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Typical U.S. households don’t use most of their bandwidth

91 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

cde-v 7y ago
Unless I missed it, the article doesn't mention once that to get 10 Mbps, you need to pay for 100 Mbps because you NEVER get remotely close to the advertised speeds. Pretending you get the advertised speeds reeks of industry shilling...
- Aloha 7y ago
  You should complain to your provider if your average speed is that far below the advertised one, it should be within 10%.
  - ct0 7y ago
    Should be within 10%? Where is that posted? I pay for xfinity 1gbps, and rarely get 50% of the "advertised maximum". I would switch to fiber in a heartbeat if I could, but my little street is the only street without enough customers to "make it worth it".
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      Interestingly, at least in my neighborhood fiber has similar problems to cable, according to the guy who installed fiber at my house. They are perfectly willing to oversell what the connection into the neighborhood is able to support. And the people who get limited first when it's too busy, according to him, are those with Gigabit connections.
    - Aloha 7y ago
      You're never gonna get rated port rates in a speed test, there is overhead to contend with, and so thats reasonable considering overhead for the speed test. This is even more so when consider that on a 1gbps the fastest the interface you're handing off with is 1gbps
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      Common practice is to set the throttling limit for a cable modem at 10-20% above your advertised speed. On my half-gig service with my current carrier I clock between 550-640 Mbps. When I had a 150 Mbps Xfinity plan, I regularly clocked 180 Mbps. If you're regularly getting less than your advertised speed, either the local distribution is over-extended and badly in need of an upgrade, or the line to your house is trash. Either way, you should be complaining. Also, note that if you have 1 Gbps service from Xfinity, you have fiber out at the street, they just bring coax into your home.
      - Aloha 7y ago
        When you start getitng into gig speeds, you're gonna run lower than 1gbps in a speed test, because of overhead too, I'd note.
  - magashna 7y ago
    "Up to" is the advertised rate, so check your SLA if you have a leg to stand on.
- Paianni 7y ago
  Most home users don't get close to advertised speeds because of WiFi interference.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    That's not the same thing - you measure it at the router. I get a peak speed of slightly over my 35Mbs limit on my Vodaphone FTC - can sustain 30-31 Mbs for big downloads eg from steam.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      Sure, but most people don't. And once you get to the multi-hundreds speeds, wifi might literally not be able to support the speeds.
    - swiley 7y ago
      Don’t measure at the router, most home routers are crap. Measure it at the modem. My parents have an actual 1Gig link but you’d never be able to tell unless you removed the router because it just can’t keep up.
      - C1sc0cat 7y ago
        Don't think most people have a separate modem - all in one modems is how the UK does it. I measure from my actual elderly laptop running over the Fastest devolo POE kit. I do need to investigate getting a better router than the standard one Voda provide.
    - Paianni 7y ago
      I mean most home users can't or won't bother wiring their devices to their router.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    I ran physical ethernet cable to my TVs when I built my house; just for this reason. Otherwise, most placed I've lived, the cable modem was so close to the TV, that it's easier to just run a short wire instead of messing with WIFI passwords.
- Allower 7y ago
  True, I pay Comcast for 100Mbps and routinely get 250Mbps
psim1 7y ago
When I switched from DSL to cable internet several years ago, the concern I had was with upload capacity. To get to 10 Mbps upload speed, which I wanted in order to be able to do high-definition video conferencing along with other simultaneous internet usage, I had to order the 250 Mbps download speed. I recognize that I seldom use 250 Mbps download, but I can fill up 10 Mbps upload pretty easily.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Yep. I have a 350/35 connection. Are backbones usually heavily asymmetric? Or do the ISP's just have say, 10gbit symmetric lines that barely get used on one side, with the odd content host saturating?
  - brk 7y ago
    Backbones are generally symmetric. Without getting into super deep detail, on cable internet, there is a balance between spectrum allocated for Tv content, and internet bandwidth. The system will have a finite amount of spectrum available, which can be divided between TV content, downstream internet, and upstream internet. Given that most peoples usage is mostly downloading, the CATV carriers allocate more spectrum/bandwidth to downloads vs uploads.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      Any reason why can’t those be allocated dynamically and switched between upload/download? So your connection is still not symmetric, but at least your 350Mbps download speed can suddenly turn into 350Mbps upload, or be roughly evenly split in half if you’re both uploading and downloading?
      - izzydata 7y ago
        I was pretty sure fiber was bi-directional so you can always saturate the same fiber with all upload or download based on demand. Copper wire can't do this so they use most of their last mile copper for download since that is what most people use the most of.
fossuser 7y ago
We have a gigabit Bay Area Comcast connection for $89/month (gigabit down/35mbps up) and downloading an Xbox One game (50-90GB) while wired directly into the switch still takes 20min or so. I can’t get behind the paywall, but faster internet is definitely worth it.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  That upload speed is just ridiculous. With pretty much everyone pushing cloud storage & services, upload speeds are important too. I’d take a symmetric 100/100 connection over 1000/35 any day.
  - mshook 7y ago
    Exactly, having a 1000/400 Mb (roughly, can't complain for 49€) at home not only helps to download stuff as plenty others mentioned but it also created new opportunities. I have roughly a half a gigabyte of pictures (digital and digitized from films). Before having fiber, it wasn't doable to do backup in the cloud. But now it's just a piece of cake and it doesn't take that long either.
- rhino369 7y ago
  Back when I had gigabit, it seemed like Xbox servers were by far the limiting factor in Xbox One downloads (either that or the peering between Verizon and MS servers). I'd rarely get over 100mbps, though I could saturate a usenet server connection pretty close to 1000mbps. When I moved, I downgraded to 300mbps down, and I haven't notice any practical difference. Hell, for 3 months my download was artificially limited to 30mbps down (don't ask me why) and I really only noticed the issue when uptaking Xbox games. Everything else felt fine.
