber gigabit Internet and $10/month cell phone packages.
I'm in southern NH, the local Telco Consolidated Communication Fidium aggressively rolled out fiber PON (passive optical network) and the lowest speed tier is 100/100 Mbps, with higher tier to 2Gig/Gig.
Great video Lon. I live in an apartment community in a small town in Mid TN, and our choice for cabled Internet service is AT&T xDSL 13/1 and Comcast Xfinity. T-Mobile and Verizon have not rolled out their 5G wireless home Internet service in our town yet, only saying it will be deployed "soon" and they have been saying that for two years.
@@takehirolol5962 nice, i'm paying 120 dollars to comcast for 500 mbps and that includes equipment rental and suspension of the broadband cap which is highway robbery btw i have fiber but i dont trust ATT since i have them before and the connection was really bad. that was the reason why i had to jump to comcast. here in america they rape you with bullshit fees and other anti consumer stuff
We only have 2 major options att or spectrum and just a few years ago speeds were slow or bad service, you had to choose, but now with fiber att it got better. I hope they regulate gateways or cable modem boxes to help with fees.
When I first read this story, I realized I suddenly no longer have broadband because I'm on a 75/75 plan. I'll live! My speeds are usually a bit over 100 in reality, but that's just a bonus. For those wondering why my numbers are so low relatively speaking is because I've been on this plan for ages and never had any reason to think about it or that my speed was deficient for my use case. It's still broad enough for me. I'll have to look into it. I've been more preoccupied with boosting my internal network speed as I stream locally. I don't do anything 4K so that keeps my bandwidth needs low.
@@mistermac56Thank you. I do know that it's enough bandwidth for a handful of streams. It's just the only thing that comes to mind even remotely related to my usage that could saturate my connection if several people were streaming at the same time.
Where I live in southern New Jersey there’s a lot of areas where there is no access to broadband. I was looking at a house and declined to bid because it was too far away from a Verizon DSL or FIOS hub, and when I asked Comcast they wanted $20K+ to pull a line to the house. This was before Starlink existed; but from what I understand most of that street still doesn’t get any high speed internet. Where I live now I have a decent Comcast connection, but there isn’t a cell company that seems to have heard of our town.
Our rural development pooled together about $35k each for fiber, coax, electric, water, sewer, paved road, flash flood pond, and natural gas. It was a great deal. Several houses not even a quarter mile away only has electric.
The emailed newsletter from the FCC's broadband availability entity, they said that 25 mbps download speed is their goal to provide to those with low or no broadband availability.
I live in Oklahoma and the town I live in has one ISP. I waited over a year for Starlink but they kept saying they were full in my area and can't take new customers. So basically Starkink is a band aid
The problem with satellite is that historically, it has been consistently horrendously unreliable. So one comes along that perhaps isn't unreliable just charges rates that are out of reach for the people who tend to need it the most. Furthermore, buildouts in rural areas marries you to providing service in that area. The infrastructure is there even if the provider leaves the market. Satellites do nothing of the sort.
Historically. Today, Starlink has over 5,000 satellites in orbit, and they provide full broadband speed to ALL of rural America. It's not your father's satellite. In fact, all of these satellites are in low earth orbit thus significantly reducing latency. Legacy satellite is in geosynchronous orbit, 23000 miles up. Satellite and fiber are the future.
Comcast for me in northern NeW Mexico is 500/25 for $60 a month. Just recently got to the 25 up and Comcast made a big deal about it, even sending an email. Relatives in the southern more rural section of the state are 60/10 for $70 a month. The FCC has been working on this since 1996 and this is the best they can do?
The Feds should be looking at their advertising and the ease of finding out ALL the cost ISP includes. The ISP doesn't make all the information readily available for an educated estimate as to the cost. They advertise the monthly cost without listing the other mandatory cost the ISP tacks on to the service. For example requiring their own "technology service fee" on top of the advertised cost which increases the actual cost of the service. If it's a added cost I can't avoid then the advertised amount is false. Things like this are hidden deep in the website. Even knowing what to look for I usually can't easily find them, if at all. I'm not in any way talking about the state and local fees and taxes. Those vary and have nothing to do with what the ISP is charging so I understand those not being shown in detail.
They can put pressure on them. I have heard that some people have reported Optimum for their shaddy practices and after that Optimum call them to apologize give better service. So it does work Lon.@@LonSeidman
@trippplefive the speed for broadband. They are out of their minds 20mbps upload? Why?? There is no use for it. Work from home Zoom and Teams meetings only need 1-3mbps.
