{"id":120099,"date":"2025-08-30T05:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T05:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/120099\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T05:18:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T05:18:15","slug":"how-big-is-the-need-for-speed-in-the-broadband-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/120099\/","title":{"rendered":"How big is the need for speed in the broadband market?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumers don\u2019t care about competing ISPs, they just want the tech to work, said former FCC Commissioner Michael O\u2019ReillyIt\u2019s not just about what the consumer wants, it\u2019s critical to have speeds that are \u201cahead of the applications,\u201d said NSR analyst Blair LevinFrom an antitrust perspective, speed, price and number of ISPs aren\u2019t the only things that matter for competition<\/p>\n

As competition of all kinds of technologies ramps in the broadband market, policy experts debate about how much speed should matter as a metric for quality service.<\/p>\n

We try to sell these rocket ships when most people really need a bicycle or maybe a moped.<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Reilly, Principal, MPOReilly Consulting<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Reilly, principal at MPOReilly Consulting and former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, argued the industry is overselling the idea that the public needs \u201csome certain minimum level,\u201d like 1-gig. Consumers don\u2019t really care that fiber providers are duking it out with cable, wireless and satellite \u2013 they just want the tech to work when they need it to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to sell these rocket ships when most people really need a bicycle or maybe a moped,\u201d he said at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) panel this week.<\/p>\n

But the speeds consumers need and \u201cwhat the country needs\u201d are two different things, said Blair Levin, New Street Research policy analyst and non-resident senior fellow at Brookings.<\/p>\n

While he agreed with O\u2019Reilly many consumers may be buying higher speeds than what they require for daily tasks, high speed access is still critical for the people designing applications that can \u201ctake advantage of that extra power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy basic perspective is that we should have a speed which [is] ahead of the applications,\u201d Levin said. \u201cWe had exactly the opposite for the first, roughly speaking, 20 years of the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FCC only last year raised its minimum internet speed benchmark<\/a> from 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream to 100\/20 Mbps. The previous benchmark had been in place since 2015.<\/p>\n

The Biden-era FCC also set a long-term speed goal of 1-gig downstream and 500 Mbps upstream (which is typical for a fiber connection), but Chairman Brendan Carr wants to axe that goal<\/a> as it could \u201c[skew] the market by unnecessarily potentially picking technological winners and losers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metrics aside, it\u2019s important that providers are aware of what\u2019s actually causing issues for customers, according to Shane Tews, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. (AEI). What consumers might interpret as a speed problem could be an issue with how an operator configured its website, for example.<\/p>\n

\"ITIF<\/p>\n

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) panel, August 2025
\n (Screenshot)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll think it\u2019s just speed and they are not getting enough speed from their provider. A lot of times it\u2019s a matter of making sure the information is configured right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Svetlana Gans, a partner at Gibson Dunn who focuses on antitrust and related policy matters, noted speed and price are just some of the factors antitrust laws consider when they determine if broadband markets are operating competitively. For the consumer, things like \u201csafety and durability\u201d (e.g. protecting data from cyber threats) as well as whether an ISP has solid \u201cprivacy protections\u201d can be deal-breakers.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, just counting the number of providers doesn\u2019t answer the question of whether a market is competitive and \u201chow well consumers might be served,\u201d Gans said.<\/p>\n

Are more mega deals coming? Maybe not<\/p>\n

As broadband mergers accelerate<\/a> and larger ISPs scoop up smaller players, panelists agreed consolidation won\u2019t slow down. However, they think some of the bigger deals the telecom industry hypothesized about probably won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always talked about a cable company buying a wireless provider or the other way around. I\u2019m not sure that plays anymore,\u201d said O\u2019Reilly. He noted some providers will still have to go through a \u201cvery contentious\u201d approval process, especially if they have \u201cperspectives that may not sell well with this administration,\u201d likely referring to the Trump admin\u2019s crackdown on DEI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the cable side, Levin thinks a few more mergers are on the horizon aside from Charter\/Cox<\/a>. \u201cAltice will eventually be sold<\/a> and so you\u2019ll basically have two very large cable companies,\u201d he said. But some other possibilities, such as T-Mobile merging with Charter or even Comcast, seem like more of a stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see a lot of interest in that but that\u2019s the last big deal people are talking about,\u201d Levin added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumers don\u2019t care about competing ISPs, they just want the tech to work, said former FCC Commissioner Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[77250,2185,77248,10105,40341,28806,77249,174,77251,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-120099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-blair-levin","9":"tag-broadband","10":"tag-broadband-speeds","11":"tag-competition","12":"tag-consolidation","13":"tag-fierce-network-homepage","14":"tag-gigabit-connectivity","15":"tag-internet","16":"tag-michael-orielly","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}