<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 4:00 PM, John-Thomas Richards <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jtr@jrichards.org">jtr@jrichards.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 02:58:56PM -0400, Bob Kline wrote:<br>
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Adam Tauno Williams<br>
> <<a href="mailto:awilliam@whitemice.org">awilliam@whitemice.org</a><br>
</div>[snip]<br>
<div class="im">> > It would be very interesting to see real-world benchmarking of such<br>
> > services; but I've not seen any [you'd need to connect each service<br>
> > to the same place - which would be expensive - otherwise your tests<br>
> > wouldn't be comparative]. On the other hand I'm pretty confident<br>
> > that paying for "50MBps" would land squarely in the "waste of money"<br>
> > category as I doubt you will get any substantial improvements of<br>
> > real-world performance once you past 10MBps. You rather quickly run<br>
</div>> > into constraints [very possibly administrative] on the remote.<br>
><br>
> Why 10 Mbps?<br>
<div class="im">><br>
> It's chicken and egg. In 1980 I had a 300 bps modem. A "Cat," with<br>
> the handset cradle. Today I have an actual 16 Mbps - under many<br>
> conditions anyway. More bandwidth has always found uses, and nothing<br>
> I know says some kind of optimum speed has been passed already. Maybe<br>
> optimum in terms of bang for the buck using the old twisted pair<br>
> technology.<br>
<br>
</div>I have Comcast's basic internet service. I regularly see download<br>
speeds around 10Mbps. It really is fast enough. Both my wife and I can<br>
watch <a href="http://hulu.com" target="_blank">hulu.com</a> (at the same time) without a problem. I can download a<br>
~680MB iso in a few minutes time. The *only* benefit I can see from a<br>
faster connection would be faster upload. I'd say that real-world usage<br>
indicates the optimum speed has been passed. Streaming hi-def? Some<br>
day, but that's not how people are using the web. Ten years ago many<br>
were still transitioning from dial-up to broadband. Dial-up was<br>
insufficient based on today's usage. Most people use the internet to<br>
surf the web (including the social networking sites), send email, chat,<br>
and, occasionally, download a show/watch tv. Ten Mbps seems adequate.<br>
<br>
You could argue that it's simply chicken and egg. I wonder how Korea<br>
and Japan uses its 100Mbps connections. Based on the exchange students<br>
from Korea and Taiwan we've hosted, my guess is it's very similar to how<br>
we use our 16Mbps connections, which means the speed is overkill. It's<br>
like a car. Sure, the speedometer indicates it can go 120mph—and maybe<br>
it can. But how often do you need your car to go that fast?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Good points. Let me just point out that </div><div>Google thinks higher speed is necessary</div><div>to expand its business - hence the 1 Gbps</div>
<div>trial. One can also think downloading movies</div><div>and other things.</div><div><br></div><div>I could also suggest that higher bandwidths</div><div>actually free up servers. They have to spend</div><div>less time - and cycles - moving large files.</div>
<div>With large caches, they can just spit them </div><div>across. e.g., one could send a version of</div><div>Ubuntu at 56 Kbps, but it will take a long </div><div>time, and the process count on a server </div><div>could really start to build up - i.e., congestion</div>
<div>would set in. So perhaps higher bandwidth</div><div>means a more lightly loaded network. For</div><div>now anyway.</div><div><br></div><div>It is apparently a fact that almost half</div><div>the population still uses dialup. I think</div>
<div>a lot of that is the lack of knowledge and</div><div>confidence to upgrade. Something I've heard.</div><div>Clearly 56 Kbps is inadequate for today's</div><div>complicated web pages, and even for large</div>
<div>e-mail loads, which can now be 20 to 25 MB.</div><div>(Google and Yahoo I believe. ) </div><div><br></div><div>In a way you seem to be on the side of</div><div>the angels for now, because AT&T and</div><div>Comcast show no signs of providing </div>
<div>higher speeds at prices of interest. AT&T</div><div>has capped it's monthly byte quota at </div><div>80GB, and for Comcast it's now 250GB.</div><div>AT&T has stated explicitly that it feels</div><div>
that it's current DSL speeds are high</div><div>enough for anyone. But as you suggest,</div><div>there is the question of what Japan and</div><div>other Asian countries do with up to </div><div>60 Mbps. I suspect they are finding new</div>
<div>things, but for now I don't know specifically</div><div>what.</div><div><br></div><div>Me? I don't think we've reach the promised</div><div>land yet regarding bandwidth. Every dimension</div><div>of PCs - memory, drives, CPU "power", bandwidth</div>
<div>for Internet access, USB, etc., keep increasing</div><div>and the benefits always seem to be there.</div><div><br></div><div> -- Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
[snip]<br>
<font color="#888888">--<br>
john-thomas<br>
------<br>
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another<br>
mind.<br>
James Russell Lowell, poet, essayist, and diplomat (1819-1891)<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5">_______________________________________________<br>
grlug mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:grlug@grlug.org">grlug@grlug.org</a><br>
<a href="http://shinobu.grlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grlug" target="_blank">http://shinobu.grlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grlug</a></div></div></blockquote></div><br>