After criticisms from legislators and students currently attending school remotely, Comcast has announced that it is doubling download speeds for its Internet Essentials low-income broadband program from 25 megabits per second to 50 megabits per second. The upgrade also includes an increase to upload speed to 5 megabits per second.
This was made alongside the announcement that the company also intends to open even more Lift Centers, which are public community centers that allow students to freely attend online classes.
The previous download speed of 25mbps was the federal minimum requirement to be considered broadband and was introduced at the start of the pandemic. According to the article, "Low-income customers who are eligible for the program, which includes many individuals and families who qualify for public assistance, pay $9.95 a month for the service and have access to discounted computers and digital literacy programs." (Caffrey, 2021).
Initially, in response to calls by advocates to increase internet speeds so that multiple Zoom calls can occur in one household, Comcast claimed their internet essentials plan met the requirements for Zoom. What I find interesting is the focus on this article on download speed, when upload speed is the bottleneck. Currently, a 720p group video conference requires both 1.5 mbps upload and a 1.5 mbps download. Previously, Internet Essentials upload speed was 3 mbps (which was not even mentioned in the article). This means that previously, two simultaneous 720p group zoom calls was the capacity, and that has now been improved to three with some headroom for other internet activities.
Having a lower upload speed than download speed is typical for most online networks, but this doubling of both download and upload speeds will only allow for one more zoom group call per household. This also leads to the question of, "if comcast is able to increase internet speeds, why didn't they do this before?" and "Why did they chose to only double it? Why double download speeds which were not the primary cause of families' inability to attend classes remotely”?
Michelle Caffrey, 2 February 2021, "Comcast doubles Speeds for low-income Internet Essentials program in wake of criticism", contributed by Andrew Rosenthal, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 2 April 2021, accessed 19 April 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/comcast-doubles-speeds-low-income-internet-essentials-program-wake-criticism
Critical Commentary
After criticisms from legislators and students currently attending school remotely, Comcast has announced that it is doubling download speeds for its Internet Essentials low-income broadband program from 25 megabits per second to 50 megabits per second. The upgrade also includes an increase to upload speed to 5 megabits per second.
This was made alongside the announcement that the company also intends to open even more Lift Centers, which are public community centers that allow students to freely attend online classes.
The previous download speed of 25mbps was the federal minimum requirement to be considered broadband and was introduced at the start of the pandemic. According to the article, "Low-income customers who are eligible for the program, which includes many individuals and families who qualify for public assistance, pay $9.95 a month for the service and have access to discounted computers and digital literacy programs." (Caffrey, 2021).
Initially, in response to calls by advocates to increase internet speeds so that multiple Zoom calls can occur in one household, Comcast claimed their internet essentials plan met the requirements for Zoom. What I find interesting is the focus on this article on download speed, when upload speed is the bottleneck. Currently, a 720p group video conference requires both 1.5 mbps upload and a 1.5 mbps download. Previously, Internet Essentials upload speed was 3 mbps (which was not even mentioned in the article). This means that previously, two simultaneous 720p group zoom calls was the capacity, and that has now been improved to three with some headroom for other internet activities.
Having a lower upload speed than download speed is typical for most online networks, but this doubling of both download and upload speeds will only allow for one more zoom group call per household. This also leads to the question of, "if comcast is able to increase internet speeds, why didn't they do this before?" and "Why did they chose to only double it? Why double download speeds which were not the primary cause of families' inability to attend classes remotely”?