FCC: Gigabit Broadband In All 50 States By 2015

[Gahars]

The internet. While, yes, it is for porn, it's become more and more ingrained in our daily lives for reasons beyond masturbation. For many, work, education, and even socialization are done online.

There's just one problem - the United States' internet speeds are kind of slow. In a list of nations with the fastest internet speeds, we come in at number 12. For an increasingly online-oriented culture, this is a serious stumbling block.

Well, don't worry, because the FCC wants to step in. Either from close scrutiny of the data or one too many Tribes: Ascend matches, they have a new message for the nation - "We gotta go fast."

The Federal Communications Commission's chairman, Julius Genachowski, wants to see gigabit speed broadband services in all 50 states by 2015.

At a meeting of U.S. mayors in Washington, D.C., today, Genachowski called on municipal leaders and service providers to deploy gigabit speed broadband in at least one community in each of the 50 states in the next two to three years. Genachowski said that by participating in the "Gigabit City Challenge" communities would turn themselves into innovation hubs that would create valuable jobs for its citizens.

...Delivering broadband at 1Gbps is nothing to sneeze at. That's 100 times faster than today's average Internet connection. And building such networks can be expensive since they require investments in infrastructure. But Genachowski said that those investments will be well worth the expense.

CNET

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to make widespread 1 Gigabit Broadband a reality. Better than it was before. Better... stronger... faster."

Now, please note - this doesn't mean that everyone in the state would have access to this blazing fast broadband speed. This would only be one community within the state - but the hope is that this would encourage the further spread of this technology. Also, this proposal isn't set in stone - It's a lofty ideal, one that is potentially achievable, but there's no guaranteeing this will come about.

Don't give up hope just yet, though. This could be a great step towards adding fiber optic to the national diet. And just think - with these speeds, imagine all the porn torrents perfectly legitimate content you could download in no time flat!

Ah, a man can dream.

 

[Engert]

This will take a while here in U.S. because we like to discuss things in Congress so money can pass hands.
It's why we don't have bullet trains that Germany and Japan have been using for decades.

 

[Rydian]

The places that will be getting this are the developed areas that already have decent internet, obviously...

I think having at least actual broadband in most populated areas will be to better effect. The FCC currently defines "broadband" as a minimum of 4 megabits downstream and 1 megabit up, but many places in the US don't have access to that kind of speed, and I'm not talking hobos in the hills. Small towns, even ones with a functional college and crap, are often limited to slower DSL. I went on a job and hooked up the 'net and a computer in some guy's greenhouse/store facility maybe a year and a half back, and he was getting 768Kb/s down delivered there over DSL. Compared to areas in the city where a "low-end" cable plan is 3 megabits (still not broadband), penetration in other areas is pathetic. It's not like this facility was out in the woods or anything either, our church had a brand new location built, and we'd drive past the greenhouse on the way there.

 

[bazzi_h]

At least they're being reasonable with the speed ambition. The UK government want the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. To achieve this, to provide superfast broadband to at least 90 per cent of premises in the UK... They then go on to say that they consider 2Mbps as superfast!!! WTF!!!

P.S. I've been on 100mb (Virgin UK) broadband for nearly a year now, it's wonderful

 

[Canonbeat234]

I must say that two things are taken into account here. 1) the infrastructure on certain parts of the United States will only go as fast as it can depending how populated that area is. (I don't mean by the density of the people living in one state, everyone has to share from that certain Internet company. Then you also have to look at the estimation of how fast the company advertise their speed compare to the average speed by most Internet users.) 2) Building new ports in order to support the massive demand for the average consumer without making it throttle so badly during peak hours.

While I will like to watch HD YouTube often, the limitation on the usage of the Internet will always be there. So even if the 1gbps does come into the house of millions, you will never see that Internet speed in your contract EVER! Reason is because it's share throughout everybody so that typical average download speed will be around 850mbps if on a good day with less traffic. Then again to heavy traffic your average Internet download speed will be about 458mbps. Just estimations I suppose.

 

[Unagi]

Ahhh, thank God I have Cox internet. Internet caps at 400kB/s. I look forward to never seeing this fast internet ever.

