this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 217 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The internet needs to be classified as a utility, living without it is just not possible in the world we have created.

[–] iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world 95 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I remember the collective shitfit around a decade ago when Obama give out free cell phones to homeless people. It was such a crazy concept to people who have never struggled that yes, you DO need a smartphone to meet your calling, banking and personal management needs. Everything has an online portal. Every job application requires an online portion. It's how the world works and has worked since the mid 00s.

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[–] thisisawayoflife@lemmy.world 154 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should be 1gbps asymmetric now, with a near future goal of 1gbps symmetric.

[–] thantik@lemmy.world 134 points 1 year ago (22 children)

I'd be okay with 200mbps symmetric, with a future goal of 1gbps symmetric. More than ANYTHING, I'm tired of providers providing things like 1gbps down, 10mbps up. And then doing shit like "Here's you're 1gbps plan with a 1tb data cap!"

[–] Uprise42@artemis.camp 15 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The asymmetrical aspect of cable will be here to stay. Fiber can do it because it was build on a different foundation.

Copper cable transmits data using electric signals in various frequencies. There are a batch of frequencies reserved for phone and TV. ALL of the tv programming is constantly streamed to your lines whether you have TV or not and whether you pay for it or not. It’s encrypted and is only decrypted by your cable boxes when your provider says they can decrypt it. The phone frequencies are reserved so you can make phone calls and still max out your download.

So what about the rest of the bandwidth? Well, way back in the early days of cable it was pretty much everyone for themselves. Every company did things its own way. That’s where DOCSIS came in. It’s a platform that allows modem manufacturers to make modems that will work on any cable network that supports Docsis. And the key part is that DOCSIS is always backwards compatible. The network upgrade to 3.1 did not break the old d2 devices.

When it was developed the download was extremely more necessary than the upload. You’d be sending small single line commands on upload and receiving entire files in download. So more frequencies went to download than upload. In a lab setting 1.0 could reach 40mbps down and 10 up. That’s not what was sold because real life isn’t a lab and there’s loss over large distances. Realistically most people got 10 mb down and upload wasn’t even listed.

Whats changed? Well today those same download and upload frequencies are still used. We’ve added more around them to deliver higher speeds. But we’ve also kept the same principles that people need more download than upload. Docsis 3.1 was released in 2013. We really didn’t start stressing over upload until Covid and work from home had us on zoom calls all day.

Docsis 4.0 is technically released but requires quite a bit of overhaul to work with existing networks. We pretty much need to do away with cable tv. That’s why many ISP’s are pushing IPTv. It removes the need for all that bandwidth devoted to just TV. If everyone in a region drops traditional cable for IPTv they can easily switch to d4. D4 does increase upload but does not make it symmetrical.

Your cable company does not decide their highest tier realistically. It’s the most that medium will offer. It’s gonna be a while too for d4 to be available everywhere. Everyone would need to drop traditional cable (which is honestly a nice move regardless) and people don’t upgrade plans very often. When I worked in tech support I would frequently deal with customers complaining about slow speeds while on plans from 2002.

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[–] geekworking@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago

Does this really matter. We aren't getting it anyway.

The telcom/cable companies are just going to take the "broadband" money, build out a couple of neighborhoods, claim it is too hard, and then keep all the money.

They have already done it many times. Free taxpayer money with zero repercussions. Why would they do anything different.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If the federal government is regulating them can we admit they're a fucking utility already and stop allowing them to gouge prices when they have more money than they could feasibly spend?

Can you imagine if we said "by 2035 every American household in our electric grid will also be connected to the internet at a speed of 1gbps"?

[–] porksoda@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can imagine it.

I can imagine the next jerk off administration rescinding that goal in the name of private enterprise or whatever bullshit excuse they choose.

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[–] irotsoma@lemmy.world 92 points 1 year ago (9 children)

We really need some upstream minimums as well. That causes so much lag for me. Most plans are 1 up even with 100 down. I have a 200/10 plan now and it's difficult to do work with the maybe 5 that I get in practice if I'm lucky, especially after overhead from VPN.

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Most plans are 1 up even with 100 down

That can't be right. I thought Australia's 100/20 plans had pathetic upload speeds but that's unreal.

[–] Lesrid@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

Most broadband access in the US is via coax. And the coax companies refuse to let cable TV, and the packages they can bundle, die. So the portion of the coax that would allow for symmetrical service instead brings all the channels you didn't buy because everyone streams now.

