Do I Really Need 1Gbps Internet?

Honestly, I do want gigabit. I, like many here, tinker and play around with my computers and games a lot. I've got a huge Steam library, I've got multiple PCs just on my own along with all of the other devices. Just keeping things updated for apps and OSes stresses connections and leaves me with lots of down time while waiting. That I want to get even more into uploading HD video content online makes the horrendously slow uploads offered (1-5 mbps) just all the more painful. I know I'm an incredibly heavy user, and my usage pattern is unusual. And that's why I want it as I would see the benefits, especially as I'll be getting married soon and will be adding even more streaming and downloading to the mix.
 
I see people mentioning 2gbps service, does that come with a 10g nic to be able to use it?
 
I'm single by myself. I'm a power user. I download a lot and so far, 100 mbps is fine. My stupid 10 mbps upload is not though. Well, $30 a month. So it's not that bad. Double the price if I go with 400 mbps down/20 mbps up. I really don't need faster down. If they had a 100 mbps down/100 mbps up, I'd buy that for double the price.
 
Zepher said:
I see people mentioning 2gbps service, does that come with a 10g nic to be able to use it?
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No. The Comcast 2gbps service comes with the modem to support it (with additional rental fee) and they tack on a $500 installation fee and $500 activation fee even if you run everything your self.
 
Very few consumers really need 1gb internet. The infrastructure across the nation just does not take advantage of those speeds at this time. secondly for average web browsing it does not really improve the experience, STEAM downloads are still capped and slow as well as most other things you would download on the internet, uploading to youtube well just sucks period, so in reality lots of things need to change before internet that fast is even practical for the consumer.
 
Hellstoaster said:
No. The Comcast 2gbps service comes with the modem to support it (with additional rental fee) and they tack on a $500 installation fee and $500 activation fee even if you run everything your self.
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And how do you connect to the modem? You still need a 10g nic to be able to achieve 2g speed.
 
M76 said:
And how do you connect to the modem? You still need a 10g nic to be able to achieve 2g speed.
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Obviously, but that's not Comcast's problem. They target it to households where you have 10 folks all using it at once so they don't expect a single system to need all 2gbps so they don't even care.
 
75/75 is barely enough for me. Plex streaming from multiple devices out to the internet can cause my entire network to slow down. That's what happens when you tell the family "Cancel Netflix, I got all those movies you like anyway for free."
 
I'm currently living in Korea and have had 1gb service for the last 6 months for free as part of a "try & buy" deal. From next month, I will be paying $30/mo with no data caps and am fine with that. Just fine.
 
AT&T ran fiber directly to my house so I have 372 down and 368 up. I could go 1Gbps but I figured 300+ is enough.
You don't see the difference with websites or cloud uploads and downloads. But I do see the difference when streaming and Youtube uploads when they decide to open the ports up.
Of course P2P file sharing is ultra fast.

Last month AT&T removed the data cap on my account since I have DirectTV.
 
gotta get that porn as fast as the nvme ssd will write. So 10gbps.
1gbps is still too slow
 
10/10gbit at work...
60/60 at home (most commonplace in northern europe with 30/20++)
60/60 is lowest option for me with the isp's where I live, and not once do I feel like needing more, they upgrade every 18 months (ish) next time will be 100/100 I think.
They upgrade us as we need it, and the lowest option works fine unless you torrent 100000 things at the same time, do not have a job, + run servers and consume the content you download every day....

Should 1gbit be a option : of course! there is always that 0.01% that want and need it for servers or alike :)..
 
Presbytier said:
Very few consumers really need 1gb internet. The infrastructure across the nation just does not take advantage of those speeds at this time. secondly for average web browsing it does not really improve the experience, STEAM downloads are still capped and slow as well as most other things you would download on the internet, uploading to youtube well just sucks period, so in reality lots of things need to change before internet that fast is even practical for the consumer.
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This is part of the reason why we really do need 1gbps service to the home. It will force these ISPs to upgrade their 20+ year old infrastructure (since the taxpayers already paid for it anyway...) and put our residential services on par or better than the rest of the world. There was a time when people cared about infrastructure and economic development in the US.
 
I currently have 50/5 internet and there is a company here that offers gigabit.....at 250 bucks a month. I want it for sure, but I can't pay that much for it. I'm patiently waiting for the Time Warner/Charter "Spectrum" rollout. I have been told I will get 300/30 for the same price I am paying now. IT is supposed to happen by years end. We shall see.
 
