The FCC doesn’t seem to think that the current broadband standard is adequate.
Jessica Rosenworcel, who serves on the agency’s leadership team as its chairwoman, has sent out a Notice of Inquiry that includes a proposal for raising the country’s broadband standard to 100 Mbps. This is four times better than the current standard, which is 25 Mbps.
“The needs of internet users long ago surpassed the FCC’s 25/3 speed metric, especially during a global health pandemic that moved so much of life online,” said Rosenworcel.
“The 25/3 metric isn’t just behind the times, it’s a harmful one because it masks the extent to which low-income neighborhoods and rural communities are being left behind and left offline. That’s why we need to raise the standard for minimum broadband speeds now and while also aiming even higher for the future, because we need to set big goals if we want everyone everywhere to have a fair shot at 21st century success.”
Chairwoman @JRosenworcelFCC has proposed several benchmarks that will increase the national minimum #broadband speeds and set a higher gigabit goal for the future. Details here: https://t.co/Ocj9udcpIg. #FCCGov #BroadbandForAll
— The FCC (@FCC) July 15, 2022
The Notice of Inquiry, which will “kick off the agency’s annual evaluation of the state of broadband across the country,” proposes that the national broadband standard be raised to 100 megabits per second for download and 20 megabits per second for upload.
Rosenworcel’s Notice of Inquiry also teases a bigger goal for the more distant future: a broadband standard of 1 Gbps/500 Mbps.
The current 25/3 Mbps broadband standard was set by the FCC in 2015. The previous standard before that was 4/1 Mbps.
Source: FCC