"Speeds and Feeds" for Home Broadband: It's the PC Story

Though definitions of “broadband” matter for regulators, advocates and suppliers, in most cases “broadband capability” matters quite little for most users of internet access services. Internet access matters quite a lot, in comparison. 

The analogy perhaps is what happened with personal computers. Suppliers used to compete on clock speed and other performance metrics. Then we got to a point where performance across a broad range was "good enough" that it stopped making as much sense to keep touting performance. 

We are getting to that point with home broadband services. 

Use of a Chromebook, for example, absolutely requires internet access. But whether use of a Chromebook requires “broadband,” defined as 100 Mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream” is highly questionable, if true at all. 

I’ve used a Chromebook on a symmetrical gigabit-per-second connection and on Wi-Fi connections of varying quality but with downstream speeds not exceeding 100 Mbps and upstream in the mid-single digits. 

Was the user experience on Wi-Fi as good as on my symmetrical gigabit connection? No. But was it a major issue? Also, no. Keep in mind, I do no gaming, do not upload or download large files routinely, have no other users on my connection and might watch 4K but never 8K video. 

Though we often use the terms interchangeably, “internet access” is not the same as “broadband.” 

Internet access is the ability to connect to the internet, regardless of the speed or platform used. 

"Broadband" is a moving target describing internet access at defined minimum speeds. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission defines “broadband” as 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload. 

So, strictly speaking, many access services do not operate at “broadband” speeds, as the definition requires. That does not mean the access is deficient, simply that it might not meet the minimums. Wi-fi access on airplanes or in public locations are typical examples where internet access is available, but not at “broadband” speeds in both directions.

In fact, even cable modem services I have used can fail to meet the definition, even when offering gigabit-per-second downstream speeds, as upstream speeds did not hit 20 Mbps. 

For most of us, the issue is whether such failures matter. Often, they do not matter much, if at all. People can do all the things they want to on many connections that fail to meet the broadband definitions. `

As a practical matter, past a certain point, “broadband” matters relatively little in terms of user experience.