How Fast?

So the de facto standard for broadband seems to be 3 megabytes per second. The broadband stimulus will favor proposals (at least for now) coming from areas in which more than 50% of residents have under 3Mb/s. Many folks argue that in order to be competitive with better-wired nations, we need to set a higher national standard. Say, 20 Mb/s everywhere. Or 50. Or more. By this logic, the broadband stimulus needs to support improvements in bandwidth universally, not just showing a preference for un- and underserved areas. I won't quibble with that argument.

I think it's largely true that for too many years our federal policy failed to push speed. Just think, the FCC definition of broadband for most of Martin's tenure was 200 KILObytes/second! Pretty easy benchmark to meet. I agree that much should be done to promote higher speeds ubiquitously...