AT&T lobbies against nationwide fiber, says 10Mbps uploads are good enough

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

AT&T is lobbying against proposals to subsidize fiber-to-the-home deployment across the US, arguing that rural people don't need fiber and should be satisfied with Internet service that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds.

AT&T Executive VP Joan Marsh detailed the company's stance Friday in a blog post titled "Defining Broadband For the 21st Century." AT&T's preferred definition of 21st-century broadband could be met with wireless technology or AT&T's VDSL, a 14-year-old system that brings fiber to neighborhoods but uses copper telephone wires for the final connections into each home.

"[T]here would be significant additional cost to deploy fiber to virtually every home and small business in the country, when at present there is no compelling evidence that those expenditures are justified over the service quality of a 50/10 or 100/20Mbps product," AT&T wrote. (That would be 50Mbps download speeds with 10Mbps upload speeds or 100Mbps downloads with 20Mbps uploads.)

-snip-

Democrats want 100/100Mbps in rural areas

The AT&T blog post came about two weeks after Congressional Democrats proposed an $80 billion fund to deploy broadband with download and upload speeds of 100Mbps to unserved areas. The Biden administration is also planning a $3 trillion package that includes funding for rural broadband among many other priorities. Four US senators recently called on the Biden administration to establish a "21st century definition of high-speed broadband" of 100Mbps both upstream and downstream.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/att-lobbies-against-nationwide-fiber-says-10mbps-uploads-are-good-enough/

Glad I don't have AT&T service.

[ret5hd]

1. Rural electricity: you only need 50 volts

Rural cars: you only need rear brakes

Rural stop lights: you only need red

Rural medicine: you only need proctologists

[spooky3]

2. I'm not in a rural area but never get above 12 or so mbps uploads.

Comcast has a monopoly in the area.

[asiliveandbreathe]

3. Greed on Part of AT&T...every time I see AT&T I cringe..it is actually

SBC (Southern Bell) who purchased the name and symbol..but failed to follow the mission statement or value statement of the company I worked for, for 30 years..

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. I'm on rural fiber-optic and it's fantastic, running about 90/90 download/upload.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. AT&T throttled me for years. Screw them!

I had AT&T U-Verse soon after it came out, when they were the fastest ISP available in my area.

Then I got busy with life for a few years, at which point I learned my internet speed was now about the slowest... and I was paying more for that privilege!

So I called them and was told, "You never complained, so we didn't upgrade your service. We can do that now, however!"

Me: "Nope! Cancel it! Cancel all of it forever!"

Edit: Their installers also cut the outside cable that went to my indoor cable outlets. (Later fixed.)

[msongs]

6. I get 350/23 n that seems to be plenty fast. only upload to youtube mostly nt