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May 9, 2016 08:00 pm
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0QuAXxgvBQA/4mbps-still-the-standard-for-one-govt-broadband-grant-program
4Mbps Still The Standard For One Govt Broadband Grant Program
An anonymous reader cites an Ars Technica report: Four U.S. senators say that the Internet speed standard for a government grant program shouldn't be stuck at 4Mbps. The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities, but it uses a speed standard of just 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Even that speed is an increase over the 3Mbps (download and upload combined) standard the program used until just a few weeks ago. US Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) say that the USDA didn't raise the standard high enough. In a letter last week to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the senators questioned the decision to set the grant program's speed threshold below the 10Mbps/1Mbps standard used by a separate USDA loan program. "Earlier this month, USDA upped broadband speed requirements for the Broadband Access Loan Program to 10Mbps, while Community Connect was only upped to 4Mbps," the senators noted. "In order to maintain the programs' relevance in an age of rapidly increasing demand for bandwidth, we strongly urge you to consider updating their broadband speed definitions, particularly the Community Connect Program's Minimum Broadband Service benchmark."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0QuAXxgvBQA/4mbps-still-the-standard-for-one-govt-broadband-grant-program
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