(Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After years of talk, the Federal Communications Commission has officially raised its definition for minimum broadband speeds from 25Mbps to 100Mbps.
On Thursday, the commission voted 3-2 to raise its broadband metric from 25Mbps for downloads and 3Mbps for uploads. Going forward, the FCC will define high-speed broadband as 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads.
“This fix is overdue,” said FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who added: “It also helps us better identify the extent to which low-income neighborhoods and rural communities are underserved.”
Raising the speed metric is important because it helps the commission determine which areas in the country are receiving adequate internet speeds, and if more government funding is necessary. In 2015, the FCC raised the metric from 4Mbps/1Mbps to 25Mbps/3Mbps. But since then, US senators, government watchdogs, and FCC officials have urged the commission to raise the metric even higher, citing the US’s growing reliance on internet services and apps.
According to FCC data from December 2022, an estimated 45 million Americans “lack access to both 100/20Mbps fixed service and 35/3Mbps mobile 5G-NR service.”
As part of Thursday’s vote, the FCC also adopted a long-term goal of raising its broadband metric to 1,000Mbps for downloads and 500Mbps for uploads. Rosenworcel added: “Millions of people in rural, urban and Tribal communities still do not have the broadband they need to fully participate in modern life. We are working on it."
However, the two Republican Commissioners dissented in Thursday’s vote. Commissioner Brendan Carr noted that satellite internet services, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, don’t qualify for the speed benchmarks, which only considers ground-based internet.
Commissioner Nathan Simington added that it makes sense to disregard older satellite internet services, but not Starlink, which already provides high-speed internet across the country.
“SpaceX’s LEO-based [low-Earth orbiting] service Starlink has completely changed the game,” he said. “Starlink is in fact available at this moment in almost every corner of all 50 states, and offers low latency and speed near or exceeding 100/20Mbps, especially in rural areas."
According to Simington, the FCC is concerned that satellite internet services such as Starlink face capacity constraints. But he expects the company’s technology to improve over time, and urged the FCC to allow SpaceX to compete for federal subsidies on an “equal footing” with other broadband providers. In December, SpaceX lost an appeal to receive $886 million in federal funding to expand Starlink in rural areas.