Ask HN: When will gigabit broadband go mainstream? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: When will gigabit broadband go mainstream?

7 pointsthecybernerd17 comments

In the United States there are a lot of fiber to the home providers that offer gigabit speeds and cable companies are starting to offer gigabit speeds over their hybrid fiber coaxial networks. With these deployments and the incoming fixed wireless/5G era will 2018 be the year of gigabit in the United States?

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Here in Vancouver, Canada, the main telco (Telus) started a fibre to the home build out throughout a number of cities and suburbs. They are offering 150mbps symmetrical fibre for $47/mo (less for the first 3 months), and greater savings if you bundle with TV (which includes 4K). The main cable company (Shaw) had to up their offering, and now have a 150mbps down/15mbps up for around the same price. Both carriers require multi year contracts. In some areas of the city that have lots of new high density development, there are some smaller players that are offering faster fibre to the suite options. Novus offers gig up and 100mbps down for $96. They also have other lower cost plans, as well as monthly add on fees for symmetrical transfer and unlimited data. Another player, Urban Fibre, offers symmetrical gigabit for $79/mo (when they first launched it was $49/mo).

I wonder about how strong the consumer demand for gigabit internet actually is. If you're reading this, you probably have it or want it if you don't, but if you're the average person looking for a place to live (rent or own), how much will available internet speed be a factor (compared to location, cost, and other considerations like schools, fire stations, nightlife, commuting distances, access to public transit, and so on)? A family of 4 can all stream different HD content on Netflix with a 25mbps connection. Not many homes would have multiple 4K/UHD displays, so would likely be ok with 50-60mbps. What else are people needing all this bandwidth right now?

God, I hope so. Google Fiber is feet from my home, but refuses to lay cable. Those who got it seem to like it, but it looks like it's just too expensive for them to continue at this point. And that's in the city they started with!

ISPs are holding out though, when Google came into town the current monopoly "magically" came up with 3X speeds. (300mb/s). Seemingly out of nowhere.

Im no expert - but it seems the rollout for such speeds always starts in major cities. Then rolls from there... at least from the big providers. Demand for such speeds (outside of techies etc) is probably not as wide as you might think. Theres a ton of people who barely get dsl speeds that wouldnt even know any better.

Lots of factors, but $ is probably the largest

I think it's a chicken and egg thing. What products and services could be feasible if the bandwidth was generally available to support such things?

Fortunately, that isn't entirely true in this case.

In rural western Utah (and eastern Nevada) we get fiber-to-house from a relatively small broadband company. It's pricey, and they are literally the only available service (apart from satellite), but they are doing great work. A few years ago, I thought the best this <50 house town could ever hope for was DSL. I was happily proved wrong.

My hope is that there are more businesses willing to do the same thing across the US.

Doesn't Utah have municipal fibre (UTOPIA?)

Apparently in some areas. Mostly northern Utah by the look of it.

Not soon enough. Where I live the best you can get is 300/300 fiber, only in select parts of town, & for prices that (to me) aren't affordable. For now I put up with 3/1, since it's included with rent. Until I can afford to move & maybe do better then.

Yup. The monopolies or duopolies in most places here are either 3/1, 5/1, or 20/1 for reasonably affordable plans. 50/50 if Verizon has bothered to run FIOS to your block (which covers roughly 10% of the housing stock). Speeds max out around 200/200 for residential class internet last I checked. And that's if you're willing to pay through the nose.

One of my relatives near Toledo, Washington, USA pays $75 USD per month for 10/10 fiber [1]. $250 per month gets you gigabit service.

[1] http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/

The best I can get is 16mbit in Central London. For the last three years they have suggested we will be getting faster internet. Yet still waiting. The rumour currently is Early September but they have been saying those kind of things for the last few years. The fastest internet I can get here is 4G through Relish.

I feel like it is going to be small competitors that bring about the gigabit broadband to the masses. I'm moving this week and the new house is eligible for gigabit (I signed up and am excited) but the company is small and only covers one town (suburb of Chicago).

Once someone figures out how to roll it out cheaply - you can bet your bottom dollar all the other Internet providers will start rolling up offering a competitive services.

As long as they can ride an old cash cow un-challenged theres not much incentive to spend money to innovate their already dominated markets.

I honestly don't think there is consumer demand TBH. The biggest driver of consumer demand for broadband speed is streaming video. Even 4k streams are only about 20-30Mbit/sec. So 200Mb would do numerous of these simultaneously, I don't see where the demand for 1G will come from.

Also I'm not sure if GPON deployments can really be considered as "gigabit" given the shared medium, 5G fixed wireless even less so. Gigabit DOCSIS does look possible (but using more spectrum per user,) I don't think there will be a massive push for it either.

Let's first start with getting more then 15mbit in major cities like Central London e.g. like 50-100mbit before we start thinking about 1gbit.

I think it'll happen with more competition, especially nimble wireless isps offering better service than the duopolies.

In Germany i think it will take 5 up to 10 years. But i hope it will go faster ;-)

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