How and when will BCH lower the minimum transaction fee?

With potentially unconstrained blocks, there never has to be a fee market. But as BCH gains in value, people will eventually start to feel 1 sat/byte tx fees. If BCH does a 5x to $3500, a normal 1 sat/byte tx would be about $0.01. IMHO, that is unacceptable and sub-cent fees should always be the goal.

I'm sure most people in here understand that the plan is to eventually lower the 1 sat/byte requirement. But how and when exactly does that happen? Does it require a hard fork? Or can nodes simply lower the parameter? I, and I'm sure many others, would like to know.