USDA embraces 25 Mbps broadband standard even as FCC dumbs it down

15 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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Somebody knows when to crank it up.

The minimum acceptable broadband speed in rural areas is now 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. At least according to the federal agriculture department.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) offers loans to broadband providers – cooperatives and small telephone companies frequently tap the program – for service upgrades in areas that meet the agency’s requirements. One of those requirements deals with the speed and availability of existing service – if a provider is expanding into new territory, then at least 15% of the homes in that area must be “unserved”, as defined by RUS.

Originally, the RUS threshold for acceptable service was 4 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. If that level of service wasn’t available, then an area qualified as “unserved”. It’s periodically revised that definition, and for its latest broadband loan window, RUS has raised the bar

For the purposes of this [notice of funding availability], the agency is revising the definition of ‘‘Broadband Service’’, such that for applications submitted under this window, existing Broadband Service, the rate used to determine if an area is eligible for funding, shall mean the minimum rate- of-data transmission of twenty-five megabits downstream and three megabits upstream for both mobile and fixed service.

The new RUS rules also require any infrastructure that’s funded by its loans be capable of delivering service at those speeds…

With respect to the ‘‘Broadband Lending Speed’’, the rate at which applicants must propose to offer new broadband service is a minimum bandwidth of twenty-five megabits downstream and three megabits upstream for both mobile and fixed service to the customer.

It’s the same minimum that the Federal Communications Commission has set for advanced telecommunications services – high speed broadband, in other words. But ironically, while RUS raises its minimum, the FCC lowered its threshold for mobile broadband subsidies in rural areas to 5 Mbps down and no particular requirement on the upload side, and is considering dropping its advanced services benchmark to 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up for mobile, and perhaps all, service.

RUS has it right.