  - fossuser 7y ago
    Another piece of this is roommates (Bay Area) and concurrent network use - this helps make it more worth it.
jjoonathan 7y ago
For a definition of "it" that corresponds to the prices American telecoms feel their monopoly/oligopoly position entitles them to charge, the title is right, the extra bandwidth isn't worth "it." On a recent trip to Sweden, I saw multiples of the bandwidth I'm used to advertised for a fraction of the price. For that definition of "it," I'd pay "it" in a heartbeat.
- stapled_socks 7y ago
  If you live in an apartment in Sweden it's now often treated as a utility. I have the following things included in my rent: water, (central) heating and 1Gb/1Gb internet. I don't even know which provider it is.
- WhoBeI 7y ago
  In my case 500/500 fiber @ ~$40-45/month, somewhere around $20-25/month for 100/50 4G and something like $60-65 for 1000/1000 fiber. Semi-rural areas are usually not far behind. With neighborhood deals you can push those prices a bit. Most (major) train lines have fiber buried next to them that is leased by the various telecoms which helped the expansion. [Edit] Looked it up and a rural town in the southern parts where I used to live offers 1000/1000 from 5 different ISP's who are apparently fighting. They've all lowered prices recently, cheapest is at ~$30/month.
  - PhantomGremlin 7y ago
    Most (major) train lines have fiber buried next to them that is leased by the various telecoms which helped the expansion. Yes indeed. Most people don't know that. Here's a little piece of related trivia: Long before wireless was a thing, people wanted to bypass the AT&T long distance voice telecom monopoly. Actually, long before voice communications were a thing, people wanted to send telegrams. Hmmm ... as you note, there are train lines all over. Perfect for right of way to run telegraph wires, and eventually to run long distance fiber. A relatively modern name arising from that: Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications Sprint for short. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Corporation#Southern_Pacific_Communications_and_introduction_of_Sprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Corporation#Southern_Pa...
not_a_cop75 7y ago
The truth about articles like this: Comcast and others pay for stuff like this to be published.
- pranjalv123 7y ago
  Why would Comcast do that? Wouldn't they want you to pay more for faster internet service (when you're almost never going to be maxing out your bandwidth)?
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    I guess they could be gaining by publishing this so it calms down those who are already on the maximum tier but are not happy and might switch to a different provider that can offer more?
    - psychrometer 7y ago
      Since Comcast offers gigabit, I doubt there are many people who are itching to switch to something faster than that.
      - not_a_cop75 7y ago
        They have what, an offering of gigabit to 5% of the market? I must quickly call everyone and shout about how unbelievably impressive this is.
      - Nextgrid 7y ago
        From what I hear the upload is just laughable even on the gigabit plans, and the data caps don’t help either.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jtbayly 7y ago
  I don't get it. Why would they, and what evidence do you have? I had a cable connection through Time Warner Cable and was paying $15/month for a 3Mbps connection. It worked fine. They were bought by Spectrum, who raised the price to $20/month and decreased the actual speed I was getting. When I finally caved and called to upgrade, the lowest speed I could order was 200Mbps. As far as I can tell, it is the cable companies that are pushing the higher speeds, not saying they are not worth it.
jedberg 7y ago
It's not just about speed but about time. I value my time. Yeah, I may not saturate my gigabit line, but when I only have to wait 1 minute for a 3GB MacOS update instead of 20, that's valuable to me. It's worth the expense of having a mostly idle gigabit line. Also I definitely saturate my gigabit link on download all the time, and sometimes on upload too, but I realize I'm not the average person in that regard.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Latency makes a big difference too. Using the internet on a symmetric fiber connection with sub 5ms latency is way better than a coax connection split between 1,000 homes with a few hundred ms ping.
  - Paul-ish 7y ago
    This may just bolster the researcher's point. That more than speed matters. What really matters it the performance of things on the application layer.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      Maybe, but most US households don't even have the "bandwidth" that they say are advertised as getting. Just because Comcast says you are getting 200mbps doesn't mean you are, it's probably just boosting it temporarily and allocating it from other houses in the neighborhood. And the uploads are laughable, try having multiple FaceTime video calls going in the same house, they degrade quite quickly because they barely have a solid 2mbps upload. Also, behind all these NATs and blocked ports, the whole system is designed to not be used. Update it so everyone has strong connections with consistent bandwidth and low latency with IPv6 and perhaps we would see more possibilities with home internet use.
      - penagwin 7y ago
        Comcast's 150mbps down includes 10mbps up - it's not terrible for one or two people but as a power user I had to upgrade to 450down/20up. The upload is so pathetic because cable doesn't have symmetric bandwidth, you have to choose if you want more download channels or more upload channels. Most households don't need much upload, thus the ratio. 10mbps up is a minimum requirement for me though IMO.
aloknnikhil 7y ago
Honestly, what's the point of these paywall articles? Might as well just setup groups on HN that only have access to certain paywalls and publish them there. At this point, this is only a topic of discussion. I have no idea why the article thinks it's not worth it.
jtbayly 7y ago
Streaming video might not cause you to max out your connection, but downloading large files may well. And if so, the files will download substantially faster.
Bantros 7y ago
My 150/150 fibre connection says it is
TheRealPomax 7y ago
This title needs a [paywall] suffix. So not having read this, I suspect this was a paid article by US carriers to convince US customers that everything is fine and they should stop demanding service that is on par with the rest of the developed world because "what we offer you is fine, see?"
kevin_b_er 7y ago
