Google Fibre in Kansas Live

I don't really understand the need for these uber fast speeds. Sure, we should make sure that the country has a decent network but there is no reason that everywhere needs to have 100Mbps connections. I'm personally content 20Mb connection and can't see why you'd need anything much faster. Certainly there is no need for 600Mb! Just what do people need it for?!

High usage households benefit greatly. Being able to watch HD iPlayer while someone games and another surfs while wifi users are connected too etc.

Plus with services like Netflix and the like, a faster connection means a higher fair usage allowance so you're less likely to get throttled to snail speeds on 100Mb which drops to 50Mb (Example: Virgin Media).
 
You can tell the kids who know nothing but superfast broadband from us older folk who remember what dial up was like (and put up with it for years).

I'm quite happy with my 24Mb line, yesterday I downloaded the entire first series (10 episodes) of Game of Thrones in full 1080p quality which was over 17 gigabytes and it only took half the day (when I was at work anyway).

If I wanna download an hour long episode in 720p it takes me less than an hour to download. I can handle that.

I also think far too many people concentrate on the download speed but forget the upload speed. So you have a 120Mb connection do you? But what is your upload because everytime you load pics to facebook, Skype, upload stuff to Youtube etc that 120Mb download speed doesn't mean ****. The internet used to be a glorified teletext service where all you did was get information so download speed was all that mattered but I'd say nowadays the interactivity of it makes the upload just as important.

I imagine there will come a time where all over our content, including HD television will be delivered by one fat pipe (so no satellite dishes, telephone lines etc) and then we will need massic capacity.
 
I'm so glad that we can get 60meg Virgin here now. Talktalk's fair usage policy is awful, 40gb of downloads a month and after that 400ms+ ping on League of Legends... :(
 
This sounds awesome, but it's just a trial. It will take years and years to get any of this remotely in to many cities. In the US the internet is pretty decent in terms of speeds, it's just the price that is ridiculous!! Since leaving the UK, I remember paying $25 a month or so for eclipse - is that still roughly the case?
I pay $65 a month!!! for 20mb line :( and it's the only company I can go with.
 
We really aren't that far behind.
It's one city, its averages which matter. We aren't great. But you can't just say oh America has 700mb, then dismiss the person who posts they have 120mb in the uk as lucky. What do you think that one city in USA is?

Bt is also trialing 300mb
 
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You can tell the kids who know nothing but superfast broadband from us older folk who remember what dial up was like (and put up with it for years).

I remember downloading the Quake 3 demo in '99 - took literally all night. On Google Fiber it would (in theory) have taken less than a second :eek:
 
Louis CK does a brilliant stand up on how faster internet speeds have turned us into impatient brats. He recalls an argument with his friend who was sighing that they had to wait for something to load on their phone and Louis said "think about what's happening here. What you are asking has to go all the way up to space and back again, is the speed of light suddenly too slow for you now?"
 

:D

Actually VM ratio is 10:1 so 120Mb has a decent upload as does 100Mb. My area isn't fully up yet so is 5Mb up but even still that's +600KB/s and it doesn't take too long to upload a HD video.

Also FWIW, I do remember the dialup days, I grew up as the first internet pages came about. I had AOL man, A O L!
 
High usage households benefit greatly. Being able to watch HD iPlayer while someone games and another surfs while wifi users are connected too etc.

Plus with services like Netflix and the like, a faster connection means a higher fair usage allowance so you're less likely to get throttled to snail speeds on 100Mb which drops to 50Mb (Example: Virgin Media).

That isn't answering the point though is it? High speeds aren't what is required, guaranteed bandwidth is.
 
Haha 600-700mb, feel like i'm living in the Stone Ages here in the U.K with 8Mb.
8Mb? Luxury! Lucky if I get 4Mb with a prevailing wind. The annoying thing is that here in South Yorkshire there's a local initiative to get FTTC for the places that BT won't touch, and they've already done our area. Unfortunately due to "technical issues" (which presumably means they forgot) our cabinet was missed. So everyone else in the area can get ~10x the download and upload speeds except our estate, which is stuck in the dark ages. Joy.
 
Upload speeds are a fair point. If I wanted to upload an hour and a half mix to youtube every week, it would take all week!
 
That isn't answering the point though is it? High speeds aren't what is required, guaranteed bandwidth is.

I can't speak for the areas with high utilisation though, only speak from my own experience, of which my post applies to.

Yes I understand there are issues in some areas but that wouldn't be valid to what I wrote.
 
Are we really that far behind?

I'm currently with Virgin getting 120MB (Jealous much? :p), what are other countries getting? Or is it just the case that I am very lucky to be in an area that is Fibre enabled?

I'm with VM and the download speeds are nice but look at the pitiful upload speeds unlike Google Fibre.

Also VM has issues during peak hours.
 
:D

Actually VM ratio is 10:1 so 120Mb has a decent upload as does 100Mb. My area isn't fully up yet so is 5Mb up but even still that's +600KB/s and it doesn't take too long to upload a HD video.

Also FWIW, I do remember the dialup days, I grew up as the first internet pages came about. I had AOL man, A O L!

I'm confused, when you say 'ratio' are you talking about contention ratio? In which case that has nothing to do with upload speed.
 
I don't really understand the need for these uber fast speeds. Sure, we should make sure that the country has a decent network but there is no reason that everywhere needs to have 100Mbps connections. I'm personally content 20Mb connection and can't see why you'd need anything much faster. Certainly there is no need for 600Mb! Just what do people need it for?!

That's fine then. Just because you're happy with a fairly slow connection then so should everybody else. I mean nobody needs more than 20mb*, right?


*20 down. I bet it's only 1.5 up.
 
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