Prisoner849 said:
I'm currently living in Korea and have had 1gb service for the last 6 months for free as part of a "try & buy" deal. From next month, I will be paying $30/mo with no data caps and am fine with that. Just fine.
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If you actually get 1 gb service. I got 1 gbps service there to. Speed Test shows 1 gbps, but only within S.Korea. As soon as I did it to like Tokyo, it'd only be 100 mbps. I can't remember who my provider was, but it turns out S.Korea based sites/service would get 1 gbps.
 
wizdum said:
This is part of the reason why we really do need 1gbps service to the home. It will force these ISPs to upgrade their 20+ year old infrastructure (since the taxpayers already paid for it anyway...) and put our residential services on par or better than the rest of the world. There was a time when people cared about infrastructure and economic development in the US.
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Live in the rest of the world. The US is already on par or better than the rest of the world.
 
I have 200mb down, no cap at suddenlink. Honestly, I don't see the reason for gigabit at this time. Would it be nice downloading Star Citizen PTU builds? yes. As it is, it only takes me around 15-20 minutes for a 30 gig file. It would cost $30 more for gigabit but I would need a new modem. Mine actually only does 175mb, so I am throttled by that anyway. I just haven't been able to justify spending another $130 on a new modem ( I would get the 1.7mb model for possible future gigabit service). ( Plus I get direct access to the fiber from work)

In every day browsing I don't notice much difference between the gigabit at work and the 200mb at home.

EDIT: forgot to add, I'm paying $85/month for 200/50 I think.
 
Yes. Next question?

So here are some interesting tidbits of information about the OP article:
  • This article is posted on The Verge.
  • The Verge is owned by Vox Media.
  • One of Vox Media's largest investors is NBC Universal.
  • NBC Universal is owned by Comcast.
  • Current CEO of Vox Media is Jim Bankoff.
  • Jim Bankoff is also Senior Advisor at an investment firm called Providence Equity Partners.
  • Providence Equity Partners has invested a lot of capital into Hulu.
  • Hulu is owned by Comcast.
  • The article's author, Tom Warren, worked for Morgan Stanley for 6 years.
  • Morgan Stanley holds over 14 million shares of Comcast valued at about $951 million USD as of 2016/03/31, placing it at #59 in the 6,753 positions they hold on the NASDAQ.
Just putting that out there. Do with it what you will.
 
For me, it's less about wanting "gigabit" than it is about "Gigabit, that is $70/mo" (Google Fiber) because it's an actual reasonable market price compared to the monopoly/duopoly price-gouging we have now.
 
I'd be curious to know what 1Gbps is like. But then again, I'd love to have 150/150...

..or 40/40

..or 20/5

..or anything better than 7/.75

Lesson learned kids. If you like your internet, don't move to a rural area.
 
I have an SB6121 Cable modem and just got an email from Comcast saying I should look to upgrade my modem. Has anyone else received this kind of email?
 
There's almost no sense, unless the provider increases their upload bandwidth to better utilize a 1gb/s pathway or your family primarily streams content to their devices.

I'm at 60mb/s, with my provider moving slowly toward 100mb, and my upload speed is still locked at ~5mb/s (on a good day) as it has been for the last 13 years I've owned my home. I moved in with 10mb, with 20mb becoming available about five years later and 30mb five years after that.

My largest problem is thrashing and latency driven by the outbound traffic fighting to get out when I have the kids on their PS4 and computers while I'm gaming and my wife is trying to Skype.

I'd settle most happily for a lowering of my download speeds in order to better my overall throughput by raising outbound transfer speeds. But, so far my requests over the years have fallen on deaf ears.
 
Why build a highway when the town only has horses? uhh.....

One of those "build it and they will come" situations. Since nationally most connections are awful the services offered on it are naturally tailored for poor service as well. Why would businesses push solutions that lack the infrastructure to support them?

Try playing Doom on an Atari.
 
Do I really need a watercooled hexacore rig with the best GPU money can buy and a 4k 48" TV as a monitor?

No.

Do I want it? Hell yes.
 
Chupachup said:
There's almost no sense, unless the provider increases their upload bandwidth to better utilize a 1gb/s pathway or your family primarily streams content to their devices.

I'm at 60mb/s, with my provider moving slowly toward 100mb, and my upload speed is still locked at ~5mb/s (on a good day) as it has been for the last 13 years I've owned my home. I moved in with 10mb, with 20mb becoming available about five years later and 30mb five years after that.

My largest problem is thrashing and latency driven by the outbound traffic fighting to get out when I have the kids on their PS4 and computers while I'm gaming and my wife is trying to Skype.

I'd settle most happily for a lowering of my download speeds in order to better my overall throughput by raising outbound transfer speeds. But, so far my requests over the years have fallen on deaf ears.
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I'm thinking some QoS on the upstream might help you in this situation.

IMHO, I think it's insane that in 2016 most ISP's still try to gimp the upstream. Upstream and downstream should always be equal.
 
