[NNagain] some chatter about the fcc news

[Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>]

from brett glass:

https://www.broadband.io/c/get-broadband-grant-alerts-news/it-s-on-fcc-officially-increases-its-broadband-speed-requirement-to-100-20-mbps#comment_wrapper_32464006

This decision is the equivalent of saying, “If you don’t have a
Cadillac, you don’t have a car.”

It also confuses “speed” (an ill-defined term) with capacity, latency,
jitter, and other factors which do matter, and ridiculously overstates
the amount of bandwidth needed for common Internet activities. Unless,
of course, the service is very bad, in which case you can compensate
somewhat - not completely - by throwing more bandwidth at the problem.

In short, it’s a bad decision, made by politicians who have most
likely been deceived by corporate lobbyists, rather than the sort of
rational decision that would be made if the FCC were an apolitical
expert agency. Or if the Commissioners had even consulted a
knowledgeable practicing network engineer. (Are there any engineers
left at the FCC? Or have most of them, like Julie Knapp, retired after
being frustratingly ignored?)

For my company, a WISP, it means deploying more expensive equipment
than I need to, when folks don’t need the capacity. (Our quality is so
good that most of our customers peak at 5-10 Mbps of capacity - the
data rate is still typically 200-500 Mbps - and don’t need to pay for
more, though some do.) This depletes capital, needlessly increases the
cost of broadband service and discourages uptake of service (we still
see a lot of folks who rely entirely on cell phones and tethering).
Yet another example of destructive overregulation and government
bureaucracy. Government should stay out of the broadband business and
quit meddling with it. It’s not competent and is doing a LOT more harm
than good.


-- 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Tmvv5jJKs Epik Mellon Podcast
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos