According to the New Yorks Times…

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday sharply revised its benchmark definition of broadband Internet service. The new definition increases download speeds to more than six times faster than the previous standard, set more than four years ago.

So what’s the new speed?

The new broadband benchmark sets downloads at a speed of 25 megabits a second and uploads of 3 megabits a second. The previous standard was a download speed of 4 megabits a second and an upload speed of 1 megabit a second.

The jump is huge. Compare it to the current Minnesota standard (10-20 Mbps down and 5-10 Mbps up). The challenging part of broadband in Minnesota is the upload speed. Plenty of connections make the download goals and that’s great if you want a community of consumers. If you want a community of producers the upload speed matters too.

Funny but my mom was asking me about this earlier today. She was a Systems Analyst, so technology isn’t a mystery to her but she wondered why the change in definition was necessary. It’s one of those policy discussions that can seem geeky but it matter because once the definition is set, it can quickly become a benchmark for any kind of federal loans or grants.