Monday, May 9

Not really “broadband”—US grant program has 4Mbps speed standard

Even turtles need more than 4Mbps. (credit: Comcast)

Four US senators say that the Internet speed standard for a government grant program shouldn't be stuck at 4Mbps.

The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities, but it uses a speed standard of just 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Even that speed is an increase over the 3Mbps (download and upload combined) standard the program used until just a few weeks ago.

US Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) say that the USDA didn't raise the standard high enough. In a letter last week to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the senators questioned the decision to set the grant program's speed threshold below the 10Mbps/1Mbps standard used by a separate USDA loan program.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

No comments:

Post a Comment