Defining broadband | Telecom Ramblings

A few weeks ago, the federal government chose a definition for broadband in the context of the stimulus package and the goal of extending bandwidth to all. The bar they chose, a minimum of 768kbps down and 200kbps up, has been widely panned as a decade late. But since then, I’ve been thinking that having such a ‘definition’ in the first place is the ludicrous part. It just doesn’t make sense to have a single threshold as our goal for every dwelling in the USA.

We should not pretend that urban, suburban, and rural communities have ever or will ever have identical requirements and expectations. When one lives far from everything, one should expect connectivity to be a bit harder to get. For many people, getting away from the bustle of the city is the whole point and they know there is a trade off to be had. Is 768/200 good enough for them? I say it will do as a goal. Alongside living in heavily developed areas comes the expectation of being close to everything, and I don’t see how that goal can be anything less than a direct fiber connection. In the middle you can have a tier where 5-10Mbps seem like the right goal...