FCC Internet Plan has Big Implications for Online Gaming

ResumePlay writes, "Most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that the U.S. ranks pretty low on the scale of international access to high speed internet. Many have no broadband access at all, and are still reliant upon anachronistic dial up with a phone line 56K modem. Figuring this lack of connectivity with those in the U.S. who do have some form of high speed access, the average connection in the U.S. clocks at only 1 MB per second."

[mau64]

This is some good news

[dp277407]

Yea i have really good internet speeds for living in a rural area of the u.s at about 15mbs but i pay about 80 bucks a month for that but i find it worth it about half the time.

[Nishka Fa Fa La Boo]

having a big country like the US isn't always a good thing thats why Japan has like GB speeds they are like a little bigger then california. I am lucky to have good enough speed with verizon fios here in florida. anyone on dial up, ugh that sucks. xD

[Darkstorn]

As a dial-up user, this is very, very good news, and federal money well spent.
As a rural American, I've watched the upper-middle class suburban sub-developments suck up all the infrastructure funds around and frankly, I'm sick of it. They've upgraded their cables for the third time in as many years and my community is still stuck with 28.8 kbps dial-up.
Hopefully this will bring economic opportunity to those who don't have it, as well as finally allow me to play Killzone 2 online :P

[HolyOrangeCows]

They'll probably fine anyone without a connection $1000 a year, too. Don't worry, the democrats are here to save the day.

(Libertarian party ftw)

[ScrappyDoo]

According to this US ranks number 2 http://www.speedtest.net/gl...

[Darkstorn]

@1.5-
Read closely. It ranks #2 IN NORTH AMERICA.

@1.4-
What exactly are you criticizing? If this is in reference to our revamped healthcare system, then it's not a good comparison at all, though the number of people in a given nation who have access to high speed internet and access to affordable healthcare are both indicators of a sustainable economic model.

[Pillage05]

@Darksorn have you ever considered trying satellite internet. It's not the best option (it'll piss you off on really cloudy days) but it beats dial-up 99% of the time. I grew up in rural area (and I'm returning there in 6 months) and we used satellite for several years until recently the cable company final laid fiber-optic cables all the way out to where we lived.

[Darkstorn]

@1.7-
I've read about satellite internet, but it's overly expensive for such a lame internet speed. And the download caps really ruin it for me. I should add that cost is an issue, as I'm a frugal guy who hasn't even upgraded to high definition yet (maybe in a couple years, we'll see...).

Also, satellite is not supposed to work well for gaming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine that there would be immense lag...

P.S., I live in the Emerald Triangle (northern CA) - it's extremely cloudy here...

[rogue0674]

Oh man, I hate lagging out...I would hope I can see this happen within my lifetime.

[smashly]

This will help out gaming extremely. There are people 5 miles away from me that are stuck with dialup.

[SKGamer]

This is good news for gamers.

More people with high-speed internet = more people buying more game software

More people buying software = more money for developers to keep making awesome games

So we all win :)

[VenerableBmoney]

Seeing that pic of the lag balloon is interesting. And there are some really accurate claims about the average U.S. citizen's access to high-speed data transfer for a reasonable price. Nice look at future news.

[CheatsMcGee]

Not surprised in the least that the US has slower internet connections. Hopefully it'll be fixed like this suggests.

[Darkstorn]

Urban sprawl, buddy. People wanted to live out in the middle of nowhere due to the racist 'white flight' of the late 1960s, and ever since they've been pissed at the government for not waiting on them hand and foot infrastructure-wise.
Ideally, everyone would live in dense cities and everywhere else would be national parks, but never mind my utopian nonsense...

[randomwiz]

By the time the FCC rolls out their plan, the Google Overlords will take over the world and save us with their 1gbps connection.

[Dukeoffl]

cool article, bro

[Hotel_Moscow]

350 billion dollars how about they put me through college and then worry about the interwebs

[Rucury]

The interwebs will get you through college, bro. And you can play some lag-free games whilst pretending to do your assignments!

Isn't that what life is all about?

[8thnightvolley]

when i say americans really have bad connection ppl say noooo.. here in uk 20mb is pretty much standard now

[fatstarr]

this is really interesting. If all the things said here happens. alot of good will come but tons of bad. the piracy rate will jump up thats for one.

[Darkstorn]

What? That's like saying that more people would get diarrhea if laxatives were distributed to all Americans...of course it will happen.

Perhaps that's not the best analogy.

[kneon]

The author is making the incorrect assumption that high throughput equals low latency. That is not necessarily the case. You can have unacceptably high lag regardless of the available bandwidth. There are a lot of factors at play here and high bandwidth doesn't solve all sources of latency. In fact it can sometimes make things worse if the systems between you and the end point are not sized properly.

[kneon]

A disagree? really? Then I assume that means someone believes bandwidth always fixes everything.

Here is an extreme example, try packing 10000 50gb bluray disks in the back of a pickup truck and deliver them an hour away. Your bandwidth would be about 130,000Mbps, but you latency is 3,600,000ms

[mirroredderorrim]

Could it be? Capitalism is finally giving way to a better internet?
Ha!

[Lionsguard]

Google needs to come to the rescue and lay out fiber and stimulate other companies into following suit. These retarded ISPs are way too complacent with slow speeds.

[JL]

That's kinda what has happened in my area. See, I have Comcast. Comcast is in fact already acting on this FCC thing as we speak. They're rebranding as Xfinity and pushing better cable and higher internet speeds (supposed to be up to 100mbps by the end of the year). Well for right now they're just doing it in major cities (from what I read on a press release they did). So of course they're hitting places like Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Atlanta. Just hitting those really major ones there to start off right now....but the funny thing was, amidst those major cities that they're using as a start point, they also started with Chattanooga, TN to lump into that first wave of their rebranding. Now I don't actually live in Chattanooga, but I live in the surrounding area, so we're affected by this (sort of metropolitan area). Anyways, just recently our electric company TVA installed fiber optics throughout the city and some of the outlying areas. This apparently had a semi-crippling effect on Comcast in the area (judging by what I learned talking to some Comcast technicians). Leads me to further believe it hurt them bad because they placed our minor city of Chattanooga into that first wave of cities to boost internet service (the fiber optics that TVA used and the service they provide is pushing 100mbps already).

Anyways, just thought it was funny seeing Comcast having it handed to them. But the main point here is: yes this plan is real and it's already in effect even by Comcast in certain areas. And from everything I've heard, they've mandated that the speeds be up to 100mbps (that's 100 times faster than the advertised speed from Comcast now), before the year is out.

On that note, anybody know a reliable place to test internet speed connection? I go to SpeedTest.net and it says my download is 6.9mbps down and 3.84mbps down. BandwidthPlace says 3.24mbps up and 4.08mbps down. Speakeasy tells me I've got 7.4mbps down and 3.18mbps down. And another site says 0.6mbps down and 2.16mbps up. Results from each site are about as different as they can be. I don't get it.

[kneon]

The speed test results are highly dependent on where the test server is located. And it's not just geographic location, it also depends how much stuff is between you and the server. Just because you have 100Mbps from your ISP doesn't mean you will get that end to end. In fact you rarely will as many servers will cap your bandwidth.

If you run a speed test against a server at your ISP then you will likely get great speeds. Once you get outside your ISP you are contending for bandwidth with everyone else.

[kraze07]

Good news.

[Saryk]

I usually disagree with government stepping in to do anything. If there were such thing as the Midas touch, the US government has the exact opposite. However where there is a need for infrastructure, I do support at the state level to the federal level overseeing. I think that this kind of upgrade will do our country a lot of good and put a lot of money in my back pocket.