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Comment by rcme | Hacker News Reader

ADSL is too slow for most modern internet usage.

"Too slow" is most always the wrong word. Too much buffer bloat is what causes most of the problems. I survived fine on a 6/.5kbs dsl connection from ATT for years. I had set up a few QOS rules on my router using fq_codel. Night and day difference. I was regularly on voip calls for work while netflix was showing on two different TVs with no issues. It is really depressing that bloat is still an issue.

I emphatically disagree. If you live in a city, it's quite sufficient for IPTV, a bit of youtube, spotify, etc.

YouTube, Netflix, music streaming, most video conferencing, and general web browsing all work fine on a 1.5Mb/s link in my experience. It's certainly not fast, but it's fast enough to do the basics.

Most things you mention are a matter of buffering and waiting it out, so those will work in a 'basic' fashion as you say. But video conferencing? Even in a 1:1 call, where you need to download only one audio and video stream, if you don't live alone (most people don't), I would be very impressed if you got a router that can recognise and prioritise the call traffic to the point where that works smoothly.

I used to have 768kbps down / 128kbps up cable internet. There was some buffering on Netflix at the start of a stream but it was fine. When we got upgraded to 1.5Mbps down / 256kbps up there was basically no buffering at the start of Netflix or YouTube streams and FaceTime worked fine.

My DSL is 15/1, it's fast enough to stream 4k. The upload stinks but its cheap and reliable.

Sure, you might get away with consuming a single video stream. But you shouldn't be surprised that there is very little demand for this.

A single HD video stream (1080p) can require 8 mbps. Trying to consume multiple of these, especially with a realtime protocol like WebRTC, is impossible on an ADSL connection.

I suspect there may be a fair few people in my position who would be happy to scale down. Whether or not that is actually the case is, indeed, a question for market research.

I don't think you'd be happy scaling down. You may think you'd like it, but when you can't watch a video on your phone and laptop at the same time (and that's not even talking about anyone else using WiFi in the home), you'll quickly realize why no one uses ADSL any more.

>I don't think you'd be happy scaling down.

My current setup is ADSL. I am trying to replicate it elsewhere.

As a subject-matter expert on "things I like", let me assure you that I am indeed very happy with it.

Yes, consume consume and keep consuming. Earn less and consume more!

Do you specifically mean ADSL to exclude ADSL2 and ADSL2+? Through the entire pandemic I had a 20Mbps ADSL2+ line, and we had no problems with two of us remoting into work or one of us remoting in while the other streamed Netflix.

If you're referring specifically to ADSL then yes, however VDSL is passable, typically 100 down/10 up. Fiber would be ideal, but not worth 4-5x the price IMO (currently paying $33/month).

Ah yeah, I think I had VDSL in mind! Thanks!

Disagree, it’s not ideal but it’s perfectly usable. I lived in a rural town with 4.5mb/s down and .25mb/s up DSL for a couple years and even 4K Netflix worked perfectly fine.

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