Half of U.S. Connections Slower Than 25 Mbps A new report by the FCC (pdf) found that nearly half of the 102 million fixed connections in the United States operate at speeds below 25 megabits per second. In other words, roughly half of the broadband lines in the country aren't technically broadband, as they don't meet the FCC's base 25 Mbps definition for broadband service. The FCC has previously noted that two-thirds of homes lack the option of more than one provider at speeds of 25 Mbps.

Of the 48 million "sub-broadband" connections, six million can't get speeds any faster than 6 Mbps. Seventeen million onnections were faster than 3 Mbps but slower than 10 Mbps. 25 million broadband customers have internet speeds faster than 10 Mbps but slower than 25 Mbps. Things were similarly poor on the upstream side of the equation, where the FCC considers 3 Mbps the base upstream definition of broadband. The FCC found that 16 million households had broadband service with upload speeds less than 1Mbps. Another 27.2 million broadband users were between 1Mbps and 3Mbps upstream, 30.1 million broadband users had upstream speeds between 3Mbps and 6Mbps, and 29 million had upstream speeds of at least 6Mbps. That said, the report notes we've made improvements all the same. When the agency first set the new 25 Mbps benchmark in January 2015, the average speed of broadband service 10 Mbps in the United States. By the end of last year, the average speed had jumped to 25 Mbps. That's largely thanks to relatively-inexpensive DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades. The problem, as we've noted numerous times, is that as AT&T and Verizon back away from unwanted DSL users, these cable companies are facing less pressure than ever before to compete on price, or improve their lagging customer service. Fortunately speed won't be an issue, given DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades can push cable connections toward 10 Gbps with relatively minimal investment. Those interested can find the full FCC report Those interested can find the full FCC report here







News Jump WISPs Get CBRS Range As Great As Six Miles At 100 Mbps Speeds; Windstream Officially Exits Bankruptcy; + more news Charter Relaunches Free 60-day Internet And Wi-Fi Offer; NCTA: FCC Should Stick With 25/3 Speed Threshold; + more news Comcast Shuts Off Internet for Subs Who Were Sold Service Illegally; AT&T, Verizon Team To Stop T-Mobile 5G; + more news California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed

Most recommended from 74 comments



MDA

Auto Negotiating

Premium Member

join:2013-09-10

Minneapolis, MN 2 edits 13 recommendations MDA Premium Member And you wonder why... Some say we don't need an FCC. By these reports not having one would allow all types of communications to remain stale and not move forward with modern classifications and standards. If this story is any indication of it.

SuperSpy

join:2012-06-15

Coldwater, MI 8 recommendations SuperSpy Member What about people that can't get any at all? Do we average in the people that can only get 0 Mbit/s? How many people decided they would rather not pay $50/mo for internet that only works when it's not raining, or at 3 AM when most people are asleep?



DSL in America is broken and companies like AT&T, VZ, and Frontier need to be dragged over the coals.

Economist

The economy, stupid

Premium Member

join:2015-07-10

united state ·AT&T FTTP

8 recommendations Economist Premium Member Infrastructure bill should include public broadband infrastructure Along with roads and bridges, there should be municipal fiber investment and then have private content providers providing the content. Cost share with the states, like California that is setting $60B on fire on a no-so-high-speed train project no one wants...use that $60B on California deployment with federal funds from a well integrated infrastructure bill.



In Japan, NTT West owns my infrastructure (heavily regulated by the NTT telecom law and is something like 30% government owned) but NTT does not provide the content. The service is totally protocol and content agnostic. NTT doesn't give a crap what I do, so long as it is not criminal. I choose from about a dozen ISPs ranging from about $8-$12/mo on top of the $37 or so hookup cost, with these different ISPs offering different perks. Yep, gubbmit owns some of NTT, NTT does not provide the data, yet the world still turns, and contrary to what AT&T and Comcast would have you think, there is still investment in telecom. Dare I say, our speeds are snappier than thou, even in rural areas.



Just like the Interstate highway program, I think the US needs this substantial data highway program. Sure, in the 1950s, the US could have waited a billion years for a huge privately built and owned toll road system that would now cost drivers a zillion dollars a mile to drive on, but that was not in the national interest. Having an oligopoly on critical economic infrastructure is also no longer in the national interest and will harm economic growth in the future.



But step one...kill the AT&T TWC merger which is already DOA (but should get another bullet in it anyway).

treich

join:2006-12-12 6 recommendations treich Member problem is people are coming more and more rural then living in urban areas the problem is people are coming more rural then living urban areas and when people rural only option is satellite or WISP (wireless internet service provider) or slow DSL or have to wait on other isps to lay down fiber which could take years to do and alots of money. So this is where small WISP's come into play which none of them get money from the government and have to do it out of there own money.

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA 5 recommendations tshirt Premium Member 10 to 25 Mbps benchmark average in one year..... is AMAZING (of course we knew SOME of that was in the pipeline already) and there are more "in progress" jumps coming particularly to cable, that will also be impressive.

The downside is how many more areas with zero coverage, or maxed out DSL plants that never reached the previous 4Mbps, let alone made the 10 Mbps jump that need SOMETHING.

I'm hopeful that some of this 5g can help bridge that gap even temporarily.

But it is more likely to be deployed where the telcos existing plants are somewhat weak rather then at the endpoints where ONLY dialup and satellite exist.

It would be nice to see those telcos go as aggressively to serve those beyond the middle market, as they do now chase the mainstream cellular in cities and burbs beyond.

A chance to grab 100% of the market share, instead of endless battles for a sliver of the multicarrier markets.

GlennLouEarl

3 brothers, 1 gone

Premium Member

join:2002-11-17

Richmond, VA 3 recommendations GlennLouEarl Premium Member It may be slow[er] but it's still expensive. Angrychair

join:2000-09-20

Jacksonville, FL 3 recommendations Angrychair Member It's not just peak speed that needs talking about, it's data limits, too. I have a feeling pretty soon we're going to get a new Republican "Mission Accomplished" moment when the regulations are gutted and broadband definitions are changed so that ISDN qualifies and the country is declared fixed.



Worse is I can easily envision data limits becoming draconian and widespread with even those of us "lucky" enough to live in an area that is considered true broadband now will see our rates continue to skyrocket as below the line charges like data overages become the significant norm in Trump's America.