Government to Reveal Internet Policy on Tuesday
The FCC will roll out its national broadband plan tomorrow.
On Tuesday the Federal Communications Commission will present its National Broadband Plan that promises to increase Internet speeds by up to 25-percent within the next ten years. Rather than downloading a high-definition movie in hours, it will now only take minutes based on the FCC's 100 Mbps goal.
"This is a fairly unique event," Concept Capital analyst Paul Gallant told Reuters. "The FCC really has never been asked to design a broad regulatory shift like this. Broadband is important and difficult because it threatens every established communications sector."
But the goal of 100 Mbps speeds has left a bad taste in the mouths of many carriers including Qwest Communications Inc., and AT&T. The former company said that the FCC's goals were merely "a dream," whereas AT&T said that the FCC should resist calls for "extreme forms of regulation." Currently the national broadband speed is less than 4 Mbps.
Carriers have come under fire plenty of times before. It's widely known that elsewhere in the world, net access can be significantly faster. But U.S. carriers like to go slow.
Reuters reports that since the FCC's original announcement, Google has revealed its plans to launch its super-fast Internet highway (Google Fiber). Cisco Systems also announced its intentions to manufacture a router than can handle traffic up to 12 times faster than rival products. The FCC has given both the thumbs up.
"We've developed a plan that is a real win-win for everyone involved and we have every expectation that it will work," agency chief Julius Genachowski said in an interview with Reuters. "We've certainly heard from a number of broadcasters who told us they think this is a promising direction and are getting ready to roll up their sleeves with us."
Full details of the plan are expected tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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Probably because its unconstitutional there Beavis. You find for me the line in the constitution that allows the FCC to even exist let alone regulate how we transfer information over ANY medium.
I'll be ecstatic for 25 Mbps to be affordable. $50-60/month for that speed with Comcast. Right now, paying that for 12 Mbps. If I want 25, I have to spend $100/mo.
i gota say im impressed ... can't wait to c what itd all be like in 10 years ...
I do belive it is a 25x increase, not 25%
The best I can hope for is that Comcast gets the smack down (even a small one) and is forced to stop it's cheap-scape practices, and provide what they SAY they provide.
I'm sorry, I think my english is really bad now. Planning to increase speed by 25% in ten years? So, if national average is 4Mbps now, then 25% increase would make it 5Mbps? Quite an achievement in 10 years.
i gota say im impressed ... can't wait to c what itd all be like in 10 years ...
Well sorry to break it to you, but you will be waiting 10 years to see what it's like in 10 years.
I'm
While I'm sick of super slow speeds at jacked up prices the fact that the government is even involved with this is infuriating. When will we see that its just another way to control our every move
how bout they build up the infrastructure as well, there are so many places withOUT access to any sort of broadband internet still.
I'm all for it as long as the the bandwidth throttle becomes illegal.
10 years!? Honestly, I would just be happy with some decent upload bandwidth. I get 7Mbs down and only 312Kbs up. That's ridiculous. When I first started I had 5Mbs down but 768Kbs up. Still not great, but come on. I really wish I could get Verizon's FIOS here but it is not offered in my area. The problem is that the services are being offered by companies that are used to charging what they want because they've never had any competition. They are still also taxed as "utility" companies instead of normal service providers. What ever happened to the US being the number one country everyone else wanted to copy. Now we have to catch up to the rest of the world. Capitalism apparently has it's down sides. Rich get richer.
@Shin0bi272: Interstate Commerce Clause.
@Shin0bi272: Interstate Commerce Clause. And that goes for healthcare regulation, too.
Probably because its unconstitutional there Beavis. You find for me the line in the constitution that allows the FCC to even exist let alone regulate how we transfer information over ANY medium.
The constitution grants the Federal Government the power to oversee interstate commerce. Since the Internet crosses state lines (as do broadcasts), they have the right to regulate it.
Probably because its unconstitutional there Beavis. You find for me the line in the constitution that allows the FCC to even exist let alone regulate how we transfer information over ANY medium.
Strict construction isn't going to hold up over time. The world changes, and so will this country. I don't think anyone can argue that the FCC was a bad thing. Perhaps the FCC hasn't been asked to do anything like this before because...well, nothing like this existed before! The constitution doesn't provide for the construction and use of the national highway system, either - should we demolish all of them because they're unconstitutional? Highways didn't exist in 1787, and neither did the Internet. Get over it.
