Tell this geezer why I need gigabit Internet?

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May 31, 2002
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Location
St. Charles County, Missouri
OK-- This was prompted by the "shaving" thread.

I have Spectrum. Spectrum advertises 100MBps speeds here in metro St. Louis, I usually get 60, this morning I was in the twenties.

Years ago, when Google was putting Gigabit into Kansas City, I asked people-- what can you do with this? And nobody could give me a good answer.

I have a Night Hawk router AC1900 I think. I bought my girl friend a sub thirty buck Tenda AC1200 router and that works just as well given the size of the pipe around here.

So, 5G is coming, we'll have multi gig speeds coming out of our ears. Short of a network of self-driving cars, what is all this speed for? Even twenty down gives me Netflix plus, a bunch of smart speakers, plus my phone, plus a Chromebook, plus my computer and a tablet for book downloads-- all doing fine without buffering. So what is a hundredfold increase of speed going to get me?

I'm a geezer, and I guess I've finally arrived at old [censored] comprehension-- "What do I need this new fangled Internet thingy for, and my flip phone is just fine". Remember laughing at people like this a decade ago. Is there some new reality that I fail to comprehend?

I do understand that self driving vehicles, and telemedicine may require tons of pipe. What about me on my couch with my Roku? What am I missing?
 
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for what you are doing 50 is fine. if you are doing a lot of uploading and downloading of big files then really fast internet is needed. lot of people just want the fastest and greatest even though they will never explore the full potential of it.

even if you have gig, the other side has to have it also or you are going at his speed
 
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I have AT&T gigapower available in my home, and went with 300mb up and down.

Not sure I could justify full 1gb speeds. Bragging rights maybe, but my self-worth isn't defined by that sort of thing
smile.gif
 
If the pipe is sixty, then why did I pay five times as much money for a router that can dish out thirty times as much as I need vs. one that dishes out twenty times as much as I need (yes I realize with two bands you could half that).
 
If you watch a lot of Internet TV you can reach the ISP's monthly gigabyte usage cap. The higher plans have a higher cap or no cap. Nobody really yet needs the speed but a lot of people are buying the high speed plans because of that.
 
At a computer trade show in 1981, Bill Gates supposedly uttered this statement, in defense of the just-introduced IBM PC's 640KB usable RAM limit: "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
Our CEO, at a leading Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing company, in the late 90's said we might need 10 Internet connections at his company of 5,000 people.
It seems they missed the target.

You mentioned self driving cars...
Perhaps consider the Internet of Things, aka IoT.
This speaks to connected devices; IoT requires far more data stored and transferred to other devices.
The logic chips will require far more data capabilities and speed to operate.

We have just scratched the surface of computer technology.
 
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Originally Posted by csandste
'm a geezer, and I guess I've finally arrived at old [censored] comprehension-- "What do I need this new fangled Internet thingy for, and my flip phone is just fine". Remember laughing at people like this a decade ago. Is there some new reality that I fail to comprehend?

Not everyone needs super fast internet.

But if you have multiple users streaming HD video or 4K video, your bandwidth needs will grow. I think Netflix recommends 25 Mbps per each 4K stream.
 
Originally Posted by javacontour
I have AT&T gigapower available in my home, and went with 300mb up and down.

Not sure I could justify full 1gb speeds. Bragging rights maybe, but my self-worth isn't defined by that sort of thing
smile.gif


The gigabit includes unlimited data. I think that's why most people get it if they're not bundling TV because the once you add the unlimited for an extra $30 a month on top of the 300's price it's the same as Gigabit. Although if someone lives in an AT&T fiber area and needs basic connectivity and streams a lot I'd recommend buying through Toast.net as they resell AT&T fiber and you can get an uncapped 50/50 connection for only $45/mo through them.
 
Originally Posted by csandste
If the pipe is sixty, then why did I pay five times as much money for a router that can dish out thirty times as much as I need vs. one that dishes out twenty times as much as I need (yes I realize with two bands you could half that).

You're talking about theoretical speeds which are usually a lot higher than reality. An AC1900 router can theoretically hit 600 Mbps on 2.4 GHz band and 1300 Mbps on 5 GHz band in ideal conditions. Our conditions are far from ideal due to walls, distances, other obstacles and interference from other devices and networks, so your actual Wi-Fi speeds will be significantly lower. Also, the 5 GHz band has less range than the 2.4 GHz one, so it is even more impacted by your environment.

When transfering large files within my own LAN, I still get better speeds using an AC1900 router vs. my old N900 router. For watching Roku, there's no difference. I have all my Rokus' bandwidth limited to 3.5 Mbps anyway to reduce data consumption.
 
Even 300mb includes unlimited data. I have 3 mobile phones and uVerse TV as well, so I get unlimited data at my current tier.

Originally Posted by blufeb95
Originally Posted by javacontour
I have AT&T gigapower available in my home, and went with 300mb up and down.

Not sure I could justify full 1gb speeds. Bragging rights maybe, but my self-worth isn't defined by that sort of thing
smile.gif


The gigabit includes unlimited data. I think that's why most people get it if they're not bundling TV because the once you add the unlimited for an extra $30 a month on top of the 300's price it's the same as Gigabit. Although if someone lives in an AT&T fiber area and needs basic connectivity and streams a lot I'd recommend buying through Toast.net as they resell AT&T fiber and you can get an uncapped 50/50 connection for only $45/mo through them.
 
First of all, people starts doing new things when they have speed, like streaming TV instead of cable TV (so you can choose when to watch instead of waiting for a particular time). Also there will be more people sharing the same pipe so the cost per customer is lower and cheaper for customers (assuming no monopoly).

