[GRLUG] FiOS -- NOT

[Bob Kline]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 4:00 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 02:58:56PM -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
> > <awilliam at whitemice.org
> [snip]
> > > It would be very interesting to see real-world benchmarking of such
> > > services;  but I've not seen any [you'd need to connect each service
> > > to the same place - which would be expensive - otherwise your tests
> > > wouldn't be comparative].  On the other hand I'm pretty confident
> > > that paying for "50MBps" would land squarely in the "waste of money"
> > > category as I doubt you will get any substantial improvements of
> > > real-world performance once you past 10MBps.  You rather quickly run
> > > into constraints [very possibly administrative] on the remote.
> >
> > Why 10 Mbps?
> >
> > It's chicken and egg.  In 1980 I had a 300 bps modem.  A "Cat," with
> > the handset cradle.  Today I have an actual 16 Mbps - under many
> > conditions anyway.  More bandwidth has always found uses, and nothing
> > I know says some kind of optimum speed has been passed already.  Maybe
> > optimum in terms of bang for the buck using the old twisted pair
> > technology.
>
> I have Comcast's basic internet service.  I regularly see download
> speeds around 10Mbps.  It really is fast enough.  Both my wife and I can
> watch hulu.com (at the same time) without a problem.  I can download a
> ~680MB iso in a few minutes time.  The *only* benefit I can see from a
> faster connection would be faster upload.  I'd say that real-world usage
> indicates the optimum speed has been passed.  Streaming hi-def?  Some
> day, but that's not how people are using the web.  Ten years ago many
> were still transitioning from dial-up to broadband.  Dial-up was
> insufficient based on today's usage.  Most people use the internet to
> surf the web (including the social networking sites), send email, chat,
> and, occasionally, download a show/watch tv.  Ten Mbps seems adequate.
>
> You could argue that it's simply chicken and egg.  I wonder how Korea
> and Japan uses its 100Mbps connections.  Based on the exchange students
> from Korea and Taiwan we've hosted, my guess is it's very similar to how
> we use our 16Mbps connections, which means the speed is overkill.  It's
> like a car.  Sure, the speedometer indicates it can go 120mph—and maybe
> it can.  But how often do you need your car to go that fast?
>

Good points.  Let me just point out that
Google thinks higher speed is necessary
to expand its business - hence the 1 Gbps
trial.  One can also think downloading movies
and other things.

I could also suggest that higher bandwidths
actually free up servers.  They have to spend
less time - and cycles - moving large files.
With large caches, they can just spit them
across.  e.g., one could send a version of
Ubuntu at 56 Kbps, but it will take a long
time, and the process count on a server
could really start to build up - i.e., congestion
would set in.  So perhaps higher bandwidth
means a more lightly loaded network.  For
now anyway.

It is apparently a fact that almost half
the population still uses dialup.  I think
a lot of that is the lack of knowledge and
confidence to upgrade.  Something I've heard.
Clearly 56 Kbps is inadequate for today's
complicated web pages, and even for large
e-mail loads, which can now be 20 to 25 MB.
(Google and Yahoo I believe. )

In a way you seem to be on the side of
the angels for now, because AT&T and
Comcast show no signs of providing
higher speeds at prices of interest.  AT&T
has capped it's monthly byte quota at
80GB, and for Comcast it's now 250GB.
AT&T has stated explicitly that it feels
that it's current DSL speeds are high
enough for anyone.  But as you suggest,
there is the question of what Japan and
other Asian countries do with up to
60 Mbps.  I suspect they are finding new
things,  but for now I don't know specifically
what.

Me?  I don't think we've reach the promised
land yet regarding bandwidth.  Every dimension
of PCs - memory, drives,  CPU "power", bandwidth
for Internet access, USB, etc.,  keep increasing
and the benefits always seem to be there.

   -- Bob



> [snip]
> --
> john-thomas
> ------
> Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another
> mind.
> James Russell Lowell, poet, essayist, and diplomat (1819-1891)
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