I'm not sure I needed the 1Gbps option, but AT&T had eliminated the 300Mbps before I ordered or else I would have just got it. I definitely wanted something more than 100Mbps but Cox still offers pretty pathetic upload speeds on their higher packages so might as well spend the same as their Ultimate tier to get a faster, symmetrical connection.
 
buzucan said:
I pay 10€ for 1 GBPS. Is ok at this price. It is nice to download with 100 MB. :)
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I was waiting for first euro to come post that in here.

unfortunately that doesn't apply to the rest of north america.

Which probably 10x-100x the size of what ever small euro country you are in.
 
Here in ABQ, comcast offers 2 Gbps (up/down), but it's almost $300 per month. I wish I could even just get 100/100 or 50/50 for a much reduced price, I don't need 2 Gbps.
 
wizdum said:
This is part of the reason why we really do need 1gbps service to the home. It will force these ISPs to upgrade their 20+ year old infrastructure (since the taxpayers already paid for it anyway...) and put our residential services on par or better than the rest of the world. There was a time when people cared about infrastructure and economic development in the US.
Click to expand...
It won't force them to do anything they will just "operating as it is supposed to". I have been in the data centers of some of these large companies and they are decrepit.
 
zaxour said:
Here in ABQ, comcast offers 2 Gbps (up/down), but it's almost $300 per month. I wish I could even just get 100/100 or 50/50 for a much reduced price, I don't need 2 Gbps.
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Isn't there also like $1k worth of installation and equipment setup fees for that 2Gbps plan? A symmetrical connection would be really nice, though.
 
Armenius said:
Isn't there also like $1k worth of installation and equipment setup fees for that 2Gbps plan? A symmetrical connection would be really nice, though.
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I'm not sure, but knowing comcast, probably. Sigh...back in TX I had 50/50 with Fios. Now I have 150/10 with comcast, missing that upload speed.
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
I was waiting for first euro to come post that in here.

unfortunately that doesn't apply to the rest of north america.

Which probably 10x-100x the size of what ever small euro country you are in.
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Let's put the "the U.S. is too big for fast internet" argument to rest shall we?


Size has absolutely nothing to do with it. What matters is population density.

There are certainly rural and other low population areas in the U.S. where there aren't enough customers to financially make running the lines feasible, but there are also parts of the U.S. that are every bit as densely populated as the most densely populated parts of Europe (and in some cases more so), where deployment IS justified, and there is no reason we should be paying any more than they do.

Just look at a world population density map


It is true. We have a population/size dynamic that is going to make it very difficult to wire rural parts of the U.S, but this is a completely separate problem from why many urban and suburban areas have to pay over a hundred bucks a month for broadband, and forced bundling whether you want it or not. (Sure you can get internet only, but it will cost you just as much as Internet+Cable...) The rural problem is a real technical challenge. The Urban/Suburban problem is a problem of a combination of industry collusion, industry lobbying, local monopolies and poorly negotiated deals by cities, towns and municipalities.


The rural problem we should certainly try to fix, but it is going to be challenging to come up with solutions that are cheap enough to deploy with such a small potential customer base paying back in. The urban/suburban problem we have to fix by getting mad, demanding that the telecoms play fair, and if they fail to setting up community internet services to directly compete with them, providing better services by a wide margin at a fraction of the cost. We also have to defeat their efforts to lobby and ban community internet efforts.

In the end the industry is so corrupt, it must fundamentally change or be completely destroyed.

In the short term what we should be targeting is as follows:
  • An end to forced bundling
  • $10 per month 100/100mbit service as a start in Urban and rural areas, with service speeds going up over time, and prices rising to account for inflation only.
  • fully a-la-carte television service
  • An end to all contracts. Make all service month to month.
  • An end to all bundled/rental hardware. use your own modem/router/access point/set top box
  • A complete end to any and all content exclusivity deals.
  • An end to all local market monopoly deals.

This is the minimum requirement.

Someone has to present an ultimatum to the telecoms. Make this happen or we will absolutely destroy you. We will come in and provide these services ourselves instead and sell them to our communities at cost, and you'll be history.
 
Chas said:
I wish people would stop asking about "need".

The only things humans need is air, food and water. Everything else is a luxury.

How USEFUL is 1GB internet compared to slower offerings? THAT is a good question.

Every time someone asks "Why do you need...", I want to belt them across the forehead with a sharpened entrenching tool.
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Easy there grammar police! Need has become synonymous with "will this actually be useful to me" over the years. Do people "need" the internet, yes they do, will they die without it? No but they NEED it, just like a drug addict "needs" drugs. Now that said, your third line is in fact the question. So stop being such a stick in the mud about the "proper definition" of need.
 
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