FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to slower technologies

[u/CoreClock]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/

[u/Vio_ → u/[deleted]]

"But wiring rural America costs money......" whines the company most profiting from it.

[u/GamingWithBilly → u/[deleted]]

Airplanes are unfair to e-bikes makers.

[u/ducklingkwak → u/GamingWithBilly]

E-bikes are unfair to us rocking Crocs.

[u/ManlyParachute → u/ducklingkwak]

Crocs are unfair to moccasins.

[u/nihiltres]

The FCC said that comments submitted by cable industry group NCTA and wireless industry group CTIA “support our reasoning for abolishing the long-term goal.”

Replace “comments” with “money” and you probably get closer to the truth.

[u/craterglass → u/nihiltres]

"My buddy Benjamin brought a bunch of his friends. I hope you listen to them." --Cory Gardner, probably.

[u/reddit_reaper → u/nihiltres]

This entire administration is complete garbage scum

[u/CondescendingShitbag]

Long live 56 Kbps dial-up!

[u/muffinhead2580 → u/CondescendingShitbag]

Pssh, 300 baud is where its at.

[u/ebcdicZ → u/muffinhead2580]

Any thing faster than 300 baud is suspicious

[u/ron-r → u/muffinhead2580]

Too fast. Lets go back to the acoustic coupler. There has to be a landline left somewhere.

[u/cogman10 → u/muffinhead2580]

I prefer telegraph wires and Morris code STOP

[u/cthellis → u/cogman10]

If signal fires are good enough for Rohan to ride to Gondor's aid, it's good enough for us.

[u/bofis]

More like unfair to companies that want to raise prices while not raising performance...who prolly paid good lobbying bribe money to get this result

[u/Admirable-Sink-2622]

“The greatest country in the world” half-assing everything 🤔

[u/themightyug → u/Admirable-Sink-2622]

But ya have guns! And freedom (if you're rich)

[u/got-trunks → u/themightyug]

Economic apartheid lol

[u/disposable-assassin]

“We disagree with commenters arguing that our concern about technological neutrality merely serves to accommodate technologies that may currently offer slower speeds,” the FCC said. “At present, we do not know the nature of future consumer preferences

We could all just prefer slower internet in the future. You never know. Thanks FCC!

[u/GamingWithBilly]

Always designing for the lowest common denominator will hold back any change or progression into greater design. If we had this mentality 60 years ago we would not have landed on the Moon.

[u/YuumiZoomi]

are we fr??

[u/tacticalcraptical]

Unfair to slower technologies huh? And what about fairness in terms of things like freedom of speech? FCC doesn't seem to give a rip about fairness when it comes to that.

[u/lawvergis]

the enshittification continues

[u/SeanBlader → u/lawvergis]

Except now it's government regulated, so the shittiest is the one to win because DEI is bad.

[u/CaptainC0medy]

Damn those technologoes and their feelings!

[u/MidLifeCrysis75]

Yes!!! I’m gonna break out my old 56k modem! Finally!! Thank you so much FCC, we are truly great again!!!!! 🙄

[u/masterofn0n3]

Hard capitalism for thee, preferential oligarchic treatment for me

[u/InformedTriangle]

da fuq?

[u/RipErRiley]

Republicans ruin everything

[u/btjk]

Recycling is unfair to garbage.

[u/The_Ditch_Wizard]

'Unfair to slower technologies' is a funny way of saying 'we hate capitalism when we're not the ones it makes rich'

[u/drisang1]

That's the fucking point. Replace slower and obsolete technology.

[u/Farking_Bastage]

This is to protect starlink from any meaningful competition. By sucking up all the rural broadband grant money, they get to sell substandard internet for $200 a month.

[u/mabrasm]

The plane is too fast, we can't use it because trains are good enough.

[u/CorrodedLollypop]

unfair to slower technologies

Like what? Fucking carrier pigeons?

[u/jtrain3783]

Ah yes, the classic GOP "good enough" reasoning. Let us all enjoy all the opportunities that lowering of standards, transparency and striving for what we already have attained has & will bring us!

Surely this isn't trying to give Musk more of a foothold since the service can't really compete with serious use.

If he was in charge during the early days of the space program, he would have settled for the space mountain ride. What a joke. Can't wait for this to get reversed in 2028

[u/Smith6612]

Meanwhile we still can't even get connectivity that doesn't just randomly go down on sunny days for no explainable reason in half of the country.

Has been happening a lot lately for me on Spectrum. Granted, they have been working on upgrades in my area to enable High Split speeds, which are coming on 11 months now since they rebuilt my neighborhood. My connection did just randomly go down for two minutes in the middle of the day, and it tends to do the same at random hours overnight. Despite signals actually being perfect (I've checked).

The same thing happens on many other Spectrum connections that I can monitor in this area. Just randomly drops out for a few minutes. Or experiences packet loss.

All the Fiber connections with Verizon Fios, Greenlight Networks, GoNetspeed, Crown Castle, even Spectrum Enterprise, are rock solid stable.

I will say though, at least 300Mbps is the bare minimum you can buy from any wireline ISP in this area these days. A long cry from how it was 8 years ago where standard on DOCSIS was still 15Mbps, and you could still get a 3Mbps plan as a new customer, while the Fiber ISPs were all selling 100Mbps minimum.

[u/ron-r]

I think the car may be pretty unfair to the horse as well. Let;s outlaw them.

[u/leogodin217]

So woke. This DEI stuff is getting ridiculous. /S

[u/themightyug]

And here in a Welsh village in the UK I've just upgraded to 1.6gbit FTTP

It's so weird having been a kid in the 1980s when the USA seemed to be living years in the future compared to our sad little island

[u/karma_dumpster]

Antibiotics are unfair to witch doctors

[u/MadBrewer67]

WiFI speeds down also.

[u/Hornybunnyboi]

Good thing everything is digital. Nothing like watching a movie buffering constantly or waiting days for a game to download. Murica, murica, murica.

[u/R67H]

Cars are unfair to people without driver's licenses, too.

[u/HiFiPotato]

Just waiting for 10gbps symmetrical that's coming in October.

[u/Ancillas]

This is reasonable. It no longer makes sense to try to wire rural areas now that cellular and satellite have become so good. We’ve been talking about getting everything wired for decades and it hasn’t happened. Best to pivot to wireless technologies and set realistic goals based on their capabilities. This will still be way better than it’s been in the past and plenty fast for nearly every use case.

[u/Sufficient_Language7 → u/Ancillas]

So what you are saying is if you delay doing the work, promote talking about doing the work, you no longer have to do the work?

That sounds like a great thing all companies should do to save money.

[u/aimless_ly]

DEI corporate welfare affirmative action for shitty outdated technologies/companies.

[u/Dalmahr]

Was there a deadline and penalty for the goal? No? OK whats wrong with asking service providers to seek a goal like this?

[u/OldGeekWeirdo]

Question: what great things are we expecting to happen with Gigibit to the home? We already have streaming services. At some point we're going to hit diminishing returns. Where's the "killer app" that needs the super high speed?

[u/nobody_smart → u/OldGeekWeirdo]

I work from home. Encrypted transfer of large datasets eats all the bandwidth I can give it.

Put video conferencing etc on top of that and my Gigabit ISP service is fully employed.

[u/OldGeekWeirdo → u/[deleted]]

So what are the plans in the EU? I have no idea.

[u/OldGeekWeirdo → u/[deleted]]

To have 4 options requires laying out 4 overlapping networks. All of them which have to be paid for. Not unless they cooperate on the infrastructure.

Networks in the US has to cover much more distance. Many US states are the size of a entire European country.