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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

What we should really achieve is 1Gbps symmetric connections. Then the cloud is your LAN and then only you can seriously consider working on files stored or backed-up in the cloud.

Right now the best upload speed you can get with optic fiber with BT in the UK is 30Mbit. Not a technical limitation, purely a commercial one.

I actually don't understand why ISP do not offer better upload speeds. I thought the whole system of peering relied on having balanced upload and download flows, which created problems in datacenters and ISPs, which by nature are one flow only (end users downloading data from datacenters). I would assume both ISP and datacenters would want to encourage having flows the other way, by mean of people backing up their data in the cloud.

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Most users pull far more data than they push, so it's a simple reaction to the market -- with technologies like DOCSIS you have a set number of channels and you assign them to either downstream or upstream bandwidth. More users benefit from a fatter downstream pipe. ADSL has the same sort of bandwidth allocation. Having a symmetrical connection generally means limiting the downstream connection.

Yes but I don't expect this sort of performance for cable or DSL. We are talking about Optic Fiber really.

My cable modem pulls 120Mbps down, pushes 10Mbps. 24/7. DOCSIS 3.1 promises up to 10Gbps down, 1Gbps up (again, because it biases the bandwidth to down). It's a signal on a medium.

And when we talk about fiber optics, 9 times out of 10 it isn't really fiber optics. The vast majority of BT "fiber optic" installs are a copper twisted pair, with exactly the issue I mentioned. But their junction box, just like cable internet applications, has fiber optics going to it, for what's that worth. For a real pure fiber optic connection, which is rare, the service usually is symmetric because that compromise didn't need to be made.

Yes but by Optic Fibre I meant FTTP, not FTTC. FTTC is nothing more than a thick layer of lipstick on the DSL pig.

Indeed, I have recently got a fully fiber optic connection up to a flat and it is symmetric 300/300Mbps download/upload. As I was looking the plans, there wasn't even an option to go with non-symmetric connection.

> I actually don't understand why ISP do not offer better upload speeds.

ISPs usually have business/enterprise offers with more upload bandwidth for $$$. They don't want to cannibalize this with more upload speed for residential users.

Yes. In Switzerland we have an awesome company who is rolling out 1Gig up and down fiber. The price is only about 67$ per month (thats the same you pay for 100mb down/10mp up with other companies).

They are slowly rolling out. Can wait until the arrive in my city.

BT sells FTTH in new developments, with 300mbps down but only 20mpbs up. Exactly on the same fiber I get 1gbps symmetric from Hyperoptic. It's amazing they constrained themselves so much.

30mbit up, not 20. Yes, it very much looks like pure product differentiation.

>What we should really achieve is 1Gbps symmetric connections. Then the cloud is your LAN

jokes on you because my LAN is 100. also im pretty sure all 4 ports on my el cheapo switch are shared.

If you've got Cat 5 installed, then ~$10 per port can fix that for you.

Cat 5e is 1Gbps

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