Social FCC Voted 3-2 Along Party Lines To Raise The U.S' Minimum Broadband Speed From 25Mbps to 100Mbps

[panamaican]

It’s hard to follow this whole thread, but on a whole, it sounds like you’re in favor for more home schooling and an education restructuring?

I'm in favor of education restructuring, not necessarily home schooling.

I think the internet solves a massive public education problem -- different rates of learning. Different rates of learning isn't a problem, it's no different that kids getting taller at different rates or hitting puberty at different times. It's normal.

The problem is that classrooms force kids to advance through the material at a rate that doesn't work for them. Some kids might need 2 months on a subject, other kids might need 2 weeks. When the kid who needs 2 months is forced to move forward after 1 month, we're creating a knowledge gap that prevents that kid from having the proper foundation for the next subject. When that gap isn't addressed, the kid falls further and further behind because they never get enough time on the foundational material.

On the other side, if the kid who needs 2 weeks is forced to spend 1 month on the subject, they pick up bad study habits that follow them throughout life. Moving them on as quickly as necessary keeps them operating in the sweet spot where they learn how to study for material that stretches, instead of spending years in material they've mastered in months.

Both groups benefit from individualized education. I've got plenty of anecdotes for both sides and most of the support for smaller classrooms (only works when the class rooms are 14 kids or smaller) and for gifted education (not useful for your highly gifted) are rooted in trying to address the problem.

 

[Rob Battisti]

I'm in favor of education restructuring, not necessarily home schooling.

I think the internet solves a massive public education problem -- different rates of learning. Different rates of learning isn't a problem, it's no different that kids getting taller at different rates or hitting puberty at different times. It's normal.

The problem is that classrooms for kids to advance through the material at a rate that doesn't work for them. Some kids might need 2 months on a subject, other kids might need 2 weeks. When the kid who needs 2 months is forced to move forward after 1 month, we're creating a knowledge gap that prevents that kid from having the proper foundation for the next subject. When that gap isn't addressed, the kid falls further and further behind because they never get enough time on the foundational material.

On the other side, if the kid who needs 2 weeks is forced to spend 1 month on the subject, they pick up bad study habits that follow them throughout life. Moving them on as quickly as necessary keeps them operating in the sweet spot where they learn how to study for material that stretches, instead of spending years in material they've mastered in months.

Both groups benefit from individualized education. I've got plenty of anecdotes for both sides and most of the support for smaller classrooms (only works when the class rooms are 14 kids or smaller) and for gifted education (not useful for your highly gifted) are rooted in trying to address the problem.

I agree. The public education system is foundationally flawed. It’s original purpose in wanting to create workers. It’s insistence in short blocked time periods. It’s inflexibility on individual needs. It’s teachers unions protecting bad teachers…

I could go on and on.

It’s private schools for my kids, alongside tutoring and field education.

However, I’m fortunate enough to be able to provide that. Most aren’t.

I believe the school system needs the most fundamental restructuring possible.

Home schooling CAN be a good thing but you need dedicated parents. Small community home schooling can also be amazing and it is growing nationally.

However, I doubt this fundamental restructuring will happen as the unions are too strong to be dismantled.

 

[Stump]

Those are fair points. My position absolutely requires a massive restructuring of how society handles this. But that's because I think society handles this wrong. I don't think it's a tweak situation, it's an overhaul. And the overhaul is necessary. You can only patch the problem so many times before you should consider if it might make sense to build a new system.

As for your 2 points -- I'll address the second one 1st.

Our current school models separates kids by their parents economic success. Whether it's neighborhood schools or paying for private schools, we're already undercutting the idea of putting kids with other children they wouldn't ordinarily keep company with. If they're studying at home, when they go outside, they're going to be engaging the same neighborhood of kids that already attend their local school.

I'm not certain this is the case - just by proximity, kids aren't going to be spending time hanging out with the entirety of their school catchment - the catchment is definitely going to have a range of socioeconomics in terms of the students inside of it. Kids will play with kids in their neighborhood, if not on their street - which is much more likely to be someone from the same socioeconomic background. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, there are private schools, and there are very rich/very poor/very homogenous neighbourhoods, but generally speaking, I think schools definitely bring together and mix students of different backgrounds.

The parental work situation is, without question, the more difficult. I think it's a situation that the formal schooling dynamic created. Quick economic points that we already know. People with kids want to live near good schools. This applies upward pressure on housing prices, not just for parents with kids but also for adults without kids who want to maximize the return on their home investment. This upward pressure on housing prices requires parents to make more money in order to afford those houses. It, along with many other things, helps drive the need for 2 income households.

If parents didn't have to pick their houses based on proximity to schools, they would have more flexibility in housing choice. Additionally, adults without kids stop consuming housing stock in the very areas that parents need for their kids. Instead, housing choice for parents diverges from that of non-parents. Parents would want to be near parks and playgrounds. Non-parents wouldn't, they might prefer housing near restaurants and bars.

