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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

It is not about having a consistent need for High Speed , or in this case 2Gbps Internet, it is about there when you need it. Things like uploading or downloading games, movies, patches that could be done in seconds instead of sitting there waiting for minutes.

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I had symmetrical gigabit fiber up and down via AT&T. Besides speed tests, the only times in the real world I ever remember getting close to those speeds were multithreaded BackBlaze backups, torrents, and connections to AWS for copying files back and forth to S3.

Some people work from home and do things like push Docker images or ML models up, especially over VPNs. Some other users create video content or work in creative spaces that deal with larger files. Comcast’s 45mbps aka 5.625MB/s limit on their highest tier 1200mbps residential service is absolutely a friction point for many of us today.

You’re going to fine your VPN is still going to be a limiting factor unless your company has really good bandwidth to support it.

Even with symmetrical 1Gbos and pushing to AWS, the VPN was slowing me down.

Luckily, we started implementing zero trust and not needing a VPN. But I would still just launch a Cloud9 instance and do everything on it for much faster speeds

And it did help that I worked for the only company that never has to worry about or pay AWS a huge AWS bill no matter how much we used it…

Both steam and the PS5 store can max out my gigabit connection.

But imagine a world where everyone had 2Gbps Internet but your site could only push 0.2Gbps per user.

Then soon your site will be the slowest one around and you’d want to catch up.

At that point you also need expensive networking hardware and SSDs to get that kind of speed. Most people stream movies rather than download so there it's okay even if it takes hours to download the whole content.

I think the house with many people case is overwhelmingly more common than the single networking enthusiast gamer/pirate.

(I have gigabit at home but probably wouldn't get 2 gigabit)

>SSDs

First, who doesn’t have SSDs in computers these days? Also, spinning rust drives haven’t been frozen in time since SSDs became mainstream. Modern 3.5” HDDs can hit >2000mbps, which is 250 MB/s. See eg https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-firecuda-8tb-hd...

> expensive networking hardware

Many newer consumer-grade home routers have 2.5G ports, eg GL.iNet GL-MT3000 which is $100 right now https://a.co/d/bowJMRn

The important number here is not 2000mbps aka 250MBps. The important number is the current upload speed for the highest Comcast DOCSIS 3.1 “1200mbps” plan which is 45mbps aka 5.625 MB/s. To put that into perspective time-wise in networking terms, 802.11G was out on 2003 — 20 years ago — and that was rated at 54mbps. In other words, current Comcast aka XFINITY upload speeds could be saturated by wifi technology that is old enough to vote.

> Many newer consumer-grade home routers have 2.5G ports, eg GL.iNet GL-MT3000 which is $100 right now https://a.co/d/bowJMRn

This only has one 2.5GB port so it's only suitable for the many-users case, not the downloading-stuff-fast-alone case.

Restricting uploads ensures that you can't use any peer to peer applications to their full potential. In other words, it keeps you dependent on cloud services and other value bullshit add-ons. Why would I need cloud storage if I could just access my NAS when I'm out and about?

What percentage of the population would ever see a benefit?

I was on a ~200 Mbps connection for a while and to be honest, a 1 GB file takes less than a minute, which is crazy fast.

I get that things will change in the future, but right now, I'd say 98% of the population would be happy with a 100 Mbps connection.

I agree with every word you said. You will probably need it only for 1% of the time.

But you see, 100Mbps Internet connection dont often give you 100Mbps connection all the time, if gives you a share of total connection, whether that is building, floor, flat, etc that guarantees under X condition you get 100Mbps. So in reality you really want this number to be at least 10X because the system was designed to be oversubscribed. ( And it is not the fault of any body, the tech was designed as such. ) And it is especially true for DOCSIS 4.0.

And in the case of Network planning, it will actually be better if they could speed up your 1% need so you leave more time and space for others. ( Of course some people abuse the network but that is a different story )

Doesn’t matter if you upgrade speed if your whole service is built around bandwidth caps.

“Now you can hit your bandwidth cap in half the time!”

— Comcast

This argument sucks! Just because you can't figure out how to use it, doesnt mean there aren't 50,000,000 legit uses or future uses that nobody has thought of. Build it and they will come... If people had crazy fast network speeds at home, I guarantee you'd see services pop that could utilize them. As it is now, nobody can see past their app store and streaming video services, so we will just keep getting stuck with shitty upload speeds, and potential for new products and services stifled.

BackBlaze backups and copying files back and forth to S3 over symmetric fiber.

It’s also a case of not knowing what you’re missing until you have it, like getting glasses for the first time. I would accomplish so much less if I had to consider a 100mb speed limit.

I don’t know about you but other than me, no one in my house used substantial internet bandwidth. Netflix and YouTube mostly. If I throttled the house to 50mbps no one would notice.

For me, I pay for the highest speed because I know I'll never get there. If I paid for a 300mbps line I'd get maybe 10-20. If I pay for a 1.2gbps line guess what? I get about 500mbps. That's definitely more than enough for basically anything I do right now but lowering my speed to the lower tier will mean I'm invariably half way back toward 10mbps.

> It’s also a case of not knowing what you’re missing until you have it, like getting glasses for the first time. I would accomplish so much less if I had to consider a 100mb speed limit.

Not really, I have access to fast internet and feel like I do just fine at 1/10th the speed.

exactly! this is the point that most people miss when this conversation comes up.

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