Only if you get the advertised speed. Sure you can buy 100mbps, but will you get? Unlikely even wired locally via gigabit. The major service provides frequently lie out their teeth by abusing "up to". 1mbps is a speed that fits into "up to 100mbps". Further, due to the corruption of the FCC through Ajit Pai, they are not required to give you any particular level of speed that you'd expect depending on where you talk to. The ISP can willfully and intentionally degrade your service you bought and paid for to certain providers unless that provider also pays.
anilakar 7y ago
A fast internet connection is like many other resources: It might be good 95 % of the time and you won't pay any attention to it, but when you notice it's not enough, it totally pisses you off. This applies equally to computer RAM, floor space and station wagons. I really appreciated my gigabit Ethernet connection when I had to reinstall DCS World, which takes over 100 gigabytes of disk space when you own a few extra modules.
aaronax 7y ago
If it is not worth it (presumably because most of the bandwidth will just be unused) then the ISPs should just bump everyone up to gigabit or whatever their end-user links support. Few people will actually use the extra bandwidth so there will not be much aggregate impact on the ISP. (This holds true until the next leap in bandwidth-requiring applications comes along.)
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  It may not be worth it for consumers, but for ISPs it's an excellent form of market segmentation.
timw4mail 7y ago
Now if only home bandwidth caps were illegal...
okmokmz 7y ago
Perhaps for a "regular" user, but for me it's absolutely worth it. I imagine the ycombinator crowd isn't who this article is targeting, and likely isn't applicable for many here
dvduval 7y ago
In my neighborhood Cox brought in Gigablast a few months ago and it is around $130/month. Google fiber is being put in now, and will be $70/month, so we will have two Gigabyte options. I like seeing the competition, and the resulting price drops. Surely Cox will need to lower their price to compete.
brownbat 7y ago
More and more I care far more about latency than throughout. I want responsiveness, I don't want my traffic to circumnavigate the globe, and inconsistent pings can signal other qos issues.
std_throwaway 7y ago
Isn't it a hen-and-egg-problem? High quality 4K and 8K streaming isn't widely used because there are not many users. Therefore there is no evidence for demand. Therefore there isn't many providers and content. Therefore we don't really need the bandwidth to support something that doesn't exist yet. We need to wait until other markets prove that this demand exists. Then the companies who provide the solutions can take over our market. Win-Win.
O5vYtytb 7y ago
Average is definitely the wrong metric to look at for this. It's like saying "the average speed of a car is only 25 MPH, but you're paying for one that can go 70", but everyone would probably agree that going over 70 is valuable even if it's only for short bursts. Especially bad is that graph of speed vs average bandwidth used (%). Of course people don't max out a 1000 MB/s line constantly, that'd be nuts.
christkv 7y ago
I've got 600/600 fiber here in Northern Spain and it's its just awesome for things like digital game downloads on the PS4 or PC. The cost is 39 eur a month. The funny thing is that most people with this kind of setup are using a wifi hotspot that can only deliver a small percentage of the available bandwidth.
pathartl 7y ago
I feel like this is a prime example of survivorship bias. We're in an era where things have to be transcoded to utilize a smaller amount of bandwidth, so the stuff delivered to us it pre-optimized for our connection. If YouTube or Netflix suddenly made their encodes not crap, we might actually saturate the network. Having asymmetric connections in most homes I feel severely limits how we utilize the internet. I'm definitely a power user and would choose to run multiple game servers and web servers along with some video streaming if my connection was symmetric instead of the 400/25 that Spectrum offers in my area. However, I feel like there's a ton of missed potential for home-based consumer server appliances. Maybe companies like Apple would be more inclined to take platforms like Synology and create something that's even more user friendly.
- hsk823 7y ago
  They want you to buy the business product / enterprise product then. I know it sucks to be in the power user category, but part of the reason they have such limited upload channels is to prevent their networks for being used exactly how you want to use it. They don't want people running servers, they want your money to upgrade to an enterprise level service.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I agree that there's so much potential that could be tapped if only we consumers could host stuff at home. In fact, I don't get why ISPs don't push for this; I have to imagine there's a market out there for this.
  - pathartl 7y ago
    Stuff like Syno is probably the easiest stuff out there, but it's still not like I could give it to my parents. It has huge potential just from a marketing standpoint. "Your data's secure because you know exactly where it is." and such.
save_ferris 7y ago
> The Wall Street Journal studied the internet use of 53 of our journalists across the country, over a period of months, in coordination with researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. From the first paragraph, which says it all right there. If journalists aren't making use of all available resources, then more mustn't be worth it. Nor do I see the price comparisons of related internet service globally.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  This is, incidentally, how the WSJ conducts all of their research. ;- )
NetBeck 7y ago
The internet is a form of free speech. The more bandwidth, the more free content available. For example, DOCSIS 4.0 can deliver symmetrical 10Gbps to the house.[1] YouTube would be obsolete if a P2P video platform was available with users pushing 10Gbps each. Faster internet is worth it. Nobody uses what they have because they don't have much. Everything has been designated to the cloud. [1] https://www.cablelabs.com/technologies/docsis-4-0-technology https://www.cablelabs.com/technologies/docsis-4-0-technology
- std_throwaway 7y ago
  > Everything has been designated to the cloud. Because that's where the money and power lies.
  - austinheap 7y ago
    It’s where electricity and bandwidth are cheapest due to economies of scale. Colo’ing at HE is fun/etc (and they have an amazing team!) but you pay a pretty penny for physical proximity.
- austinheap 7y ago
  That’s like quoting the max speed off a WiFi box at the store (AC5300 does 5.3gbps gais, Linksys PR said so!) or funnier yet 5G radio vendors. TBH the backend upgrades to support DOCSIS 3/3.1 are way more expensive than its worth to ISPs. Add in the finite spectrum for cable providers and giving up 24 channels per modem to-fill-what-business-need isn’t high priority.
Allower 7y ago
Good job showing your stupidity WSJ, utter garbage.
