FCC To Eliminate Gigabit Speed Goal, Scrap Analysis of Broadband Prices (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0178433352
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/21/2044200/fcc-to-eliminate-gigabit-speed-goal-scrap-analysis-of-broadband-prices
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/fcc-to-eliminate-gigabit-speed-goal-and-scrap-analysis-of-broadband-prices/
> The changes will make it easier for the FCC to give the broadband industry a passing grade in an annual progress report. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal would give the industry a thumbs-up even if it falls short of 100 percent deployment, eliminate a long-term goal of gigabit broadband speeds, and abandon a new effort to track the affordability of broadband.
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> Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed "on a reasonable and timely basis" to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market."
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> Generally, Democratic-led commissions have found that the industry isn't doing enough to make broadband universally available, while Republican-led commissions have found the opposite. Democratic-led commissions have also periodically increased the speeds used to determine whether advanced telecommunications capabilities are widely available, while Republican-led commissioners have kept the speed standards the same.
[1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-413059A1.pdf
[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/fcc-to-eliminate-gigabit-speed-goal-and-scrap-analysis-of-broadband-prices/
[3] https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-announces-tentative-agenda-august-open-meeting-11
Re: Lets all welcome the USA (Score:3)
Much farther. The Dobbs decision that ended the right to abortion referenced medieval texts.
Re: (Score:1)
> Much farther. The Dobbs decision that ended the right to abortion referenced medieval texts.
What's your point? We have laws that can be traced back to the earliest writings, which can go back as far as 10,000 years ago. Some things are so basic to the human condition that we felt a need to write them down for future generations to follow.
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Read the OP. If you still can't figure out the point, that's on you.
Re: Lets all welcome the USA (Score:2)
LoL. What a trump hard!
Re: (Score:1)
The Roe ruling was so convoluted and had no real basis in law. All Dobbs did was throw out a politically contrived decision and sent the matter back to politicians in every state. Putting the moral decision of abortion in the hands of voters. Something that's actually about democracy which I'd expect the party that keeps screaming about democracy being at risk to be all for.
Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
[1]https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]
The first countries to commercialize 6G will enjoy overwhelming advantages over those who are left on 5G protocols and technologies.
6G represents a 1000-times increase in transmission speeds, with latency falling by similar orders of magnitude. . .
Much of the developed world is on 5G telecommunications networks, and the race is on now to build 6G. The difference between 5G and 6, is orders of magnitude increases in speed and applications. 1 terabyte per second is a thousand
[1] https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/china-and-huawei-are-winning-the
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Wireless is NOT the answer
We need fiber
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We definitely need something wired, and if any new investment is going to be made in 2025, it should be nothing less than fiber.
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> Wireless is NOT the answer
> We need fiber
I can agree with that.
Wireless communications means being line-of-sight, open to easy interception, greater vulnerability to weather such as towers blown over or hit with lightning, more easily jammed or spoofed, and limited by the available RF spectrum in the area.
Re: Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
Why? My house has no fiber. I use 5G Home Internet. It's not perfect; I'd love a faster upload speed. But it works well enough for video calls and streaming. And it will only get better.
Re: Meanwhile In China . . . (Score:2)
5G still delivers only 0.2 Mbps where I live. Will 6G do any better in non-urban environments? I have my doubts. I would take a few Mbps over what 5G can do today, though. Without a wired connection and Wifi AP, I cannot even make any calls. Cell network is unsuitable, as my phone constantly switches between 4G and 5G every few seconds.
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What happens if you just disable 5G on your phone?
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Porn downloads 1000x faster. Hurray!
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Maybe those other people can pay market rates like the rest of us.
Affordable is not the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Available is
Our local ISP tried for years to install fiber in our area and was blocked by the telcos
They didn't serve out area, but used every dirty trick in the book to make sure that nobody else could serve us
We don't need any government rules except one. The rule that telcos can't block private efforts to install fiber
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It's not just other telcos. Also electric companies, or whoever owns the poles, or dug the trenches. The regulations we do have are just insufficient. The Telecommunications act of 1996 is very outdated. It was OK for sharing DSLAMs with the ILEC, and not much else.
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It's the actual regulations that are preventing new providers. The issue is over regulation which protects the incumbents.
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I'll just leave this here. [1]https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/gop-plan-for-broadband-competition-would-ban-city-run-networks-across-us/
I predict Republicans will avoid this thread (Score:3)
So that they don't have to think about or confront the consequences of their actions. You can always count on a republican to go running to a safe space whenever they're preconceived notions are challenged.
Because, and here's the trick, if they don't go running the safe spaces they stop being Republicans.
Do you need gigabit to a household? (Score:2)
I'm paying for 100 Mbit, and am getting 90 up and down at 8 PM, (I just checked). When things are draggy it's the server at the other end. What advantage would I get from faster? I have one TV and it's not 4K.
