December 4th, 2006
Cisco exec: 200 Kbps isn't "broadband" anymore
Obviously Cisco Systems has a dog in this hunt, but still I have to agree with John Earnhardt, who writes the Cisco High Tech Policy Blog for well, uh, Cisco.
Oh and he's also Cisco's senior manager of Policy Communications for Cisco's Office of Worldwide Government Affairs.
John's point is that the FCC's tried-and-true way of quantifying the lower limit of broadband speeds at 200Kbps is outmoded.
He notes that the 200 Kbps standard dates back to the days when, as Earnhardt puts it, this was the speed that the FCC determined it took to go to a new Webpage in the same period of time it took to turn a page in a book.
Well, not only the book has been turned, but the worm.
This (200Kbps definition of broadband) I would think, was for just text and nothing more," Earnhardt adds. "Now that we have embedded videos, heavy graphics, advertisements and if broadband is still being measured as 200Kbps … then this measurement means very little to me…or to anybody, I would think."
John Earnhardt, you're thinking right. "Broadband" speeds of 200Kbps in this rich multimedia content and transmission universe aren't broadband.
At least to me.
To you?
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Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