vidanay 7y ago
Apparently the WSJ has discovered the Law of Diminishing Returns. I'd love to double my 20Mb/5Mb connection, and I would get real benefit from doing so. Doubling a 1Gb/1Gb connection doesn't have the same effect nor benefit.
swiley 7y ago
Of course you don’t use it most of the time, you pay for it because when you need it you need it. Someone decides they need some crazy tool in NPM and without a fast connection you’ll be waiting for a while.
olliej 7y ago
I don’t think it’s about “I want to download the maximum possible every month”, but rather “I want to wait the least time possible whenever I do need data”. Eg downloading a new game is nowadays something like 20gig, software updates are regularly more than a gig, etc. Then there’s the more basic a core issue: content latency is still one of the largest drivers of browsing performance, so even when there isn’t a lot of data you want high speed. The article seems to basically miss the point.
gnode 7y ago
While increased speed isn't justifiable for many subscribers, as streaming and web-browsing is mostly all they do, there are a few fairly common use cases where slow speeds cause frustration (game downloads, and software updates, for example). Once the capacity is installed, there's little cost in providing a high speed last-mile connection to a subscriber, versus a lower speed using the same hardware, yet the data transferred by a subscriber translates more directly to increased costs for the ISP. I expect that in the future, price differentiation based on speed may go away, and data transfer caps / metering become more commonplace. Data transfer contributes more directly to the ISP's costs, and offering subscribers a faster connection makes it easier to consume.
shmerl 7y ago
It's worth it, if ISPs aren't ripping users off. Gigabit for $70 without caps is already pretty high but OK price. Anything higher is probably fishy. Hopefully rapid deployment of low orbit satellite ISPs will seriously pressure incumbents, and prices will become normal for high bandwidth plans. Then they'll be surely worth it.
resters 7y ago
The bandwidth is not priced as dedicated bandwidth, so of course users don't expect to use "all" of it. Gigabit speed residential bandwidth packages allow users who want slightly faster download speeds to pay extra, ultimately they are just using the newer hardware revs and getting the same level everyone else will get in a year or two.
_--___-___ 7y ago
Recently downgraded to $35/mo comcast 60 down performance tier because I have low bandwidth usage (1-2 simultaneously connected devices, little streaming with a downloaded collection on a local plex server). Really wish I had the option to pay for better latency and less jitter, which matter much more for my needs. I know the ISPs probably don't even have the infrastructure to offer reliable internet, which is 100% on them even if the general consumer only cares about Netflix getting throttled. Funnily, Verizon claims to offer "Fios" in my building with plans that are clearly not FTTH.
pier25 7y ago
It's like driving a car. You rarely drive at the fastest speed or highest engine torque, but in some situations you need to be able to accelerate quickly. I'm sure on average I don't use even one third of my bandwidth, but it sure gets fully used when streaming a 50GB file from a Plex server or downloading an Xcode update.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
forgotmypw3 7y ago
Even capped bandwidth is oversold. There is not enough capacity in the system for everyone to use up their entire cap. "their bandwidth" doesn't actually exist.
raintrees 7y ago
Isn't this the primary target market for the new blockchain distributed processing services that are cropping up? Such as Golem, OTOY, etc. Kind of the next iteration of bitcoin mining, rather than SETI.
fnord77 7y ago
true... been trying to think of ideas to put my 1Gb fiber to good use, especially while I'm at work. Besides piracy and running a tor exit node (neither I want to do), nothing jumps out. any ideas?
oezi 7y ago
At my company we were downgraded from 200/50 Mbit cable to 10/10 Mbit MPLS, because 20 people won't consistently saturate the link (according to the IT guy). Sigh...
- Havoc 7y ago
  IT guy needs to be shot. By the time 20 people consistently saturate a link productivity is down the tubes
dredmorbius 7y ago
The main arguments here are for streaming video usage, and probably apply, though the chicken-egg question of higher-quality video supply and demand may apply. Distinctions between latency and overall reliability can also make appreciable differences. My experience is that this isn't where I find myself wanting speed. Rather: - Downloads. Especially OS updates, though also occasional data-scraping projects. Both rates and service caps impede this, though the needs are occasional. Schedulable updates (quite possible with Linux, slightly less convenient with MacOS) largely address this. (Mac OS and application updates being schedulable, with Firefox as the major culprit, would be a big help here.) - Podcast downloads. I'll occasionally grab a stash of episodes before heading out for a while, to be able to listen whilst mobile (and disconnected). The difference between my standard 5 Mbps connection and the occasional higher-speed cable, approaching 100 Mbps, is distinctly noticeable. An episode taking a couple of minutes to download is fetched in < 10 seconds. Again, an occasional need. - VOIP. We're actively exploring more cord-cutting options, and the promise of higher QoS with Internet telephony or video chat is an interest. Existing lower-speed connections are sufficient for voice, but not video. And the voice connection has quite pronounced artefacts. Higher speed would be a boost here. - Multiple simultaneous household uses. VOIP + streaming audio + streaming video + OS updates being able to occur simultaneously with minimal interference might justify higher-speed service. - Home-based services. Whether private (VPN over Modem or Router via OpenWRT, Nextbox fileshare, and related services), or public (email, Mastodon, Diaspora, Friendica, and/or web services), the capability to self-host services could be useful. The headache factor remains to be assessed. Truth is that in the local neighbourhood, slow (ADSL) and faster (cable) service are not hugely disproportionate in pricing, so a substantial service boost might be available at little additional cost. Higher-speed cable service largely isn't necessary, and does have a high price premium. I suppose it's a case of fools subsidising the discerning....
asdf333 7y ago
"most people do not fully max out their their pentium-133Mhz cpus. therefore we should not speed up computers" said no one ever. this is the same line of argument
gumby 7y ago
Given that this is the WSJ I have to suspect the telecom cartel encouraged this article to justify caps.
ricardobeat 7y ago
Since torrents and music downloads were killed there is not much to use it for...

