In an earlier-this-week move, which came amid a horde of directions that the agency has been issuing of late, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a series of questions which clearly highlight the fact that the agency is contemplating the need for faster broadband speeds and questioning data caps.

On Tuesday, the Commission released a notice of inquiry which sought public's comments on whether the present definition used for broadband is a wee bit too slow for the way in which users currently use their connections, and also whether there is a need to set guidelines for data caps.

The release of FCC's notice of inquiry - which chiefly is the FCC's formal "send us your comments" release - largely underscores that the agency is seeking insights into adequate broadband speeds as well as reasonable data caps.

While the inquiry contained questions pertaining to mobile broadband speeds and caps, along with latency and some other issues, the fact which is worth-noting is that the agency apparently does not consider `4 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload' minimum standard for broadband to be useful any more.

Meanwhile, the public can respond to the notice - by writing up their thoughts and then heading over to the Commission's Electronic Filing Comment System - by September 20, expressing their opinion about what they think would be an adequate speed to term a connection as `broadband,' and what would constitute a realistically acceptable data cap.