I'm not sure this is good, though. People who don't have kids have a right to parks, and everyone has an expectation that parks are public areas of rest and recreation, not merely outdoor gathering points for unsupervised children - they are that, often, but not exclusively. I dont know that changing housing pressure from areas adajecent to schools to areas that are attractive for other reasons is going to do anything but the opposite of the intended consequences - rich people will have even more reason to hoard the otherwise nice places to live. This would only increase the pressure for premium residential areas. As it is now, many households choose to live away from areas they otherwise would prefer (ie, nice areas) in order to be closer to their preferred school because of their children's social history with other pupils at that school, or specific educational offerings like language immersion programs or specific teachers.

I'm also not sure that schooling created the need for both parents to leave to work - It seems rather obvious to me that it's the other way around. How could we possibly have an economy anything like the one we have now if the default mode for adults - parents or otherwise - was not that they could expect to leave the house for the whole day to work? It seems like this is a concern even more fundamental than the need to educate youth - to create essentially state-sponsored daycare such that people can go to their jobs.

I think this would reduce housing prices and allow parents to pursue single income households or one full time, one part-time income. This is educated speculation on my part, so I don't have research to support it at the moment.

But, yes, a fundamental restructuring of society is required for this but a fundamental restructuring of society is probably necessary anyway.

I think it would have the opposite effect. The people who could adapt to this new system would have to be wealthy already, and they'd likely just intensively relocate to neighbourhoods with similar peers, driving the costs of real estate in these nicer areas through the roof and desertifying every other area. Schools function in that way as a bit of an equalizer, creating a secondary reason for where households decide to live - its not ONLY a question of buying in at the nicest, most-expensive real estate location for many families, it's about proximity to certain schools. With this removed, there's one less condition that the elite have in determining where they might want to live, and we'd see strong class-based divides between neighbourhoods. I dont think this is a good thing.

 

[panamaican]

I agree. The public education system is foundationally flawed. It’s original purpose in wanting to create workers. It’s insistence in short blocked time periods. It’s inflexibility on individual needs. It’s teachers unions protecting bad teachers…

I could go on and on.

It’s private schools for my kids, alongside tutoring and field education.

However, I’m fortunate enough to be able to provide that. Most aren’t.

I believe the school system needs the most fundamental restructuring possible.

Home schooling CAN be a good thing but you need dedicated parents. Small community home schooling can also be amazing and it is growing nationally.

However, I doubt this fundamental restructuring will happen as the unions are too strong to be dismantled.

Private for me as well. But I send my kid to school for socialization because, as a head of school told me, we're never going to move fast enough to challenge your kid and, and this is very fair, his job is to make sure all of the kids can meet their academic standards, not to push my kid as fast as he can go.

Restructuring is necessary but I don't think the biggest issue will be unions. I think the biggest issue will be parents who bought houses for the school district and parents whose children fall in the sweet spot that the public education system reaches. The middle and upper middle class who can afford to spend enough money outside of school to cover any gaps or any acceleration that they need. That leaves them with the economic value of being in a good school district and they won't intentionally devalue their investment for the benefit of some other person's kid.

 

[woodguyatl]

Private for me as well. But I send my kid to school for socialization because, as a head of school told me, we're never going to move fast enough to challenge your kid and, and this is very fair, his job is to make sure all of the kids can meet their academic standards, not to push my kid as fast as he can go.

My daughter is on the verge of graduating from very high achieving private school so my opinion may be skewed but I cant imagine the head of our school ever saying such a thing. My daughter's besty is a math savant and the school has been bringing in a math professor from GA Tech to teach her math since she was a freshman. I believe she is doing some sort of theoretical research math these days. Other kids who are good at writing, history, languages, or other sciences are getting similar levels of support. My daughter was with a group who knocked out the entire years of AP Bio and AP Chem in one semester each just to free up time for other interesting things. My point is, I guess, is don't let a school short-change your kid. Of course, there are also good reasons for not letting kids progress too quickly. Each kid is different.

 

[panamaican]

I'm not certain this is the case - just by proximity, kids aren't going to be spending time hanging out with the entirety of their school catchment - the catchment is definitely going to have a range of socioeconomics in terms of the students inside of it. Kids will play with kids in their neighborhood, if not on their street - which is much more likely to be someone from the same socioeconomic background. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, there are private schools, and there are very rich/very poor/very homogenous neighbourhoods, but generally speaking, I think schools definitely bring together and mix students of different backgrounds.

That's not how it's worked in reality. Just because kids are in the same building, it doesn't mean they're spending time together. Kids mostly know the kids who live nearby, who they take the bus or walk to school with. Because those are the kids they have time to actually hang out with outside of the classroom.

