The US Federal Communications Commission defines “broadband internet” as 25 megabits down, 3 megabits up, a standard that hasn’t been updated since 2015. If you hadn’t noticed, the internet looks a bit different than it did eight years ago, with a huge expansion of high-definition streaming video, gameplay, and massive amounts of connected tech filling every home. The FCC is putting forth a proposal to update its definition to a more modern 100mbps down, 25mbps up.
The brief, three-paragraph announcement comes directly from the FCC’s Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, noting that the much longer notice of inquiry “discusses a range of evidence supporting this standard.” If adopted, service providers in the United States would need to make sure that their networks can reliably hit that 100/20 target in order to advertise internet speeds as “broadband.”
As anyone on a restricted or congested network can tell you, 25mbps can feel pretty pokey, especially during peak hours when everyone and their dog is streaming the latest bingeable shows and hopping on their buddy’s Minecraft server. Upload speeds in particular are a point of pain for anyone who streams from their own hardware, or has the occasional Zoom meeting from home. As PCMag points out, while fiber optic connections should be able to hit 100/20 easily, older cable networks might struggle with the upload speeds of a more demanding definition.
Seeing the standard updated would be a boon to the often patchy connections in the United States. The news brief says that a future national goal of one gigabit per second down, 500mbps up may be considered, though there’s no timeline for that change or mention of how it might be encouraged.
