Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler used Internet Service Providers' own marketing pitches against them in a very public calling out Thursday (Jan. 29).
Earlier in the day, the FCC had voted 3-2 to set a new high-speed broadband benchmark of 25 Mbps downstream, up from the 4 Mbps that had been the definition of advanced telecommunications services, for the purposes of triggering FCC regulatory authority over broadband deployment.
Wireless and wired ISPs had argued that 4 Mbps was still sufficient, but Wheeler said what they told Washington and what they told their own customers were two different things.
In his statement on the vote, Wheeler essentially called the companies out for arguing against the higher speed benchmark in their FCC filings and meetings, but at the same time pushing the higher speeds to their customers.