I'm not sure this is good, though. People who don't have kids have a right to parks, and everyone has an expectation that parks are public areas of rest and recreation, not merely outdoor gathering points for unsupervised children - they are that, often, but not exclusively. I dont know that changing housing pressure from areas adajecent to schools to areas that are attractive for other reasons is going to do anything but the opposite of the intended consequences - rich people will have even more reason to hoard the otherwise nice places to live. This would only increase the pressure for premium residential areas. As it is now, many households choose to live away from areas they otherwise would prefer (ie, nice areas) in order to be closer to their preferred school because of their children's social history with other pupils at that school, or specific educational offerings like language immersion programs or specific teachers.

I'm also not sure that schooling created the need for both parents to leave to work - It seems rather obvious to me that it's the other way around. How could we possibly have an economy anything like the one we have now if the default mode for adults - parents or otherwise - was not that they could expect to leave the house for the whole day to work? It seems like this is a concern even more fundamental than the need to educate youth - to create essentially state-sponsored daycare such that people can go to their jobs.

I'm not differentiating between rich people and poor people. I'm differentiating between adults with kids and adults without kids. Rich people will buy more expensive houses than poor people and live in different neighbor hoods. But that's not what drives housing prices. School districts do. This comes back to the funding issue. Since we fund schools through property taxes, more expensive houses generate more property tax dollars which results in better quality schools which attracts more parents, driving up the price of housing. This part of it is well researched. It's cyclical. Eliminating the school pressure changes how funding for education works, which has a down river effect on housing costs.

Yes, the premiums will switch to better parks and better playgrounds but parks and playgrounds are open access, while schools are not. If you live in a neighborhood with bad parks, you can drive, bus, walk to better parks and playgrounds and play there. If you live in a neighborhood with bad schools, you can't just go to a different school because of limitations on seating. It's a completely different variable in how it affects people's lives.

So, yes, it will affect how much people need to work because housing costs are the largest consumer of people's income. And if you can reduce that cost, you can reduce how much work is needed to meet it.

As for adults who want to live by parks and playgrounds, that's not the biggest driver for how adults without kids pick housing. For adults, without kids, it's about proximity to work and proximity to social activities. Parks are part of that but a small fraction of it. For adults with children -- quality of local schools is the #1 driver of how they pick housing.

I think it would have the opposite effect. The people who could adapt to this new system would have to be wealthy already, and they'd likely just intensively relocate to neighbourhoods with similar peers, driving the costs of real estate in these nicer areas through the roof and desertifying every other area. Schools function in that way as a bit of an equalizer, creating a secondary reason for where households decide to live - its not ONLY a question of buying in at the nicest, most-expensive real estate location for many families, it's about proximity to certain schools. With this removed, there's one less condition that the elite have in determining where they might want to live, and we'd see strong class-based divides between neighbourhoods. I dont think this is a good thing.

A large part of this conversation is driven by funding issues. School is absolutely not an equalizer because of how the funding and housing costs reinforce greater and greater economic inequality. The research on this is extensive and worth reading.

And I don't care about the elite. The "elite" aren't sending their kids to public schools to mingle with other kids. They're sending their kids to $40k private schools and $70k boarding schools. They are buying houses in expensive school districts because that's what locks in the value of the house and then paying for private school for the advantages it brings.

I care about the quality of education available to the kids. Not where the adults live. Rich adults will buy in rich neighborhoods. There's nothing wrong with that but the quality of the education available to them won't be any different than the quality of the education available to kids in lower income neighborhoods because we won't be filtering that education through the economics of school buildings and property taxes. That is what matters imo.

 

[panamaican]

My daughter is on the verge of graduating from very high achieving private school so my opinion may be skewed but I cant imagine the head of our school ever saying such a thing. My daughter's besty is a math savant and the school has been bringing in a math professor from GA Tech to teach her math since she was a freshman. I believe she is doing some sort of theoretical research math these days. Other kids who are good at writing, history, languages, or other sciences are getting similar levels of support. My daughter was with a group who knocked out the entire years of AP Bio and AP Chem in one semester each just to free up time for other interesting things. My point is, I guess, is don't let a school short-change your kid. Of course, there are also good reasons for not letting kids progress too quickly. Each kid is different.

Well, this head of school and I had very genuine and open conversations regarding our children. Both of our kids are profoundly gifted. And while the school serves quite a few very intelligent children, there are levels and even the most well financed private schools can't meet the needs of the highest echelon students before high school.

By high school, it's fine. But k-4 is vastly more important for building certain lifelong habits.

This particular head of school was sending her kids to a school exclusively for the gifted and even that couldn't move fast enough for her children. Our kids are also both members of a non-profit education foundation that only admits kids above the 99.9th percentile (the head of school wrote my child's recommendation letter).

So, our conversation was decidedly more candid than might be expected between a parent and a school administrator.

