[HN Gopher] The future is in symmetrical, high-speed internet sp...
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The future is in symmetrical, high-speed internet speeds
Author : elorant
Score : 61 points
Date : 2021-07-04 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| naveen99 wrote:
| I am pessimistic about this coming upload utopia. Here in Houston
| suburb of Sienna, entouch (now grande) cut fiber upload speeds
| from gigabit to 30mb for reasons. Makes me suspect the cable
| modem asymmetry is also bs, (more about price discrimination and
| less about technology).
| war1025 wrote:
| I wonder how much of it revolves around the fact that fat
| upload pipes probably mainly matter when you are serving out
| content, and at that point probably the ISP would prefer you
| had a business account?
|
| I have 50/50 symmetrical, so I guess I can't complain. Nowhere
| close to gigabit, but always more than enough for my needs.
| naveen99 wrote:
| It's price discrimination turtles all the way down. At the
| edge, Business download speeds are even more expensive than
| consumer upload speeds.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm not convinced.
|
| Take current 100/20 Mbps speeds. An average Zoom call uses 0.6
| Mbps upstream, while a super-HD 1080p one uses 3.8 Mbps up. (And
| virtually nobody videoconferences from home in 1080p anyways, who
| wants coworkers to see your skin blemishes in maximum detail?!)
|
| So a connection or 20 Mbps upload supports 33 users in theory, or
| 5 at super-HD. Even allowing half that in practice... seems fine
| to me.
|
| The 100 Mbps _download_ is necessary when you 've got someone
| watching an 8K VR video on their headset, and a few 1080p movie
| streams going as well, which is more reasonable in a family
| setting.
|
| But most people just don't have any use for upload speeds
| anywhere near as fast as download. Or at least certainly not
| until we start doing 8K 3D video calls in front of massive 3D
| displays, which isn't anytime soon...
|
| [1] https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-
| us/articles/201362023-System-r...
| wyager wrote:
| 3.8Mbps 1080p is hardly 1080p. Decent quality starts at several
| 10s of Mbps, and high quality 1080p is in the 200-400Mbps
| range.
|
| Ideally in the future you would A) be broadcasting directly to
| other participants, not going through zoom's servers, which
| might multiply upload bandwidth needs B) be broadcasting at
| several 10s of Mbps per stream.
|
| I definitely prefer higher bandwidth vconf. I'm not worried
| about blemishes, but I want to see people's minute facial
| expressions better.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > which isn't anytime soon...
|
| I mean, it depends what you mean by 'soon'. Infra subsidised
| today will largely still be there in 20 years.
|
| To be honest, I'm shocked that they're considering subsidising
| anything other than fibre at this point.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| This sounds like a wired-centric approach, where people assume
| that everyone has a fiber connection. And I agree that it is
| ridiculous that cable companies have such bad upstream.
|
| Can starlink support synchronous up/down? I doubt it. The
| satellite swarm companies are going to bring the internet to
| rural/third world/oceania/etc in a way that hasn't been possible
| before.
|
| Even cellular won't solve deserts, ocean, tundra, and IIRC the
| tower density to support decent 4G/5G for true broadband just
| isn't economically feasible outside of suburbs, towns, highways,
| etc.
|
| But I'm shocked at the support range of LTE in wisconsin and
| upper peninsula michigan, although the bandwidth is pretty
| average, so what do I know.
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| I think we need to approach internet connectivity from a wired-
| is-most-ideal standpoint and spend whatever capital needs to be
| spent to build it out. In the mean time, underserved
| communities can be serviced with cellular and satellite
| options.
|
| I don't think wireless is the future due to limited spectrum
| and high latency. The future is still wired, it's just that
| private companies can't be the entities trusted to do the
| build-out -- it has to be a public utilities project.
| contingencies wrote:
| _The future is still wired, it's just that private companies
| can't be the entities trusted to do the build-out -- it has
| to be a public utilities project._
|
| China did a great job at building out a fiber network.
| Unfortunately it's compromised by the GFW and other issues.
| Australia recently attempted to fund a national plan for
| fiber deployment, but managed to privatise the implementation
| to the point where it was never delivered and has become a
| joke. A couple of years ago, you still literally couldn't get
| a connection right in the middle of Sydney.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network
|
| Their take: _There is no significant demand for wired
| connections above 25 Mbit /s and consideration of upgrading
| the network will not be undertaken until demand for high-
| bandwidth services is proven._
| williamaadams wrote:
| Depends on the community of course. Sub-Saharan Africa leap-
| frogged copper and went to 4g/5G. Probably same for broader
| band.
|
| Not too long ago 10 mbits was 'broadband', so, maybe various
| forms of wireless will be just fine. Certainly more flexible
| in terms of long term options
| prophesi wrote:
| Not too long ago, _4 mbits_ was considered broadband in the
| USA. And it's one of the reasons we have such terrible
| infrastructure; we poured a ton of money to improve
| internet access, and now we're left with coaxial in 2021
| being sufficient in even downtown areas, since there was no
| motive to install fiber instead.
| sfblah wrote:
| Starlink only makes sense in a world of unlimited capital for
| certain entrepreneurs IMO. I do not believe that service can be
| profitable without permanent government subsidies. Terrestrial
| fiber is just a better solution.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Also a world of unlimited microwave spectrum.
| filoeleven wrote:
| Anyone who reads science fiction that includes networked
| computing knows this. IoT is horrible in its current incarnation,
| leaking private info everywhere, but the ability to send about as
| much as I receive to whomever I want is integral to a connected
| future.
|
| The infrastructure must be present for the culture (or,
| optimistically, the Culture) to grow.
| dondanndy wrote:
| This article seems very US-centric, I'd like to know what the
| situation is in other countries.
|
| I will start with mine, Spain. Here, every ISP offers symmetrical
| speeds since they became a selling point some years ago. It seems
| like the minimum speed nowadays is 100Mbps with 600Mbps as the
| average and 1Gbps in the most expensive packages.
|
| Right now I am living in a little village in a very rural area
| where a local company offers 300Mbps (symmetrical, of course).
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| Here in Denmark, most connections are asymmetrical, unless you
| specifically buy a business subscription, where you can get a
| symmetrical connection.
|
| The exception is fiber, where all connections are symmetrical,
| which has become a selling point.
|
| Speeds go up to 1000/100 on cable and 1000/1000 on fiber. I've
| got 100/100 on fiber, which is _plenty_ fast for two people
| with our current usage.
| Const-me wrote:
| In Montenegro, most ISPs are very asymmetrical. I have 120
| mbit/sec download but only 6 mbit/sec upload, the tech is
| DOCSIS.
|
| One way to get better upload speed is corporate contracts, but
| they are expensive, hard to setup and availability is limited.
|
| Fortunately, the new wireless stuff is symmetrical. I've tried
| one of them for a few months as an experiment, measured 40
| mbit/sec both upload and download, the tech is LTE.
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