91 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

Unless I missed it, the article doesn't mention once that to get 10 Mbps, you need to pay for 100 Mbps because you NEVER get remotely close to the advertised speeds. Pretending you get the advertised speeds reeks of industry shilling...

Aloha 7y ago
You should complain to your provider if your average speed is that far below the advertised one, it should be within 10%.
- ct0 7y ago
  Should be within 10%? Where is that posted? I pay for xfinity 1gbps, and rarely get 50% of the "advertised maximum". I would switch to fiber in a heartbeat if I could, but my little street is the only street without enough customers to "make it worth it".
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    Interestingly, at least in my neighborhood fiber has similar problems to cable, according to the guy who installed fiber at my house. They are perfectly willing to oversell what the connection into the neighborhood is able to support. And the people who get limited first when it's too busy, according to him, are those with Gigabit connections.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    You're never gonna get rated port rates in a speed test, there is overhead to contend with, and so thats reasonable considering overhead for the speed test. This is even more so when consider that on a 1gbps the fastest the interface you're handing off with is 1gbps
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    Common practice is to set the throttling limit for a cable modem at 10-20% above your advertised speed. On my half-gig service with my current carrier I clock between 550-640 Mbps. When I had a 150 Mbps Xfinity plan, I regularly clocked 180 Mbps. If you're regularly getting less than your advertised speed, either the local distribution is over-extended and badly in need of an upgrade, or the line to your house is trash. Either way, you should be complaining. Also, note that if you have 1 Gbps service from Xfinity, you have fiber out at the street, they just bring coax into your home.
    - Aloha 7y ago
      When you start getitng into gig speeds, you're gonna run lower than 1gbps in a speed test, because of overhead too, I'd note.
- magashna 7y ago
  "Up to" is the advertised rate, so check your SLA if you have a leg to stand on.
Paianni 7y ago
Most home users don't get close to advertised speeds because of WiFi interference.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  That's not the same thing - you measure it at the router. I get a peak speed of slightly over my 35Mbs limit on my Vodaphone FTC - can sustain 30-31 Mbs for big downloads eg from steam.
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    Sure, but most people don't. And once you get to the multi-hundreds speeds, wifi might literally not be able to support the speeds.
  - swiley 7y ago
    Don’t measure at the router, most home routers are crap. Measure it at the modem. My parents have an actual 1Gig link but you’d never be able to tell unless you removed the router because it just can’t keep up.
    - C1sc0cat 7y ago
      Don't think most people have a separate modem - all in one modems is how the UK does it. I measure from my actual elderly laptop running over the Fastest devolo POE kit. I do need to investigate getting a better router than the standard one Voda provide.
  - Paianni 7y ago
    I mean most home users can't or won't bother wiring their devices to their router.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  I ran physical ethernet cable to my TVs when I built my house; just for this reason. Otherwise, most placed I've lived, the cable modem was so close to the TV, that it's easier to just run a short wire instead of messing with WIFI passwords.
Allower 7y ago
True, I pay Comcast for 100Mbps and routinely get 250Mbps

psim1 7y ago

When I switched from DSL to cable internet several years ago, the concern I had was with upload capacity. To get to 10 Mbps upload speed, which I wanted in order to be able to do high-definition video conferencing along with other simultaneous internet usage, I had to order the 250 Mbps download speed. I recognize that I seldom use 250 Mbps download, but I can fill up 10 Mbps upload pretty easily.

esotericn 7y ago
Yep. I have a 350/35 connection. Are backbones usually heavily asymmetric? Or do the ISP's just have say, 10gbit symmetric lines that barely get used on one side, with the odd content host saturating?
- brk 7y ago
  Backbones are generally symmetric. Without getting into super deep detail, on cable internet, there is a balance between spectrum allocated for Tv content, and internet bandwidth. The system will have a finite amount of spectrum available, which can be divided between TV content, downstream internet, and upstream internet. Given that most peoples usage is mostly downloading, the CATV carriers allocate more spectrum/bandwidth to downloads vs uploads.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    Any reason why can’t those be allocated dynamically and switched between upload/download? So your connection is still not symmetric, but at least your 350Mbps download speed can suddenly turn into 350Mbps upload, or be roughly evenly split in half if you’re both uploading and downloading?
    - izzydata 7y ago
      I was pretty sure fiber was bi-directional so you can always saturate the same fiber with all upload or download based on demand. Copper wire can't do this so they use most of their last mile copper for download since that is what most people use the most of.

fossuser 7y ago

We have a gigabit Bay Area Comcast connection for $89/month (gigabit down/35mbps up) and downloading an Xbox One game (50-90GB) while wired directly into the switch still takes 20min or so. I can’t get behind the paywall, but faster internet is definitely worth it.

