The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) annual Broadband Progress Report dropped this week and it contains a number of striking revelations, from the concerning to the controversial.

Most controversially, the FCC announced that it was was dramatically raising the threshold of what it considers broadband Internet, from 4 megabits per second to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads. The usual ISP subjects are already howling in protest over this development. But more concerning, using this revised standard the FCC found that, in rural areas especially, broadband deployment in the U.S. is simply failing to keep pace with the high definition graphics, voice and data offerings that most of us take for granted.

The report finds that 17 percent of Americans  – 55 million people – lack access to 25 Mbps broadband. Disturbingly, a significant digital divide remains between urban and rural populations, with over half of all rural Americans lacking access to broadband, as defined by the new standard.

The FCC’s reasoning for the upward revision is that the bandwidth demanded by modern devices has simply outstripped the previous standard.

“Consider that the average connected household has seven Internet-connected devices — including televisions, desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. Using all these devices at once is “not just tough to do with a 4 Mbps connection, it’s pretty much impossible without taking turns being online, which is a non-starter.”

Industry groups representing cable and Internet companies are already crying foul over the new standard, claiming that the FCC “dramatically exaggerates” the amount of bandwidth needed by a typical Internet user. But for anyone who has struggled to stream Netflix over a DSL 4.0 Mbps connection, these protests ring hollow.

“In 2015, taking turns to share the Internet bandwidth is as absurd as taking turns to use the electricity,” said Wheeler.