Probably because its unconstitutional there Beavis. You find for me the line in the constitution that allows the FCC to even exist let alone regulate how we transfer information over ANY medium.
Because communications are inherently designed as crossing state lines, and anything interstate falls within the realm of federal government. FCC has enough problems as is this is something individual states would never be able to accomplish.
really 25%? The linked article definitely says 25x.
If AT&T and Qwest don't come up to standards, pull their ISP license. I can guarantee you that will get them to actually invest in back end infrastructure, while the federal government can pay for other infrastructure upgrades like running fiber.
as a citizen, i dont think i want the government involved in my internet. i think the market has and will handle it better than the government because the companies have to do well, otherwise they will fail; the government cannot fail and we cannot stop them once they control the internet.
This is retarded.
Saying it will increase by 25% in 10 years???
The government is blowing smoke because the speed will increase anyhow due to better technology.
what we need is UPSPEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i think the market has and will handle it better than the government because the companies have to do well, otherwise they will fail;
If you didn't notice, they have been doing well, and I still don't see fiber in my home, let alone a 10mbit connection. No, instead, we're getting stuck with data caps and throttling.
High definition movies that take hours now will take minutes later? But then, as time goes on, the resolution and other improvements resulting in higher bitrates. (According to my understanding 3D will require twice the bitrate for same quality as it is basically made up of two streams) So in ten or fifteen years, probably a single movie will take up 100 GB. It will still take hours.
Forcing ISP's to increase speed ahead of market demand will result in higher prices for all of us. For which we can give a great big thanks to the FCC. Paying 25$ a month for 7mps service watch that go to 40$ after the goverment fixes the problem.
Don't worry folks, the ISP's will be charging you through the nose for it, perhaps thats why they want to go slow, so they don't have to offer the really slow bandwidth customers access for almost free when compared to the 100Mbps crowd. It'll easily be $100/month for access at that bandwidth. But they certainly won't want to charge $7/month for 7Mbps, now will they? Since most users will not be able to take advantage of the higher speed because it's not available at their door yet, they'll be paying a rate similar to the 100Mbps crowd and there'll be an uproar.
as much as i'd love this potential huge speed increase, if combined with obama administration's planned 3-strike policy and secret ACTA meetings regarding it really has me worried.
I read the full article in this mornings' Wall Street Journal. As the matter now stands it is pretty much wishful thinking. There is controversy within the FCC ovber the issue. Thats' why the board of commissioners never voted on the policy.
Anytime the government uses the phrase "win win for everybody" i know they are full of BS.
First off, does anyone else see the real reason behind this? In order to get 100Mb to everyone(or mostly everyone), they need to lay fiber everywhere. Who does this sort of work? UNIONS! Who does Obama bend over backwards for? UNIONS! Who will pay for this? Taxpayers. (you know how much those sign holders get paid on the side of road work - $45k-50k base salary for new hires)
Furthermore, let the gov't give you something for free, and now the gov't gets to tell you how to use it.
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
A personal example of why the government must get involved...
1. My house is about 50 miles from the closest city with a population of 500k+, and 10 miles from the closest city with a population of 50k+.
2. The only cable tv provider in my area has not upgraded their cable lines in the area for over 30 years. As a result, if you purchase cable from them, you only get ~40 channels... maximum. And, they cannot offer internet, phone, or anything else but regular resolution cable television.
3. A former mini-Bell, now part of AT&T, installed DSL in the area about 3 years ago. If you did not pre-order, you did not get it. (Their available connections ran out.) The maximum speed for the DSL was 3MB down/384 up.
4. When AT&T bought the mini-Bell, the government made AT&T agree to expand DSL coverage. As a result, this allowed one of my next door neighbours to actually get broadband. (And, the speeds changed to a maximum of 6MB down/512 up.)
5. However, they have... yet again... ran out of connections. As a result, another next door neighbour, who now wants broadband, cannot get it.
6. Further, AT&T has already up'ed the price of ALL of their DSL plans.
Inside the 500k+ population city, the only option for broadband is cable for large parts of the city. How do I know this? Many of my co-workers complain about the sole cable provider's horrible service everytime any weather event other than a "normal rain storm" occurs. And, the highest available speed is 10 MB down. (I don't know the up rate.)
As a result, I will be happy with the companies are required to actually spend some of their profits on giving those "not in the largest cities" decent broadband access.
About damn time. I can name about 10 third world countries that will blow us away on Internet speeds alone.