[–] yuknowhokat@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I have Spectrum here in the southeast of the United States. My plan is 300 down 12 up. That pathetic upload speed needs to change for the better.

[–] bratosch@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here in Sweden most people have optic fiber with AT LEAST 100/100 speeds. You gotta try if you want lower than that / if you want asymmetrical speeds.

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[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Right now in a lot of states Verizon has a monopoly on symmetrical internet service. I can’t ever switch ISPs because I can’t get 400/400 anywhere else.

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[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 86 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I could give a shit what they call it. How about enforcing some god damn price restrictions or make data caps illegal? Speed means little otherwise

[–] lemmeout@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago

This actually does keep prices in check. Albeit, a bit backasswardsly.

I may be off on the specifics but it's something like: Having to offer 100mbps at the lowest rates in (poor neighborhoods) increases the speeds of each tier while keeping the price the same.

[–] TeoTwawki@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Thats great but can we demand some decent UPLOAD to?

cries in 300down measally 10 up

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago

Upload is the biggest nobody gives a fuck in this ISP provider shit despite its importance.

[–] Qwaffle_waffle@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In the linked pdf, it does mention the benchmarks.

  • 2015/current standard is 25/3 Mbps.
  • Proposed increase to 100/20 Mbps.
  • Future goal is 1000/500 Mbps.
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And really, 20 mbps at the bottom tier for broadband isn't all that unreasonable. We're talking about the floor level here.

[–] privatizetwiddle@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 1 year ago

20mbits at bottom tier would be fine, but there are currently top tier cable plans, 1gbps down and still only 10mbps up. Upload speed needs to scale at least proportionallly, if not symmetrically.

[–] bitwolf@lemmy.one 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I felt so gaslit by optimum because they advertise 1gbps parallel. But, if you don't have their fiber offering in your region they'll happily sell you 1gbps/24mbps for the same price.

Although, unless I complain, they fail to give me even 300mbps down.

I miss Google Fiber :(

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[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago

As it should have been 5 years ago. Maybe even more.

[–] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

5 years late but better than never.

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

Can’t wait til they give another few hundred billion to ISPs who turn it into bonuses instead of infra improvement

[–] popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I did telecom work about 5 years ago

It was shocking the amount of area that depends on a low-quality copper wire infrastructure.

I don't know if that changed in 5 years, but companies are going to have a hard time getting that replaced nationwide

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

They just won't be able to call it broadband.

[–] poprocks@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We live in a rural area (but only 16 miles from the nearest city) and have copper. We really hope the infrastructure bill will bring real internet to us in our lifetime.

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[–] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just don't get it. Why not making upload speed same as download speed?

[–] adrian783@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

the most simple explanation is that total bandwidth is limited and more upload speed they give you the less download speed.

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[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On all lines the total amount of available bandwidth has to be split between upload and download. If you've got gigabits or even hundreds of megabits to play with then symmetric is great, but on slower connections is makes a world of sense to heavily favour download just because humans are better at consuming information than creating it. Consider how many hours of videos the average person watches per week versus how many they create in the same period. Same for photos, emails, articles, etc. There are people who have parity but they are in a pretty tiny minority.

That said, I hear there are people in the US getting 300Mb/s down and 10Mb/s up which is pretty fucking nuts.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Laugh in Western European (10Gbps)

[–] PlexSheep@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Cries in German. (I personally have Speedy Internet but many people I know have internet that really sucks slowly.)

[–] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

100 mbps? That's 100 millibits per second, or 0.1 bits per second. I'd certainly hope for better bandwidth than one bit every ten seconds; that's slower than smoke signals.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I wish we can all move to MB/s and get rid of the endless confusion on names

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[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 year ago (7 children)

It should also require allowing incoming connections. Too much ISPs, especially mobile, are gives one-way Internet now. Basically like having a phone line with no phone number.

[–] SaltySalamander@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You should google "CG-NAT" and learn why mobile providers don't (and simply can't) provide you a public IP. Get yourself a cheap VPS, set up a reverse proxy, and open all the ports you want.

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[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I could also get 100mbps for less than $80 a month that'd be great.

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[–] bigredcar@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I just hope Ofcom will have a similar idea for the UK. Currently you only have a "universal service obligation" for 10Mbps, and if you can be provided by 4G then Openreach doesn't have to upgrade your old copper line. Large areas of my city are still copper only.

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