The FCC raises its broadband speed benchmark to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads, from the previous standard of 25Mbps and 3Mbps set in January 2015
The FCC’s new threshold completes a policy path that Chair Jessica Rosenworcel proposed in 2022, after the agency had operated under the 25Mbps/3Mbps definition introduced in 2015. A bipartisan Senate group had also urged the FCC to move beyond that older threshold toward faster service in 2021.
The change matters because the benchmark is the FCC’s yardstick for describing whether fixed broadband service is adequate; raising it resets the baseline against which availability and gaps are assessed.
First-order effects
The FCC will evaluate fixed broadband availability against a 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload baseline, rather than 25Mbps/3Mbps.
Providers whose offerings met the prior definition but fall short of the new one will no longer count as delivering benchmark broadband under that measure.
Second-order effects
Coverage assessments can show a larger shortfall than under the old threshold, increasing pressure on providers and policymakers to address areas served only by lower-speed plans.
The higher upload requirement gives greater weight to network capacity in both directions, not solely advertised download speeds, when broadband adequacy is discussed.
Third-order effects
If future FCC reporting and policy continue to use this threshold, broadband competition will increasingly be judged on service capable of supporting more demanding two-way use, not on the minimum standard set in 2015.
The shift reinforces a recurring pattern in telecom policy: formal definitions lag network expectations, then reset the basis for measuring the digital divide and evaluating provider claims.
The trend: U.S. broadband policy is moving from a legacy minimum-access definition toward a higher, more symmetric standard for judging whether connectivity is genuinely adequate.
The FCC has finally decreed that 25Mbps and 3Mbps are not “broadband” speed. Hallelujah. It's all about 100Mbps and 20Mbps now https://www.theverge.com/...
this got me thinking, how much do you pay for your internet (converted to US dollars), how fast, and what country? I'm paying $44 per month for 1Gbps up / down in the UK
We increased our benchmark for high-speed fixed broadband to download speeds of 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second, a four-fold increase from the speed benchmark we set in 2015. https://www.fcc.gov/...
Freaking finally. @Starlink already offers much more than this but the previous requirement was pathetically slow. Good to get the rest of the ecosystem competing again
It only took 16 years. I called for a 100 (down) benchmark speed for broadband while a member of the Obama Transition team in 2008... (and actually, prior to that in a briefing article during the 2008 campaign.) That said, better late than never @FCC #broadband #digitaldivide
Despite the Biden Admin putting billions of taxpayer dollars into the ground on Internet infrastructure projects, the FCC just gave the country's broadband efforts a failing grade. It found that broadband “is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable & timely fashion.” …
The FCC just quadrupled the download speed required to market internet as ‘broadband’ | ISPs now have to offer 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up to slap the coveted label on their services.
“Today, the FCC has changed its definition of “broadband” to mean download speeds of 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second.”