This is the frustrating thing as we progress in the future. We rely too much on the Internet for the simplest of tasks, yet a good chunk of the country is in the dark. Frustrating aspect of the video games sector pushing so aggressively with always online and server based games like Helldivers 2 or the Division. Not to say middle America would play Amazon Luna or Game Pass, but it's not even an option for them. We have 1Gbps speed here and it bottlenecks at times, I can't imagine sharing that with a dorm.
I was kind of surprised when I saw this at first and thought it had to be a mistake. I have never had 100mbps on internet service except for a month when I briefly tried out the T-Mobile home internet 5g service. It's available just never needed it.
I have FIOS in my area and get 300/300 Mbps for $40 a month. I'm quite happy with my service and don't have any issues even when multiple people are using streaming services. If the FCC redefines broadband as 1 Gbps will give Verizon the excuse to jack up my rates?
A bigger problem in my opinion is the lack of competition in many parts of this country outside the big cities. I live about 30 miles from Chicago, and my only choice for internet other than satellite is Comcast/Xfinity. No fiber planned for this area, no 5G, spotty satellite with much lower speeds. Since Xfinity has a monopoly in this area, prices for TV and Internet are high, and their customer service is the typical Comcast abysmal joke. They can't even keep their customer web site functional.
Starlink is great for "no connection" situations but will never replace fiber as Hughesnet or any of the like... We have Starlink, T-Mobile Home internet and soon to have fiber from the electric company... I would rank personally Fiber T-Mobile Home internet Startlink
I'm glad Starlink exist for the people who need it, but what's not being talked about is the cost of Starlink as many who may need it might not be able to afford it with the initial equipment cost beng high as well as the monthly bill at $120 USD. So for me in my area with Breezeline cable ripping people off I went with T-Mobile Home internet, and that's been a game changer for me at $50 a month for speeds as high as 800 Mbps down and 150 Mbps up with my average down being in the 500's and my average up being around 100 Mbps with sub 27 ms idle ping times and very low jitter.
The FCC needs to promote frontier. I'm getting 1GPS/1GPS all of the time. They must know what they're doing at$29/mo. They offer above that but my equipment at this time can't utilize it.
I think to be considered the ISP must be able to provide customers with particular latency to key servers... likely government in order to receive subsidy. That would class LEO and high orvit satellites differently and likley the reason for difference
You are out of date on Starlink cost. Last I looked it was $600 down and $150 per month. That is prohibitive for many folks, making Starlink not in the available mix.
Sad the original speed being pushed was 100mbps up and down was lobbied and didn't make it. The other thing no ISP has called their service Broadband for years. The term is now usually High Speed internet, which by ISP is not Broadband so it doesn't fall under Broadband rules. Wordings is everything when it comes to laws.
Comcast did randomly send me an email last week saying they would be increasing my internet speeds because I'm a valued customer. Maybe this was because of pressure from the FCC?
Ouch I'm on T-mobile 5G paying $50 here in S. Carolina with 400 Mbps - 800 Mbps down (usually in the 500's), by 50 Mbps - 150 Mbps up(usually around 100 Mbps) with sub 27ms idle ping times. So you might want to shop around if you're in a strong signal area for 5G, and see if they can get your cost down for about the same speeds.
@@CommodoreFan64 We've been waiting for two years for T-Moble and Verizon to roll out their 5G wireless home Internet in my small town. They keep saying it will be rolling out "soon", whenever that is.
To me the down speed was always more important. I usually browse and occasionally download files. I would rather that be faster than if I was to send that same file. Even better would be the same speed both ways.
The Carr guy who thinks we've made progress must live in a different world than I do. The only choice is Comcast, it's $80/mo, and it's only 5 Mbps up. These guys have had an unregulated monopoly forever, and they should be regulated until they have real competition. And, Starlink is not competition, because it's flaky, expensive, and you need a good unobstructed site for your antenna.
Where I live I have 4 choices of ISPs however my landlords contect with Cox Cable TV cuts me off form the one I what and love. What i find relay bad is popole in this apment complex have satellite tv so I see no resaeon why I can't dump Cox for LUS Fiber.
Lon i completely disagree with you that they should consider Star link or any other satellite internet-based service. The reason being is because satellite can be jammed. in times of war the enemy could try to jam the US internet satellite service providers to prevent people from communicating. plus, with Satellite internet it has a higher latency then earth-based services.
