Wheeler Proposes Upping Broadband Speed Standard to 25/3
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating to the commission a proposal to increase the broadband benchmark speed to 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, from the current 4 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload standard, said an agency fact sheet made available to us Wednesday. Wheeler is also circulating a Notice of Inquiry asking what additional actions the agency should take to accelerate broadband deployment, the fact sheet said.
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The proposed increase is included in a draft of the agency's annual Broadband Progress Report, which, according to the fact sheet, finds that “broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, especially in rural areas, on Tribal lands, and in U.S. Territories.” The 4-year-old 4/1 standard is “dated” and “inadequate for evaluating whether broadband capable of supporting today’s high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way,” the fact sheet said.
The draft report says 53 percent of rural Americans lack access to broadband at 25/3 Mbps speeds, and 17 percent, about 55 million people nationally, lack access to these speeds. Faster speeds are necessary, the fact sheet said, because newer video applications require greater bandwidth, and the average household has seven Internet-connected devices. Streaming video and audio comprises 63 percent of downstream traffic, with each video stream typically requiring 5-25 Mbps, the fact sheet said.
Public interest groups hailed the announcement. Twenty-five Mbps “is the correct minimum download threshold for broadband -- not only for when the FCC applies the public interest test in reviewing the Comcast merger, but in a number of areas of concern that go beyond that transaction,” Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer said. People need high speeds for online video and other content, he said, but “there’s a chicken and egg problem with broadband. High speeds beget applications that can use those speeds, but many people won’t subscribe to higher speeds until the applications exist. So by nudging the broadband industry to higher speeds, the FCC can boost the broader broadband economy, including online content.” Highlighting the divide between urban and rural areas “could help lay the groundwork that will be needed to start addressing that problem in a serious way.”
A USTelecom spokesman said “Chairman Wheeler’s announcement that the commission plans to raise the standard for broadband to a significantly higher speed level underscores the need for increased investment across the industry. If that is the goal, the FCC should adopt policies that strongly favor investment in local broadband networks.”