For today’s families, the utilities absolutely necessary for daily life include water, electricity, heat and broadband internet. Fast internet is no longer a luxury. For both our pandemic lives and beyond, broadband is a need for all.
Currently, the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of broadband is 25 Megabits (Mbps) per second (Mbps) of download speed and 3Mbps for upload. Realistically, that might already be outdated. In March, four senators asked the FCC to change that definition to 100 Mbps “up and down.” According to Engadget, they pointed out that for telemedicine, online education, work from home and direct business applications, “many networks fail to come close to ‘high-speed’ in the year 2021,” and that, “for any of these functions, upload speeds far greater than 3 Mbps are particularly critical.”