Hacker News Reader

Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

That explains why I got this email from my broadband provider this morning:

>We've increased your internet speeds to show you our appreciation

I was wondering what I'd done to deserve it!

I got the same message, also from Xfinity. It does sort of make me wonder: If the FCC declared broadband to be 100/50, would I have 50mbps upload speeds this morning?

To me, this seems to be a clear positive outcome of the FCC's change: Xfinity had this capacity, the FCC raised their standards, and now all(?) Xfinity customers have increased upload speeds for zero additional cost. Seems like pretty much a best-case result of this metric increase.

Edit: Formerly 200/10, now 300/20. Email arrived 10am today.

I didn't get a message from Xfinity and a speed test showed no increase, but checking my plan on their website it said 300 mbps whereas it used to be 200 mbps. A modem reboot later and I'm getting 355 down/24 up on a speed test site, and 373 down/25 up on "what my ethernet card sees" test [1].

When the plan was 200 mbps I'd get around 240 down on speed tests. Xfinity has always been 10-20% faster for me than whatever the sticker on the plan says.

I'm not sure, unless they actually say it is, that this is in response to the FCC. In the almost 20 years I've had Xfinity I've had numerous speed bumps like this, much more often than the FCC bumps the speed in their definition. My plan went from 100 mbps to 200 mbps sometime in the last few months for example.

[1] Run netstat once a second to get the byte counts in and out per second, multiply by 8 to get bits.

What's different about this speed bump is that suddenly upload and download are closer together than was ever possible before. When we moved in a few years ago there were no options that provided >10 Mbps up but <=300 Mbps down. Now all of the sudden I'm on a 20 Mbps down plan with 300 up.

I'm skeptical that they just coincidentally matched the new minimum upload speed after years of insisting that residential plans could make do with 6.

In my experience, xfinity will often do speed increases and market them, but leave me on a "grandfathered" plan, which leaves me with the same speed as before, and usually some creeping "service fees". Eventually, as I get annoyed with the increasing service fees, I login and look at their new plans and end up enjoying a nice speed increase and a lower monthly bill.

Cox _just_ sent out a similarly-phrased email (Subject: Enjoy this gift of faster internet, <me>) saying they bumped my upload speed from 35->100mbps. I didn't expect that given the new minimum upload speed is 20mbps

Verizon bumped me to gigabit for no good reason a few years ago. I think I had only signed up for 50 initially. I clocked it at 800/800 but I'm not going to complain.

Same here. I thought they sent that email out to incentivize me not to move to fiber. Turns out that FCC is the reason.

>"We appreciate providing you with the bare minimum, as required by statute."

ISPs aren't statutorily required to meet the FCC's speed bare minimum. It is just that doing so lets them be counted as broadband and might qualify them for some incentives to deploy broadband to underserved areas.

Also I believe that an ISP is counted as broadband by the FCC if they have some plans available that meet the FCC's minimums. They do not have to meet them with all plans.

I mean, "we're chasing the easy carrot on the stick we coulda always given customers" instead of "we're avoiding being punished" isn't that much better a framing.

Yes - same from Xfinity

I didn't get the same... (same provider)

Try rebooting your modem. That got it for me (the increase, not the notice of an increase).

I actually just changed my modem today because I was using Comcast's modem/router combo and wanted to use my own... I'm still at about 50-60mbps. I guess I will contact them again.

I talked to them and they say I am still on the 50/20 plan... they replied saying I would need to pay more to get 100mpbs. I don't need it, so I won't.

Xfinity bumped the lower tier plans earlier in the week or maybe last week. They obviously knew this was coming.

Same!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com