Nextgrid 7y ago
That upload speed is just ridiculous. With pretty much everyone pushing cloud storage & services, upload speeds are important too. I’d take a symmetric 100/100 connection over 1000/35 any day.
- mshook 7y ago
  Exactly, having a 1000/400 Mb (roughly, can't complain for 49€) at home not only helps to download stuff as plenty others mentioned but it also created new opportunities. I have roughly a half a gigabyte of pictures (digital and digitized from films). Before having fiber, it wasn't doable to do backup in the cloud. But now it's just a piece of cake and it doesn't take that long either.
rhino369 7y ago
Back when I had gigabit, it seemed like Xbox servers were by far the limiting factor in Xbox One downloads (either that or the peering between Verizon and MS servers). I'd rarely get over 100mbps, though I could saturate a usenet server connection pretty close to 1000mbps. When I moved, I downgraded to 300mbps down, and I haven't notice any practical difference. Hell, for 3 months my download was artificially limited to 30mbps down (don't ask me why) and I really only noticed the issue when uptaking Xbox games. Everything else felt fine.
- fossuser 7y ago
  Another piece of this is roommates (Bay Area) and concurrent network use - this helps make it more worth it.

jjoonathan 7y ago

For a definition of "it" that corresponds to the prices American telecoms feel their monopoly/oligopoly position entitles them to charge, the title is right, the extra bandwidth isn't worth "it." On a recent trip to Sweden, I saw multiples of the bandwidth I'm used to advertised for a fraction of the price. For that definition of "it," I'd pay "it" in a heartbeat.

stapled_socks 7y ago
If you live in an apartment in Sweden it's now often treated as a utility. I have the following things included in my rent: water, (central) heating and 1Gb/1Gb internet. I don't even know which provider it is.
WhoBeI 7y ago
In my case 500/500 fiber @ ~$40-45/month, somewhere around $20-25/month for 100/50 4G and something like $60-65 for 1000/1000 fiber. Semi-rural areas are usually not far behind. With neighborhood deals you can push those prices a bit. Most (major) train lines have fiber buried next to them that is leased by the various telecoms which helped the expansion. [Edit] Looked it up and a rural town in the southern parts where I used to live offers 1000/1000 from 5 different ISP's who are apparently fighting. They've all lowered prices recently, cheapest is at ~$30/month.
- PhantomGremlin 7y ago
  Most (major) train lines have fiber buried next to them that is leased by the various telecoms which helped the expansion. Yes indeed. Most people don't know that. Here's a little piece of related trivia: Long before wireless was a thing, people wanted to bypass the AT&T long distance voice telecom monopoly. Actually, long before voice communications were a thing, people wanted to send telegrams. Hmmm ... as you note, there are train lines all over. Perfect for right of way to run telegraph wires, and eventually to run long distance fiber. A relatively modern name arising from that: Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications Sprint for short. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Corporation#Southern_Pacific_Communications_and_introduction_of_Sprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Corporation#Southern_Pa...

not_a_cop75 7y ago

The truth about articles like this: Comcast and others pay for stuff like this to be published.

pranjalv123 7y ago
Why would Comcast do that? Wouldn't they want you to pay more for faster internet service (when you're almost never going to be maxing out your bandwidth)?
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  I guess they could be gaining by publishing this so it calms down those who are already on the maximum tier but are not happy and might switch to a different provider that can offer more?
  - psychrometer 7y ago
    Since Comcast offers gigabit, I doubt there are many people who are itching to switch to something faster than that.
    - not_a_cop75 7y ago
      They have what, an offering of gigabit to 5% of the market? I must quickly call everyone and shout about how unbelievably impressive this is.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      From what I hear the upload is just laughable even on the gigabit plans, and the data caps don’t help either.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jtbayly 7y ago
I don't get it. Why would they, and what evidence do you have? I had a cable connection through Time Warner Cable and was paying $15/month for a 3Mbps connection. It worked fine. They were bought by Spectrum, who raised the price to $20/month and decreased the actual speed I was getting. When I finally caved and called to upgrade, the lowest speed I could order was 200Mbps. As far as I can tell, it is the cable companies that are pushing the higher speeds, not saying they are not worth it.

jedberg 7y ago

It's not just about speed but about time. I value my time. Yeah, I may not saturate my gigabit line, but when I only have to wait 1 minute for a 3GB MacOS update instead of 20, that's valuable to me. It's worth the expense of having a mostly idle gigabit line. Also I definitely saturate my gigabit link on download all the time, and sometimes on upload too, but I realize I'm not the average person in that regard.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Latency makes a big difference too. Using the internet on a symmetric fiber connection with sub 5ms latency is way better than a coax connection split between 1,000 homes with a few hundred ms ping.
- Paul-ish 7y ago
  This may just bolster the researcher's point. That more than speed matters. What really matters it the performance of things on the application layer.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Maybe, but most US households don't even have the "bandwidth" that they say are advertised as getting. Just because Comcast says you are getting 200mbps doesn't mean you are, it's probably just boosting it temporarily and allocating it from other houses in the neighborhood. And the uploads are laughable, try having multiple FaceTime video calls going in the same house, they degrade quite quickly because they barely have a solid 2mbps upload. Also, behind all these NATs and blocked ports, the whole system is designed to not be used. Update it so everyone has strong connections with consistent bandwidth and low latency with IPv6 and perhaps we would see more possibilities with home internet use.
    - penagwin 7y ago
      Comcast's 150mbps down includes 10mbps up - it's not terrible for one or two people but as a power user I had to upgrade to 450down/20up. The upload is so pathetic because cable doesn't have symmetric bandwidth, you have to choose if you want more download channels or more upload channels. Most households don't need much upload, thus the ratio. 10mbps up is a minimum requirement for me though IMO.

aloknnikhil 7y ago

Honestly, what's the point of these paywall articles? Might as well just setup groups on HN that only have access to certain paywalls and publish them there. At this point, this is only a topic of discussion. I have no idea why the article thinks it's not worth it.

jtbayly 7y ago

Streaming video might not cause you to max out your connection, but downloading large files may well. And if so, the files will download substantially faster.

