The FCC Just Quadrupled the Download Speed ​​Required to Market the Internet as “Broadband”

The FCC has picked up the gears requires describing Internet service as “broadband” for the first time since 2015. The agency’s annual High-Speed ​​Internet Assessment concludes that 100 Mbps downloads and 20 Mbps uploads will be the new standard. The news is likely to upset ISPs who would like to continue to quote speeds of 25 Mbps / 3 Mbps (the previous standards) and convince people that they are getting high-speed broadband.

The FCC report broke down several areas where the country’s online infrastructure is lacking. The agency concluded that broadband is not being rolled out fast enough to serve Americans, especially those in rural areas and those living on tribal lands. “These deployment gaps are not closing fast enough,” the agency wrote in its report.

Specifically, the agency said fixed terrestrial broadband (non-satellite) service has not yet been rolled out to about 24 million Americans, including about 28 percent of people in rural areas and more than 23 percent of those living on tribal lands. On the mobile front, he added that about nine percent of Americans (including 36 percent in rural areas and over 20 percent on tribal lands) do not have adequate 5G cellular speeds of at least 35 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up.

The report sets a long-term target for broadband speeds of 1 Gbps down / 500 Mbps up “to give stakeholders a collective target to aim for”. Those numbers may hint at where the Commission might want to move the rafters the next time it updates them. In 2015, when the commission set the 25 Mbps / 3 Mbps requirements, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel commented, “Honestly, it should be 100 Mbps,” the benchmark the agency finally moved to today, nine years later .

The FCC can’t control ISPs to force them to increase their speeds, but this type of move might be the best card it can play. What it can do is prevent them from advertising their services as ‘broadband’ internet if they don’t meet these thresholds. It remains to be seen whether the companies providing the infrastructure play ball or choose other marketing buzzwords to sell customers on glacial and antiquated internet speeds.