FCC chair wants to boost broadband standard to 100Mbps::First refresh of minimums in eight years for the country that invented the internet

      • nowwhatnapster@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But what if it costs $95/mo, there are no alternatives and the price has nearly doubled in 10 years from $55?

        I sure don’t feel that great.

              • havokdj@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You can get business gigabit for $90 a month where I live.

                Funny thing is that is the rural option, in town I have to go with Comcast and pay $160 a month for half a gigabit

                • whofearsthenight@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Scrolled too far down before a mention of Comcast. I was in charge of a handful of locations where we needed broadband. They were geographically diverse enough that we had to go with different options. Comcast was the most expensive, and by a lot. Like 30%, and the slowest in dl/ul by a large margin. Comcast was also the second worst one to deal with. The actual worst one was the faster, slightly less expensive Spectrum. They had by far the worst service. A couple of locations had small DSL companies that were a delight to deal with and reasonably priced, but slow as balls. And then one location had a municipal fiber option that was the cheapest, fastest, and easiest to deal with by far. Like, I swear to god I could call them and talk to a real network engineer that no joke actually knew more than I did. I don’t mean this to sound arrogant; I am not great with networking. I’m just saying compared to “yeah, I have that in bridge mode because I don’t need router capability I’m running my own” and being answered with something like “whoa I’m going to need to get a supervisor” vs them being like “hey can you open a terminal and…” Yes, yes I can open a terminal.

                  • havokdj@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Oh no, Comcast is a terrible fucking company, we agree there.

                    Its just that in the city, it is either them, or ATT with literally a DSL connection. Coax, or DSL, that’s your options lmao.

          • Psythik@monyet.cc
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            1 year ago

            You pay $4 more than I do for the same thing (with no bandwidth cap). If you’re not out in the sticks, internet is fine here.

      • Ser Salty@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I had 2Mbps (yes, bits, not bytes) until 2020. Then I moved out. Pretty sure that my parents house still only gets that same speed. And this is in fucking Germany, a pretty densely populated country.

        • Mr_1077
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          1 year ago

          As a Swede, I usually get well above 3 Mbit/s on 3G, and I have a 100/100 Mbit/s fiber that I often use to its full potential, and that’s with a VPN on. I really thought Germany had better infrastructure.

          • Ser Salty@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Rural internet is absolutely terrible in Germany. City internet is better, but still rarely goes above 250 down, and less up. Maybe you can get Gigabit in a couple larger metro areas like Berlin.

            Also all of our mobile internet has terrible data caps. An average phone data plan on the cheaper side won’t even break into double digits, usually being 2-5GB. You get something that’s more akin in price to a regular internet plan, 50 bucks or so, you get more, but still something far from usable (and coverage/reception for that can be quite spotty in lower density regions, too), so that’s not even an alternative.

            Admittedly, speedtests said my Internet was slower than 98% of Germany, few years back, so speeds this slow are an exception, but there’s also a fuckton of areas sitting at 16 or 25Mbit/s. More usable, but still not exactly modern standards.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          I’m sure I’d get a faster speed than that in a piece of string.

          Honestly that sounds like the cable was damaged, was that really the actual target speed?

          • Ser Salty@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Yes, genuinely target speed. Germany is just incredibly behind when it comes to the internet.

      • Psythik@monyet.cc
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        1 year ago

        Wow I had that in 2008. Damn that sucks. You can’t even stream 4K HDR video.

    • Mysterious_old_man@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It depends. I grew up in the country and my parents still have to use phone hotspots for internet which works well for streaming but forget about any gaming. I live in a fairly major metropolitan city now and my internet is pretty good, although I’ve noticed my download speeds get throttled sometimes

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It can be, but I live in a semi-rural neighborhood outside of a town that doesn’t even have 100,000 people and I’m still getting 400/400 on fiber (and can get higher speeds if I want to pay for them).

    • Psythik@monyet.cc
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      1 year ago

      In rural areas, yes.

      In cities, Gigabit internet is abundant and only mildly expensive. Here in Phoenix I pay $60/mo for 1 Gbps down, 50 Mbps up with no bandwidth cap from Verizon. Not the best but far from “awful”.

      • fkn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I live in a major metropolitan city in the us and I pay close to $200 a month for gig down and less than 100up.

        • Psythik@monyet.cc
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          1 year ago

          You might not have to. Look into fixed 5G internet. So long as you have a view of a tower (which you should in a major metropolitan city; I’m in suburbia and still have 3 within view), speeds and latency are as good as a wired connection. I’d look into it.

          • fkn@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I have to run my own cell tower because I live in a literal dead zone.

            Edit: I checked Verizon, 90 bucks for 50mbps with a 300gb data limits. Yay.

            • Psythik@monyet.cc
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              1 year ago

              That sucks. Happens when there’s no competition in your area. Verizon is $60 for 1Gbps here, no data cap, because they have to compete with Cox. Greedy bastards.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I pay $65 for 1Gb symmetrical and no cap. But I have options for ISPs. My parents in rural Washington have the option of wireless internet at 10Mbps for $70/month or HughesNet satellite for some ungodly amount with worse speed. Starlink is still not available there.