Bantros 7y ago

My 150/150 fibre connection says it is

TheRealPomax 7y ago

This title needs a [paywall] suffix. So not having read this, I suspect this was a paid article by US carriers to convince US customers that everything is fine and they should stop demanding service that is on par with the rest of the developed world because "what we offer you is fine, see?"

kevin_b_er 7y ago

Only if you get the advertised speed. Sure you can buy 100mbps, but will you get? Unlikely even wired locally via gigabit. The major service provides frequently lie out their teeth by abusing "up to". 1mbps is a speed that fits into "up to 100mbps". Further, due to the corruption of the FCC through Ajit Pai, they are not required to give you any particular level of speed that you'd expect depending on where you talk to. The ISP can willfully and intentionally degrade your service you bought and paid for to certain providers unless that provider also pays.

anilakar 7y ago

A fast internet connection is like many other resources: It might be good 95 % of the time and you won't pay any attention to it, but when you notice it's not enough, it totally pisses you off. This applies equally to computer RAM, floor space and station wagons. I really appreciated my gigabit Ethernet connection when I had to reinstall DCS World, which takes over 100 gigabytes of disk space when you own a few extra modules.

aaronax 7y ago

If it is not worth it (presumably because most of the bandwidth will just be unused) then the ISPs should just bump everyone up to gigabit or whatever their end-user links support. Few people will actually use the extra bandwidth so there will not be much aggregate impact on the ISP. (This holds true until the next leap in bandwidth-requiring applications comes along.)

Ajedi32 7y ago
It may not be worth it for consumers, but for ISPs it's an excellent form of market segmentation.

timw4mail 7y ago

Now if only home bandwidth caps were illegal...

okmokmz 7y ago

Perhaps for a "regular" user, but for me it's absolutely worth it. I imagine the ycombinator crowd isn't who this article is targeting, and likely isn't applicable for many here

dvduval 7y ago

In my neighborhood Cox brought in Gigablast a few months ago and it is around $130/month. Google fiber is being put in now, and will be $70/month, so we will have two Gigabyte options. I like seeing the competition, and the resulting price drops. Surely Cox will need to lower their price to compete.

brownbat 7y ago

More and more I care far more about latency than throughout. I want responsiveness, I don't want my traffic to circumnavigate the globe, and inconsistent pings can signal other qos issues.

std_throwaway 7y ago

Isn't it a hen-and-egg-problem? High quality 4K and 8K streaming isn't widely used because there are not many users. Therefore there is no evidence for demand. Therefore there isn't many providers and content. Therefore we don't really need the bandwidth to support something that doesn't exist yet. We need to wait until other markets prove that this demand exists. Then the companies who provide the solutions can take over our market. Win-Win.

O5vYtytb 7y ago

Average is definitely the wrong metric to look at for this. It's like saying "the average speed of a car is only 25 MPH, but you're paying for one that can go 70", but everyone would probably agree that going over 70 is valuable even if it's only for short bursts. Especially bad is that graph of speed vs average bandwidth used (%). Of course people don't max out a 1000 MB/s line constantly, that'd be nuts.

christkv 7y ago

I've got 600/600 fiber here in Northern Spain and it's its just awesome for things like digital game downloads on the PS4 or PC. The cost is 39 eur a month. The funny thing is that most people with this kind of setup are using a wifi hotspot that can only deliver a small percentage of the available bandwidth.

pathartl 7y ago

I feel like this is a prime example of survivorship bias. We're in an era where things have to be transcoded to utilize a smaller amount of bandwidth, so the stuff delivered to us it pre-optimized for our connection. If YouTube or Netflix suddenly made their encodes not crap, we might actually saturate the network. Having asymmetric connections in most homes I feel severely limits how we utilize the internet. I'm definitely a power user and would choose to run multiple game servers and web servers along with some video streaming if my connection was symmetric instead of the 400/25 that Spectrum offers in my area. However, I feel like there's a ton of missed potential for home-based consumer server appliances. Maybe companies like Apple would be more inclined to take platforms like Synology and create something that's even more user friendly.

hsk823 7y ago
They want you to buy the business product / enterprise product then. I know it sucks to be in the power user category, but part of the reason they have such limited upload channels is to prevent their networks for being used exactly how you want to use it. They don't want people running servers, they want your money to upgrade to an enterprise level service.
mxuribe 7y ago
I agree that there's so much potential that could be tapped if only we consumers could host stuff at home. In fact, I don't get why ISPs don't push for this; I have to imagine there's a market out there for this.
- pathartl 7y ago
  Stuff like Syno is probably the easiest stuff out there, but it's still not like I could give it to my parents. It has huge potential just from a marketing standpoint. "Your data's secure because you know exactly where it is." and such.

save_ferris 7y ago

> The Wall Street Journal studied the internet use of 53 of our journalists across the country, over a period of months, in coordination with researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. From the first paragraph, which says it all right there. If journalists aren't making use of all available resources, then more mustn't be worth it. Nor do I see the price comparisons of related internet service globally.

microcolonel 7y ago
This is, incidentally, how the WSJ conducts all of their research. ;- )

NetBeck 7y ago

The internet is a form of free speech. The more bandwidth, the more free content available. For example, DOCSIS 4.0 can deliver symmetrical 10Gbps to the house.[1] YouTube would be obsolete if a P2P video platform was available with users pushing 10Gbps each. Faster internet is worth it. Nobody uses what they have because they don't have much. Everything has been designated to the cloud. [1] https://www.cablelabs.com/technologies/docsis-4-0-technology https://www.cablelabs.com/technologies/docsis-4-0-technology

std_throwaway 7y ago
> Everything has been designated to the cloud. Because that's where the money and power lies.
- austinheap 7y ago
  It’s where electricity and bandwidth are cheapest due to economies of scale. Colo’ing at HE is fun/etc (and they have an amazing team!) but you pay a pretty penny for physical proximity.
austinheap 7y ago
That’s like quoting the max speed off a WiFi box at the store (AC5300 does 5.3gbps gais, Linksys PR said so!) or funnier yet 5G radio vendors. TBH the backend upgrades to support DOCSIS 3/3.1 are way more expensive than its worth to ISPs. Add in the finite spectrum for cable providers and giving up 24 channels per modem to-fill-what-business-need isn’t high priority.

