r/pcmasterrace • u/FreeHugs23 • Aug 20 '26

News/Article FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to slower technologies | FCC decides 1Gbps is too fast, standard must be “technologically neutral.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/
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u/choicetomake Aug 20 '26

Ugh Hughesnet. I knew a family that was missing cable internet by a half-mile. Their only option was Hughesnet. The atrocious speed, latency, AND bandwidth. Criminal in my mind.

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u/X4roth Aug 20 '26

They also have monthly data caps, after which you get throttled to practically dialup speed… really low data caps. Might as well not have internet at all, honestly.

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u/reddit_pug Aug 20 '26

"throttled to practically dialup speed"

So just a little bit slower than their normal speed, eh?

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u/popejupiter PopeJupiter Aug 20 '26

I worked in a call center a decade ago that also housed a Hughesnet competitor. I forget which one, but it doesn't matter. This was in the infancy of Netflix streaming, so we asked one of our coworkers on the net account what the caps were. IIRC, you could watch maybe a couple of movies before you hit your data cap for the month.

Me, who would go on to stream YouTube on my phone for upwards of 7 hours a day without looking at the screen even once: lmao.

3

u/Narrow-Key365 Aug 20 '26

Viasat, maybe?

3

u/popejupiter PopeJupiter Aug 20 '26

Sounds right. I seem to recall they were either Viasat then they got bought out by someone, or they became Viasat after the buy out.

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u/rubytook Aug 22 '26

WildBlue?

2

u/HumanPea1140 14700K | 5070 Ti | 64GB DDR5 6000 Aug 20 '26

It's been a decade, but had a family member that had Hughes Net and their data cap was the highest available, but it was still only like 50GB for the entire month. Once you hit 50GB, throttled to dial up speeds and basically nothing would load. Blew my mind.

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u/-spartacus- Stukov Aug 20 '26

They are now bankrupt.

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u/natecoin23 9800X3D | Nitro+ 7900XTX | 64GB DDR5 | 4K OLED 144Hz Aug 20 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/J8FZIm9VoBU6Q

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u/ksheep Ryzen 9 3900X - RX 6700 XT Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

My spouse’s grandparents had a small ranch out in the middle of nowhere, and they were stuck with Hughesnet for ages. They finally got a faster option without data caps when the local ISP put up a microwave internet tower… but they were barely in range (there was a single spot on their property where the receiver could actually see the tower, and only when the receiver was at its absolute highest mounting point).

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u/Balogne Aug 20 '26

My girlfriend’s mom can see her local cable company’s line on the pole across the street from her house. They won’t cross the road, at least not without forcing her to pay a ton of money. They had DSL until my girlfriend bought the starlink kit for them. Night and day.

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u/sabotthehawk Aug 20 '26

Had hughesnet for 8 years. Was absolute garbage. Had high speed att two power poles away from house. They wanted 15k to connect us up (said we live on border of interconnect area and they had to run it 5 miles from other direction instead of pulling it 100 yards). Finally had fiber ran by our power company.