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> I'm paying for 100 Mbit, and am getting 90 up and down at 8 PM, (I just checked). When things are draggy it's the server at the other end. What advantage would I get from faster? I have one TV and it's not 4K.
We probably don't need gigabit, but we do need a reasonable lower limit to officially be "broadband" and to measure what counts as "Internet being available to everyone". I have a house where the best internet you can get is a dual bonded DSL connection that totals 12MB down and 2MB up. I don't count that as broadband as while its okay for basic video consumption when I am there, it's not enough for video conferencing, and it is certainly not enough for remote security cameras. There are lots of folks where
No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the goals of Project 2025 and the expressed intent of effectively gutting any service provided by the federal government to the population at large, this scrapping of FCC policy goals meant to aid the public by constraining corporations from offering the bare minimum of service for the maximum of money, without regard for any other goals whatsoever, falls firmly into the "No shit, Sherlock" category of disappointing but unsurprising news.
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Orange Jesus: Slow internet is good!
MAGA: Slow internet is good!
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> Orange Jesus: Slow brainz is good!
> MAGA: Slow brainz is good!
> Orange Jesus: I be very stable geeniuz!
FTFY
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Maybe he thinks fast internet connections are like dolls, we should get less and pay more.
> “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally. All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, nine-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he told reporters. “She could be very happy with two or three or four or five.”
Just s/dolls/megabits/ and I'm sure you
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing is sure : whataboutism never accomplished anything.
And you certainly wouldn't very able to know, anyway, if all the analysis is scrapped.
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I think the parent's original point is this. Was the policy working and was it fiscally wise? Did the policy have positive impact? If the policy under Biden was not working, not being implemented, or was not fiscally wise, then why continue it? If it was working and was having a positive impact, then it should have been continued. Maybe I am wrong in my interpretation.
I don't have an answer either way. I don't know enough about what policies were in place and what policies were specifically ended. I have fo
Re: (Score:3)
yes, but poster you're replying to was specifically stating that you're not going to know if Biden's policies were helping because you've stopped analysis which is exactly why this is silly.
So the reality is as follows: broadband subsidies continue giving telecoms billions of dollars every single year but now we don't care if they spent the money on yachts or actual telecom infrastructure. Biden's policies were trying to help them accountable for our tax dollars, something you would think we would be impor
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:4, Interesting)
They turned absolutely everybody in America trans. And woke. Also everybody's hair is now blue.
What did you think we were going to take this bullshit seriously? Back in my day trolls were better than this. We had Hot grits and then we Portman and greased up Yoda dolls.
Now all we've got is the same Russian botnets spewing the same talking points. Sad. Low energy.
Re: No shit, Sherlock (Score:3)
Trumps rigged FCC is about to let Verizon lock any phone you buy from it to its service forever. This after they were given wireless bands from the govt in exchange for 60 day unlock. Now that the orange orangutan is in charge, verizon bribed all the corrupt sellouts and said nahhhhh. We want your phone you bought to never be able to switch providers. You will own nothing and praise king trump!
Re:No shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, enshitification is making great progress since the orange man took power,
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So.. Are we supposed surprised by this? Why the fuck should we think Trump of all people would care about the internet speeds of little people? A group of CEOs pinch him and says "YO! need you to do this for us we got your back" and that is all the fuck that matters. He will do what they want in turn for them to do something for him personally that is it.
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> Given the goals of Project 2025 and the expressed intent of effectively gutting any service provided by the federal government to the population at large, this scrapping of FCC policy goals meant to aid the public by constraining corporations from offering the bare minimum of service for the maximum of money, without regard for any other goals whatsoever, falls firmly into the "No shit, Sherlock" category of disappointing but unsurprising news.
Based on how many times taxpayers have paid for a broadband rollout initiative for all, this likely has fuck all to do with Project 2025 and far more to do with cutting funding that ends up in executive pockets instead of broadband connections.
Stop it. Stop funding ALL of it until the fucking corruption stops. We’ve been watching providers lie to the FCC and take taxpayer money for literally decades. Keep up the Us vs. Them political shitslinging, and idiot voters will give the politicians enough t
Re: (Score:3)
Any public service that can be privatized and profited-from, they seek to privatize. Regulations that hinder profit, are being eliminated. Good for the business-owner class, not so much for the consumer.
"If money is speech, the wealthy have a lot more of it than you."
I think Citizens United was a disastrous decision. Instead of saying only physical persons could contribute to politicians, they went the opposite direction and said any logical construct, union or business, could contribute. Perhaps it was con
Re: (Score:1)
Most regulation does not accomplish what you think it does. Most government regulation of industry helps protect the existing, large incumbents and places hefty barriers of entry to new comers. While the regulation has some benefits to consumers, it ultimately serves to protect the entrenched, slows innovation, and ultimately stagnates or increases prices because new competition does not enter the market and create either surplus or price pressures.
I'm not wanting zero regulation, but there's a turning po