There is a HUGE difference between hughes/wild blue/viasat and star link, which is in Low Earth Orbit. It's much closer to the ground and the interconnects between satellites allow for bandwidth to be shifted on the fly to meet demand. It's an extremely advanced system that the people at SpaceX have designed. It's sad that it's longevity and durability to this point has been completely ignored by so many. I suspect if the FCC had negotiated with them, they probably could have gotten the cost of the dish down a bit for those in areas that received the subsidy at the very least if not a complete overall reduction for everyone.
Internet regulations should have been going on since its inception . In many foreign countries , Internet and speed is cheaper and faster than in America .
I do not want to cause a controversy but Starlink is being excluded for political reasons. Just my opinion but I think it is a valid one. My 300 Xfinity went from 300 to close to 370 and my upload went from 12 to about 24. I do not think Comcast is being benevolent here. The upload speed is atrocious.
In KY we get fiberoptic from our phone company for $75/month. Every couple years they upgraded our speed for no additional cost (staying competitive I guess). Started at like 100 and currently at 500 up/down.
@@westonscampbellI can almost get fiber optic. My phone company started installing fiber optic, but ran out of money and went bankrupt before they could finish. That left half the service area with DSL and some parts still with dial-up. At my house it's particularly bad because they used the wrong gauge wire when they added into the phone system back in the 90s making my service even slower. It's frustrating because back in 2008 they sent us a new modem and told us we would have high speed Internet in a couple months. Now they don't seem to have any interest in giving it to us.
@@TrevorR36 the apartment community I live in a small town in TN, about 30 miles west of Nashville, has almost 40 year old copper AT&T lines and the central office is only three blocks from us and we're stuck with 13/1 xDSL service. All around us, AT&T has installed fiber. They asked our apartment management company if they wanted to install fiber, at the apartment community's cost, and the management company said hard pass. So we're stuck with Comcast if we want faster Internet service.
100/20 is too much to be considered the minimum for broadband. It leaves out Starlink and WISP providers from funding. Now it only goes to the monopolies like Verizon and Comcast. I used Starlink out in the middle of nowhere with no cell service or landline internet. It was amazing.
@@LonSeidman I think it does, from what I saw. But the FCC has determined that Starlink does not meet the standard 100/20 in December 12th 2023. They've denied further RDOF funding to starlink because speedtest averaged from Ookla speedtest are averaging well below the 100/20 standard. But Starlink argues that speedtest data is flawed. It sucks because starship just made it to orbit, so they'll be able to launch the larger satellites soon to add more bandwidth. But even then, for wireless services providers, they can offer internet much cheaper than cable and fiber, just not at 100/20. So it cuts out low costs options for people like my parents. All they do is use their cellphones and tv for netflix and youtube. Even 30mbps is fine for them. Anything more is overkill.
Satellite's problems, to me, are the price tag for the service and its especilally significantly variable latency (aka jitter): for Starlink, you're paying $500 for the dish + $120 / month for the cheapest entry point. Latency is often more important than raw bandwidth for most consumers at a certain point, where satellite latency can be quite unstable. The FCC (in their order, reviewing and rejecting the near-$900m prize) specifically noted Starlink's jitter had exceeded the FCC's rather meager requirements already some three years **early**, before most of its 600k+ locations had even received service.
Thus, IMHO, jitter and latency (like the brand-new L4S latency standard addressing bufferbloat quite intelligently) should be quite foundational to whether any ISP is providing "broadband".
20MBit upload? Hah! My lovely ISP Cox Communications lowered the base package from 10MBit to 5MBit upload with 100MBit download... ..for $50/month... google drive is useless except for the smallest of files..
Interesting a on satellite. Does anyone think it may have to do with how easily it is knocked out in the event of a storm, war, natural disaster, or act of God?
Assuming the dish and electronics are OK, satellite recovers much quicker than landline services. With Starlink, you can take it down before a bad weather event and put it up afterwards and you’re back in business. I hope we don’t have to worry about War or God coming down to destroy all of the dishes :)
Internet access is a fairly healthy industry. I do think the Republican members have some points but we need to remember that the internet providers connect to their customers along public roads and public easements. This situation gives government regulators every right to use that access to ensure that the public is protected.
Agree - that's the realm of local regulation. In my state they are looking at how they can keep local cable access television afloat through that mechanism.
If there was regulation and they denied most of the mergers in the entertainment/broadcast/cable/movie/mobile industries, then there would be more competition and prices would be lower. Now, they can get away with making us pay more for crap because only a few companies can collude to raise prices.
Average monthly cost of broadband in various developed countries: Germany = $27.81; France= $28.92; South Korea $29.54; Spain = $35.04; UK = $39.01; Japan = $47.23; U.S. = $55.00; Australia - $59.42. Unregulated US isn't doing that hot.