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Comment by bitmasher9 | Hacker News Reader

Over the last 10 years I’ve moved 5 times. Each time having a fiber connection with at least symmetrical gigabit has been a hard requirement. Looking forward I’m considering moving again for very fast networking where I can begin to stream videos in 4k 60fps to small groups from my home, as well as offering a semi-permanent home for mid sized files (500mg-50gb).

The ability to download/upload large files without worry, and the decreased latency, are well worth the handful of neighborhoods I’ve declined based on this requirement.

Congratulations to France, for helping to make sure the future is more evenly distributed.

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I'm incredibly lucky (even in the US) that I have symmetric 5gbit connection and can go up to 8gbit if I wanted (but I don't have everything wired for 10gbit so it doesn't make sense right now). I'd love to see more of that in the US, but know it's not happening anytime soon.

I've been considering upgrading from 1 Gbps to 5 Gbps. Have you noticed any significant benefits for any particular use cases?

I have 5Gbps symmetrical. I love having it, but the biggest use-case has been bragging about it to my colleagues. I haven't even had the full bandwidth available at my desk for a while now (I've had a terrible time terminating cat6a for reliable 10Gbe, so I'm usually on wifi), and it hasn't really bothered me much.

Even 1Gbps has been hard to justify for me TBH, most things over the internet aren't fast enough.

The nice thing though, is that latency is great independent of other traffic as bandwidth is pretty much never saturated

Yes, latency is excellent. My ping time to 1.1.1.1 is 6ms on wifi.

For me, with upgraded networking it's been huge. Much faster downloads and uploads, I can share more with family members, and when multiple people are using my bandwidth, no slowdowns. Most of my equipment is 2.5g, but still is a fairly significant upgrade, and the per month additional cost is $30/month so makes it worth it to me.

How do you go about learning this about a building or neighborhood while planning a move?

Its something I usually find out later

In the US, there are various websites for checking service availability based on zip code. You can fairly easily find local ISPs in a region and then use their own service checker to see if service is available at a specific address -- in other words, the same method you'd use if you already lived there and wanted to order service.

I’m curious what parent personally did, I can think of several solutions and am curious of their personal journey with this

Prioritizing that while potentially facing a deadline of moving out of an irreconcilable lease, living situation, job move, immigration move, or just for a change of pace

The usual complaint is that those sites are not accurate. Like back when I had 2Mbps DSL sites like that claimed I was served by 15+ ISPs that did not serve me.

The actual ISP sites are accurate though.

Can't speak for France but in Germany, you can usually check on each ISP's website what their coverage for a specific street address is. It's one of the things I always do when I look for a new home.

Same in France.

The information is available publicly on the same web site as mentioned in this thread, with even information about the expected network throughput: https://maconnexioninternet.arcep.fr/?lat=46&lng=2.3&zoom=7&...

Depends on which country you live in.

I've found that most websites and internet service max out at around 250Mbps anyway so I don't feel like there's much point paying for more.

An exception is Steam, but I don't download games that often.

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