It's the Latency, FCC

I attended MATSS 2023 this year and it was pretty clear that selling services on top of fiber was where most of the vendors are headed. Things like parental control/safety software built into the ISP provided router and vendor deals (such as Calix CPE networking + Arlo security cameras) but one large vendor suggested that there's a market of something like 25% of ISP customers who would pay higher subscription fees to gain access to a lower latency connection if one were available.

Latency is tricky, though. ISP controlled latency is only manageable on the ISP network which could be huge (like someone riding ATT across the country from start to finish) or very small. So that would mean basic QoS and would only be relevant if the network gear was overloaded and had to pick certain packets to prioritize. Plus, with BGP a preferred route might get cut and a much higher latency route takes its place.

It's much easier to regulate and police transfer speeds while latency tests would only be relevant from CPE to the test server. We run our own speedtest server and customers in town don't even leave our network to hit it. Customers a couple of towns north have a lot more fiber to go through to get to that same server, so either the allowed latency unreliability would be high or ISPs would just put speedtest servers at every POP to game it.

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 orders the FCC to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.” On October 25, The FCC issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) into how well we are doing and invited comments.