By Evan Ackerman
The FCC, in a remarkable display of optimism, has decreed that as part of the national broadband plan that they’re about to present to congress, 100 million Americans will have 100 Mbps internet by, um, 2010. Good luck with that, fellas. Anyway, it’s not like the FCC is going to start offering you high speed internet packages for cheap; rather, they’ll be trying to get congress to pass legislation to prod telecoms into pulling the US out of a glorified dial-up age.
As part of that process, the FCC would like to know how fast your internet is. By finding out where broadband service is the worst (or doesn’t exist), they’ll know where to focus their resources, with the welcome side effect of exposing the differences between the kind of services that telecoms promise, and what they actually deliver.
So obviously, the most productive thing you can possibly do is to download a bunch of movies as you’re running the test, since the worse your internet is, the more likely that the FCC will pay attention and get somebody to do something about it.
Eventually.
[ FCC Broaband Test ] VIA [ Wired ]
Is this going to be anything like the television analog/digital conversion? Because, personally, I could do without another government-mandated shift to better technology. Yes, I'd like my internet to run faster– but I get what I pay for. I don't exactly relish the idea of HAVING to pay for something faster, simply because I don't have any other option.
I hate how I use iTunes and all the computers on the network slow down. I wish Comcast would let up on the bandwidth…
I hate how I use iTunes and all the computers on the network slow down. I wish Comcast would let up on the bandwidth…