Republican Senators Argue With FCC Over 25Mbps Broadband

On Thursday, a group of republican senators expressed an issue with the Federal Communications commission, or rather their definition of a service. The item in question is broadband and the fact that in order to qualify in their reports they are now required to provide 25Mbps Broadband.

Citing popular sites like Netflix and Amazon in their letter, they argue that services like these only require a fraction of the speed that the FCC now say is the baseline to classify as broadband internet. The speed in question is 25 Mbps, a speed I know a lot of people would be happy to pay for if it was stable at even a fraction of that speed.

Broadbands definition was redefined as 25 Mbps last year, raising from only 4Mbps. The difference being fundamental to the FCC given that they are required to act if not enough people have access to this service. The reason they stated for the update was because the old speed was “dated and inadequate”, with more devices connected to each household now you could often see several people connecting and using services like Netflix at the same time.

In their latest report, 10% didn’t have access to the 25Mbps speed that was required to be considered Broadband. Something which may be easier to help with if the FCC was consistent across the board the senators argue. While using 25 Mbps for reporting on broadband levels, if you are applying for Connect America Funds the benchmark is only 10 Mbps. These funds are designed to help connect people and allow companies to offer services to as many people as possible, but clearly only offering 10 Mbps is far from the 25 Mbps you will require according to the new standards.