The head of the FCC is trying to upgrade your internet speeds

So many things have changed on the internet over the last decade: TikTok replaced Vine and taught us a bunch of dance moves, Bored Ape Yacht Club and similarly nonsensical NFTs swept the web, and Facebook rebranded as Meta.

One thing that’s stayed the same? The benchmark for minimum broadband speeds.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel is trying to change that. Her plan, announced July 25, seeks to upgrade what’s considered baseline web service to 100 megabits per second (mbps) for download speeds and 20 mbps for upload speeds.

For context, it takes about a 6 mbps download speed to support a stable, high-definition video conference, and a roughly 25 mbps download speed to stream Ultra HD videos. But according to Rosenworcel, technology has evolved so much that Americans need an even higher-quality baseline just to get by.

“In today’s world, everyone needs access to affordable, high-speed internet, no exceptions,” she said in a statement. “It’s time to connect everyone, everywhere. Anything short of 100% is just not good enough.”

The last time the broadband benchmark changed was in 2015, when the commission set it at the current 25/3 mbps standard. Trump-era FCC Chairman Ajit Pai declined to raise it, claiming that broadband was being rolled out consistently and efficiently across the country at those speeds.

Broadband benchmarks matter because they set the floor for the quality of service the FCC’s connectivity programs will subsidize. With $42 billion in federal infrastructure funding pouring into the nation’s networks by 2030 to bring the 100/20 mbps speeds to underserved areas, the proposed update would help standardize internet speeds across the government. For consumers, especially those in rural areas, it could mean the difference between a dropped video call and an uninterrupted (and therefore productive) virtual meeting.

Rosenworcel also proposed that the agency work toward connecting all Americans with gigabit internet speeds.

The inquiry is part of the FCC’s somewhat clunkily named Section 706 report, an annual assessment prescribed by the Telecommunications Act that considers “whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to ‘all Americans,’” according to the FCC’s statement.

Rosenworcel asked her colleagues to consider elements of internet expansion including how much service costs, what plans are available in what areas, how likely people are to subscribe to the available plans, and whether such access is fair across demographics. The full FCC must still vote to move forward with the inquiry.