And it's not unique information that she's sharing. It's pretty much common knowledge in the profoundly gifted community that short of radical acceleration (meaning 3+ grade acceleration with constant reassessment), you're not going to find adequate challenge in public or private school. This is what leads many parents to homeschool but that has it's own drawbacks. But the flipside of radical acceleration is graduating from high school at 12 or 13 and being completely out of touch with what college age kids are experiencing. That can be socially harmful for some kids and you never know which one your kid is until you've gone down the road and then it's hard to change course.

So, we're not letting the school shortchange our kid. But these are the realities of public and private school. No different from the teachers who admit that when they get a 3rd grader who is behind in reading or math, they truly don't have the time or resources to get that kid up to speed. The kid is pretty much irreversibly screwed within the system. But will school administrators ever tell a parent that -- "We simply cannot get your kid up to speed because we don't have the time or personnel to help him/her. So, they'll continue to be advanced until they graduate without the requisite skills we promised"? Of course not, unless you're having that candid conversation.

 

[blackheart]

Personally, I am shocked that every republican on this voted to not raise the standard.

At this point you could create a bill for the house to make a formal statement that puppy dogs, rainbows and love are good things and every single house republican would vote it down.

 

[Arkain2K]

Some Canadians want their country to follow suit, but in my opinion the problem with Canada's broadband isn't the 50Mbps download / 10Mbps upload speed, but more with the fact that they still have a monthly data cap, in the year 2024.​

​

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The U.S. has increased its internet speed benchmark – Is it time for Canada to follow suit? ​

The FCC has mandated upload speeds of 100Mbps and download speeds of 20Mbps​

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. has increased its broadband speed benchmark, surpassing the lead Canada once held.

The benchmark speed for high-speed fixed broadband internet is now 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads. This is an increase to the speeds the FCC set in 2015, a benchmark of 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps upload speeds.

Several factors contribute to this change, including usage patterns and the availability of services from internet service providers (ISPs), according to a press release detailing the updated speeds.

The change surpasses Canada’s benchmark for fixed minimum internet speeds of at least 50Mbps for downloads and 10Mbps for uploads. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) implemented the speeds in 2016, adding high-speed internet to its definition of “basic telecom services” for the first time.

Prior to the 2016 change, the CRTC last reviewed the definition in 2011 and set target speeds of 5Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps for uploads.

When the CRTC implemented the minimum speeds in 2016, it greatly surpassed the speeds in the U.S. Is it again time for Canada to examine its minimum internet speeds?

Keldon Bester, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, believes so. “I think Canada would be wise to pull that floor up,” Bester told MobileSyrup.

But it’s not just about matching the FCC’s benchmarks. Bester says Canada should use this opportunity to examine if it can push further than the U.S., given the improvements in technology that offer better internet services, coupled with the growing needs of Canadians.

The opportunity also includes Canada examining if it’s using the correct aspects to measure the minimum speeds it mandates.

“In one consensus, this is an opportunity to check ourselves; not only is our floor at the right level but are we looking at the right dimensions of what makes internet access useful to Canadians?”

Bandwidth is only one factor in internet access. Latency, Bester said, is another essential factor to consider.

Latency refers to the time it takes for data to move between networks. Even with access to high-speed internet, higher latency means it’ll take longer to load web pages, video chat, or stream content.

The regulatory body told MobileSyrup that more than 91 percent of Canadian homes and businesses have access to the minimum internet speeds at this time.

However, the need for high-quality internet services still exists in many rural and remote regions. The CRTC points to the Broadband Fund to help address the connectivity gap, which it’s working to improve.

“The CRTC is currently taking steps to improve the Broadband Fund, to make the application process faster and easier, while looking at creating a new funding stream for Indigenous communities and funding projects that will increase the reliability of rural and remote networks.”

Accessing high-speed internet services has been a major focus for the CRTC’s new leadership.

In March 2023, the commission launched a review of wholesale rates for high-speed internet services. In November, it made an interim decision to mandate Bell and Telus to give ISPs in Ontario and Québec wholesale access to their fibre networks. Last month, it held a public consultation as part of its review.

Despite ongoing concerns about how long it takes the regulator to move through files, Bester says there’s some hope Canada will take quick action to raise the minimum speeds.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen a CRTC chair who is really taking both the promise and limitations of the agency seriously. Understanding the speed at which public processes need to take place, I think there’s still an opportunity and nothing stopping us from doing so.”

The U.S. has increased its internet speed benchmark - Is it time for Canada to follow suit?

The change in the U.S. surpasses Canada's benchmark for fixed minimum internet speeds of at least 50Mbps for downloads and 10Mbps for uploads.

mobilesyrup.com

 

[west42]

290 dl speed through my phone. Wife needs good internet for work. All I know is the tranny porn doesn't lag whatsoever