 

[BORTZ]

Hurk that would be great. My internet at home and work is rated by speed test as F and F- lol

 

[Janthran]

Hope the ISPs don't get giga-rabies!
meh not a good punday for me

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

If anything I'd rather have moderately fast broadband available everywhere in the US, not super fast broadband in areas with...already somewhat-fast . Where I live I can only get DSL and...well, lets just say it makes me cry at night sometimes.

 

[Ergo]

This is idiotic and doomed to fail before it even begins. The USA is *too big* and its population too dispersed for this to make any sense at all. Nobody is going to pay to build the infrastructure to support this because it'll bankrupt them. But leave it to the fools in government and unelected bureaucracy at the FCC to meddle with something they clearly have no clue about.

(Pro-tip: if it made sense they'd have done it already.)

 

[DaggerV]

Tribes:Assbergers suck, T1 for life <3

 

[Fluto]

Australia is still rolling out our new broadband system, they're taking their time...

 

[Eon-Rider]

Meanwhile in Australia...

 

[DaggerV]

Earthlink or whoever been rolling some kind of line for past 6 years thinking about it, we still don't have it.

 

[the_randomizer]

Gigabit speeds? Don't mind if I do.

 

[trumpet-205]

What I really want from my ISP (AT&T) is to remove the stupid bandwidth cap. I am fine with 6Mbps downstream, but bandwidth cap limits my activity quite a bit.

 

[Qtis]

This is idiotic and doomed to fail before it even begins. The USA is *too big* and its population too dispersed for this to make any sense at all. Nobody is going to pay to build the infrastructure to support this because it'll bankrupt them. But leave it to the fools in government and unelected bureaucracy at the FCC to meddle with something they clearly have no clue about.

(Pro-tip: if it made sense they'd have done it already.)

Doesn't make sense? The US has a population density of 88 people per sq mile. Finland has a population density of 41 people per sq mile. Still we're building a fast gigabit capable internet for most of the country (logically starting with the capital city region and bigger cities, but nevertheless the whole country is a target). Also the costs aren't that bad, especially if the government helps even a bit. As for internet costs, I pay 9.90€ (~$12-13) per month for a 50/10 Mbit/s and I could get a 250/50 for just a bit under 40€ (around $50). Prices include all taxes already (incl. 24% VAT). The company giving the service is easily profitable. As the US has more people in a lot of the areas (and in general more people), just firing the cables in the ground and connecting people with faster connections isn't a problem. Copper cables (normal telephone wiring) is crap compared to fiber for long range transfer. Basically getting a good working fiber connection to a block of flats would require the cables to be connected to the distribution center. Copper can bring pretty good speeds when used for short distances (my apartment building didn't need extra cabling for the connection (excluding the actual fiber to the house of course)). I'd imagine most houses, especially the older ones, still have telephone lines?

If a fiber cable costs about 20000€ per kilometer (30k per mile?), and you can connect 100 apartment buildings with 100 apartments per building. Get the people to buy the connection (IIRC the US broadband prices are high as hell so bear with me) for $50 per month, you'll be getting 100*100*$50 = $500,000 per month. Sure it's an ideal situation, but it's worked pretty well over here. Even people without prior internet connections have taken the offer. So basically hitting the cable into the ground is already profitable for most companies. I'm actually surprised that some regions on the map (via Wikipedia) don't already have good fiber connections. If I had the possibility and money to take a try at the top 20 states, I'd probably be a millionaire. Mobile broadband (which also is a hot topic vs fiber here in Finland) is not a real contester. Sure it can provide service, but the speed is divided too heavily between all the users to make it reasonable homes in large areas.

Also regarding bureaucracy and elected members: being elected doesn't make you a professional. Hell, I'm actually worried about some of the people that are elected in elections. Running a multi-billion dollar country without even being able to do decent household account management? That's the reason why we have people who aren't elected, but are responsible for making suggestions for the elected members who will decide in the end what to do. Not saying that the unelected people are always professionals or want the good of the general population, but that at least some of the worst ideas can be filtered before the government starts wasting money on even the preparation of the ideas.

EDIT: A wall of text Just a good thing to point out: IPTV is actually pretty good via fiber. Also Netflix is streaming constant HD for me :3