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The FCC voted to greatly increase its definition of broadband service, from the previous definition of 4Mbit down and 1Mbit up to the new standard of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up. According to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, this move reflects the tremendous growth in consumer data consumption, the growing popularity of services like Netflix, and the need to create a future-proof standard that won’t be obviated in a handful of years.

Wheeler also pointed out that consumer demand for 25Mbps service is robust, with 29% of Americans currently opting for that tier of service, up from 7% in 2011, and that many companies only certify lower-end plans as minimally effective or efficient for users. Netflix, for example, recommends a minimum of 5 Mbps for HD quality and 25MBps for 4K service. With VoIP services and 4K streaming coming on fast, US consumers are going to demand higher-end services for the foreseeable future.

Wheeler has made it clear that he also is prioritizing improving broadband service to rural Americans as well as all Americans in general. At present, 17% of all Americans lack access to 25Mbps down 3Mbps up service, including 53% of all rural Americans. More troublingly, 20% of rural Americans lack access to even the old 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up standard. This has fallen by just 1% since 2011.

This is one area where municipal broadband buildouts could greatly improve rural access, but as the graph below makes clear, many of the states where these rollouts could be useful are also the states that have banned or severely restricted such deployments.

Nebraska, Missouri, Alabama, and many of the Southern states marked in red have substantial rural populations or even a majority rural population in some cases. President Obama has called on states to overturn municipal broadband restrictions, but Commissioner Wheeler didn’t comment on these policies explicitly in his announcement.

The cable industry’s response: Nobody needs 25Mbps

Predictably, US ISPs are 100% against this redefinition of broadband. The industry’s collective response has been to strenuously claim that the 25Mbps threshold is far too high, claiming that “only a tiny fraction of consumers use their broadband connections in this manner [for streaming 4K content] and that “25Mbps is significantly more bandwidth than is needed for 4K streaming.”

As Ars Technica reports, Wheeler mocked this viewpoint in his public comments, noting that the ISPs bend over backwards to upsell customers to higher data plans. Here’s Verizon’s pitch:

Note: 10.5Mbps is only acceptable for email and online shopping. For anything else, well, you need FiOS and 50/50 symmetrical service.

Comcast’s service is even more egregious. It’s WiFidentifier allows you to fill out a custom profile detailing how many devices are in your home and how you spend your time. If you have one laptop, Netflix, and a tablet, Comcast recommends Turbo service, at 20Mbps. If you have a tablet, smartphone, a laptop, Netflix, and a game console, Comcast kicks you up to the Extreme tier, as shown below — even if you’re the only person using the service.

That last bit is non-trivial. The rise of so-called “second screen” use means that plenty of people reach for a smartphone or tablet while streaming a television show — but how many single-person households install a game from Steam while watching two different on-demand services and playing an Xbox One or PS4?

There’s multitasking and then there’s just insanity, but ridiculous usage methods that are common for marketing material are suddenly utterly unrealistic when applied to the carriers themselves. Wheeler’s stance on broadband and the 25Mbps make sense as a better, more future-proof standard, but part of what he’s doing is forcing the ISPs to own the marketing policies they’ve pushed for years.

Rather than treating this as an opportunity to drive further engagement with customers and to pioneer their own services, the ISPs are pushing back — mostly because the cable and telco industry tends to treat broadband as a captive exploitable resource rather than a genuine business where customer satisfaction is important.

Now read: Google is a few cities away from becoming your next and best Internet provider