[Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC

[Colin_Higbie]

David,

You wrote, "I in no way advocate for the elimination of 25Mb connectivity. What I am arguing against is defining that as the minimum acceptable connectivity. i.e. pretending that anything less than that may as well not exist (ot at the very least should not be defined as 'broadband')"

If you're simply talking about approaching an existing ISP with existing services and telling them, "Please implement cake and codel to reduce latency problems at load," then I'm with you. That's a clear win because you're fixing a latency problem without creating any new problems. Good.

The importance of the 25Mbps minimum arises with NEW services, new construction. Specifically, where an ISP is looking to expand their geographic footprint or seeking funding to provide improvements or a new ISP is looking to enter a market, it is DESTRUCTIVE for them to roll out a new service that can't support at least 25Mbps service. This is because a new service rollout will generally not be upgraded in terms of bandwidth capacity for a period of years following the initial deployment. As stated before, it's fine if they also OFFER plans with lower top speeds because not everyone needs 25Mbps, but they must at least OFFER a minimum of a 25Mbps plan. You do more harm to Internet infrastructure and further the Internet divide if you encourage good latency for new constructions at sub-25Mbps bandwidth. 

If members of this group are touting themselves as experts and advising ISPs, then you must include the 25Mbps bandwidth as the floor for at least the top tier of service. 

I don't mean to suggest 25Mbps at 1,000ms latency is better than 20Mbps at 30ms latency, but rather that assuming a reasonable latency, getting to AT LEAST 25Mbps bandwidth is important. I yield to the wisdom of this group on an equivalent max reasonable latency. In my experience anything sub 100ms would be an acceptable max latency, but I would accept if you told me the upper limit on new rollout should require nothing above 50ms or 60ms.


-----Original Message-----
From: David Lang <david at lang.hm> 
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 11:19 PM
To: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>
Cc: David Lang <david at lang.hm>; starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
Subject: RE: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC

On Wed, 1 May 2024, Colin_Higbie wrote:

> This is a largely black and white issue: there are a significant # of 
> users who need 4K streaming support. Period. This is a market 
> standard, like 91 octane gas, 802.11ax Wi-Fi, skim (0%) milk, 50 SPF sunblock, and 5G phones.
> The fact that not everyone uses one of those market-established 
> standards does not mean that each is not an important standard with a 
> sizable market cohort that merits support. 25Mbps for 4K HDR streaming 
> is one such standard. That's not my opinion. That's a 
> market-established fact and the only reason I posted here – to ensure 
> this group has that information so that you can be more effective in presenting your latency arguments and solutions to the ISPs.

But just because many people want those things doesn't mean that 87 octane gas, SPF 20 sunblock, 2% milk, 4G phones, etc should be eliminated.

I in no way advocate for the elimination of 25Mb connectivity. What I am arguing against is defining that as the minimum acceptable connectivity. i.e. pretending that anything less than that may as well not exist (ot at the very least should not be defined as 'broadband')

David Lang