Regarding to 5G, remember it is not all that speed for one person, it will be for everyone in the neighborhood sharing the same spectrum. If it is fast enough it will be cheap enough as an alternative to cable internet, and your cable bill will drop as a result from $70 a month to $25, for example, to stay competitive.

IMO most video streaming are now done at around 1080p so the main benefit for more bandwidth is more of a cable internet alternative, cheaper rural deployment, and eventually VR video (at least 4K at 72Hz) when it is ready. VR seems to be the only way people really can tell the difference above 1080p and willing to pay for it (NSFW contents).
 
Originally Posted by javacontour
Even 300mb includes unlimited data. I have 3 mobile phones and uVerse TV as well, so I get unlimited data at my current tier.

Yup. If you subscribe to their TV service as well, then they lift the monthly data cap. Otherwise, data is capped at 1 TB per month. This is their way of trying to discourage cord cutting.
 
Originally Posted by mk378
If you watch a lot of Internet TV you can reach the ISP's monthly gigabyte usage cap. The higher plans have a higher cap or no cap. Nobody really yet needs the speed but a lot of people are buying the high speed plans because of that.

Thank god Spectrum has no caps. Reason to be grateful I guess, hope it lasts.
 
Originally Posted by mk378
If you watch a lot of Internet TV you can reach the ISP's monthly gigabyte usage cap.

Pretty sure you meant terabyte.
 
I think you're probably right, you don't need gigabit internet for yourself.

But say there was a family of 5, let's say there's 3 teenagers all stuck at home playing games, streaming music and video, and two parents working from home while trying to remote into work or a conference call, I think they'd have much more value of a faster internet connection.

Even for you, you say that nothing buffers, but I'd argue that with a faster connection, it would take less time to initially fill the buffer before videos begin.
 
Originally Posted by Quattro Pete

You're talking about theoretical speeds which are usually a lot higher than reality. An AC1900 router can theoretically hit 600 Mbps on 2.4 GHz band and 1300 Mbps on 5 GHz band in ideal conditions. Our conditions are far from ideal due to walls, distances, other obstacles and interference from other devices and networks, so your actual Wi-Fi speeds will be significantly lower. Also, the 5 GHz band has less range than the 2.4 GHz one, so it is even more impacted by your environment.

Yep, that 600mb figure is almost worthless because that means you have to have a client that supports TurboQAM with 3x3 MIMO, and if you have a client that supports TurboQAM it probably also supports 5ghz so if you're able to get a clean enough signal on 2.4ghz to lock a 600mbps PHY rate you should just use 5ghz. Also most devices that only support 2.4ghz are only are low cost device that only 1x1 so that takes the max PHY rate down to 150mbps or 72mbps if the device only supports 20mhz wide channels as is the case with many tablets and smart phones, in real world tests the fastest I've ever seen on a 1x1 2.4ghz 802.11 link was around 90-100mpbs transferring files over the network with a 150mpbs PHY rate and when I had an old smartphone that would only do 20mhz channels on 2.4hghz it would only connect at a 65mbps PHY rate and I'd get like 40-50mbps in the speedtest.net app.
 
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Originally Posted by csandste
If the pipe is sixty, then why did I pay five times as much money for a router that can dish out thirty times as much as I need vs. one that dishes out twenty times as much as I need (yes I realize with two bands you could half that).


Theoretical limit is never reached in real world due to other router and users around competing for airwaves, interference, line of sight, etc. The 833mbps per link will easily drop to 150mpbs in the worst case.

This is why I use powerline ethernet to wire up my houses and each room I need reliable speed either have an access point (5GHz) or direct ethernet wired up to the laptop or PC.
 
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Originally Posted by mk378
If you watch a lot of Internet TV you can reach the ISP's monthly gigabyte usage cap. The higher plans have a higher cap or no cap. Nobody really yet needs the speed but a lot of people are buying the high speed plans because of that.


I was going to say the same exact same thing. We have 1GB ATT Fiber and although we don't need it we've kept it because we exceed the data cap for 100MB plan.

The most annoying thing is that it's almost impossible to save money by "ditching cable" because you of the price break one gets by bundling with your internet. Bundled Internet w/Cable(SAT) is priced about the same as un-bundled internet w/Streaming TV (ex, YouTube TV)
 
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Originally Posted by javacontour
Even 300mb includes unlimited data. I have 3 mobile phones and uVerse TV as well, so I get unlimited data at my current tier.

Originally Posted by blufeb95
Originally Posted by javacontour
I have AT&T gigapower available in my home, and went with 300mb up and down.

Not sure I could justify full 1gb speeds. Bragging rights maybe, but my self-worth isn't defined by that sort of thing
smile.gif


The gigabit includes unlimited data. I think that's why most people get it if they're not bundling TV because the once you add the unlimited for an extra $30 a month on top of the 300's price it's the same as Gigabit. Although if someone lives in an AT&T fiber area and needs basic connectivity and streams a lot I'd recommend buying through Toast.net as they resell AT&T fiber and you can get an uncapped 50/50 connection for only $45/mo through them.


Yes, since you bundled TV they give you unlimited, but if you don't have TV you'd be subject to the 1TB cap, I think most people that get the Gig only do so because they aren't paying for TV and they intend to use in excess of 1TB each month using other streaming services so they get the Gig for unlimited data which is normally at $30 upcharge for internet only customers.
 
As much as I'd love to, oilBabe isn't having it.

But I did get AT&T to drop the TV portion of my bill close to $50/month.

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Originally Posted by javacontour
Even 300mb includes unlimited data. I have 3 mobile phones and uVerse TV as well, so I get unlimited data at my current tier.

Yup. If you subscribe to their TV service as well, then they lift the monthly data cap. Otherwise, data is capped at 1 TB per month. This is their way of trying to discourage cord cutting.
 
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