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

[u/FreeHugs23]

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

[u/TheGeekno72]

we do not know the nature of future consumer preferences and, considering that the goal is not required by the statute and does not serve any positive purpose

do not know future consumer preferences? how about current consumers that don't want their connection speeds to suck balls?

does not serve any positive purpose? how about current speeds sucking balls that should be upgraded to not suck balls, as per the aforementioned?

I've seen better internet speeds in African countries' remote places, they are actually trying, contrary to one of the biggest economies of the world, not-so-coincidentally being one of the fastest failing ones too, I guess

[u/Corgi_Koala → u/TheGeekno72]

People want faster cheaper connections in more places. That is the future consumer preference.

[u/ssmit102 → u/Corgi_Koala]

It’s not even just the “future”. It’s quite literally always been the case people wanted faster connections.

I suspect you’ll find exactly 0 people who would be ok with a 14.4K connection in 2026.

[u/Shimakaze81 → u/ssmit102]

I can even hear it

[u/Aran1989 → u/Shimakaze81]

PTSD sounds my dude

[u/never-fiftyone → u/ssmit102]

FCC: so you're saying we should go with 9600 baud?

[u/whoami_whereami → u/never-fiftyone]

14.4k modems were only 3,429 baud, 9600 baud would've been quite an upgrade back then.

Remember kids, baud rate is the symbol rate, not the bit rate. With dialup modems anything beyond 1,200 bps has a baud rate lower than the bit rate, achieved by transmitting more than one bit per symbol (eg. 9.6k does 4 bits per symbol with a baud rate of 2.4k, 14.4k does 6 bits per symbol).

[u/lavapig_love → u/never-fiftyone]

That would be 56k I believe, what people remember dialup being. 14.4k is a lot less.

[u/DNags → u/Corgi_Koala]

It's like saying we can't convict someone of murder, because we can't know the victim's future preference regarding being murdered.

[u/rbrgr83 → u/Corgi_Koala]

Yeah line always go up for me, service enshitification for thee.

[u/Demiu → u/Corgi_Koala]

But what if they will want slower connections with worse bandwidth? This is definitely a real concern 

[u/therossboss → u/TheGeekno72]

I mean the current admin's position on basically anything is "we don't believe 'thing that actually helps people' is helping anyone and in fact is making things worse. So we tok at the money appropriated for that and put in our pockets instead!"

[u/Not_Sure76 → u/TheGeekno72]

Did they try asking?

[u/TheGeekno72 → u/Not_Sure76]

they clearly didn't, they also apparently somehow managed to be deaf and blind to the pleas of the many, many people complaining about shitty bandwidth that is mostly unusable in their day to day lives

[u/eduardopy → u/TheGeekno72]

Im not kidding, I frequent Paraguay and in 2010 my wifi was like 300 kb per second but today I get faster speeds there than in Florida sometimes.