Allower 7y ago

Good job showing your stupidity WSJ, utter garbage.

vidanay 7y ago

Apparently the WSJ has discovered the Law of Diminishing Returns. I'd love to double my 20Mb/5Mb connection, and I would get real benefit from doing so. Doubling a 1Gb/1Gb connection doesn't have the same effect nor benefit.

swiley 7y ago

Of course you don’t use it most of the time, you pay for it because when you need it you need it. Someone decides they need some crazy tool in NPM and without a fast connection you’ll be waiting for a while.

olliej 7y ago

I don’t think it’s about “I want to download the maximum possible every month”, but rather “I want to wait the least time possible whenever I do need data”. Eg downloading a new game is nowadays something like 20gig, software updates are regularly more than a gig, etc. Then there’s the more basic a core issue: content latency is still one of the largest drivers of browsing performance, so even when there isn’t a lot of data you want high speed. The article seems to basically miss the point.

gnode 7y ago

While increased speed isn't justifiable for many subscribers, as streaming and web-browsing is mostly all they do, there are a few fairly common use cases where slow speeds cause frustration (game downloads, and software updates, for example). Once the capacity is installed, there's little cost in providing a high speed last-mile connection to a subscriber, versus a lower speed using the same hardware, yet the data transferred by a subscriber translates more directly to increased costs for the ISP. I expect that in the future, price differentiation based on speed may go away, and data transfer caps / metering become more commonplace. Data transfer contributes more directly to the ISP's costs, and offering subscribers a faster connection makes it easier to consume.

shmerl 7y ago

It's worth it, if ISPs aren't ripping users off. Gigabit for $70 without caps is already pretty high but OK price. Anything higher is probably fishy. Hopefully rapid deployment of low orbit satellite ISPs will seriously pressure incumbents, and prices will become normal for high bandwidth plans. Then they'll be surely worth it.

resters 7y ago

The bandwidth is not priced as dedicated bandwidth, so of course users don't expect to use "all" of it. Gigabit speed residential bandwidth packages allow users who want slightly faster download speeds to pay extra, ultimately they are just using the newer hardware revs and getting the same level everyone else will get in a year or two.

_--___-___ 7y ago

Recently downgraded to $35/mo comcast 60 down performance tier because I have low bandwidth usage (1-2 simultaneously connected devices, little streaming with a downloaded collection on a local plex server). Really wish I had the option to pay for better latency and less jitter, which matter much more for my needs. I know the ISPs probably don't even have the infrastructure to offer reliable internet, which is 100% on them even if the general consumer only cares about Netflix getting throttled. Funnily, Verizon claims to offer "Fios" in my building with plans that are clearly not FTTH.

pier25 7y ago

It's like driving a car. You rarely drive at the fastest speed or highest engine torque, but in some situations you need to be able to accelerate quickly. I'm sure on average I don't use even one third of my bandwidth, but it sure gets fully used when streaming a 50GB file from a Plex server or downloading an Xcode update.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

forgotmypw3 7y ago

Even capped bandwidth is oversold. There is not enough capacity in the system for everyone to use up their entire cap. "their bandwidth" doesn't actually exist.

raintrees 7y ago

Isn't this the primary target market for the new blockchain distributed processing services that are cropping up? Such as Golem, OTOY, etc. Kind of the next iteration of bitcoin mining, rather than SETI.

fnord77 7y ago

true... been trying to think of ideas to put my 1Gb fiber to good use, especially while I'm at work. Besides piracy and running a tor exit node (neither I want to do), nothing jumps out. any ideas?

oezi 7y ago

At my company we were downgraded from 200/50 Mbit cable to 10/10 Mbit MPLS, because 20 people won't consistently saturate the link (according to the IT guy). Sigh...

Havoc 7y ago
IT guy needs to be shot. By the time 20 people consistently saturate a link productivity is down the tubes

dredmorbius 7y ago

The main arguments here are for streaming video usage, and probably apply, though the chicken-egg question of higher-quality video supply and demand may apply. Distinctions between latency and overall reliability can also make appreciable differences. My experience is that this isn't where I find myself wanting speed. Rather: - Downloads. Especially OS updates, though also occasional data-scraping projects. Both rates and service caps impede this, though the needs are occasional. Schedulable updates (quite possible with Linux, slightly less convenient with MacOS) largely address this. (Mac OS and application updates being schedulable, with Firefox as the major culprit, would be a big help here.) - Podcast downloads. I'll occasionally grab a stash of episodes before heading out for a while, to be able to listen whilst mobile (and disconnected). The difference between my standard 5 Mbps connection and the occasional higher-speed cable, approaching 100 Mbps, is distinctly noticeable. An episode taking a couple of minutes to download is fetched in < 10 seconds. Again, an occasional need. - VOIP. We're actively exploring more cord-cutting options, and the promise of higher QoS with Internet telephony or video chat is an interest. Existing lower-speed connections are sufficient for voice, but not video. And the voice connection has quite pronounced artefacts. Higher speed would be a boost here. - Multiple simultaneous household uses. VOIP + streaming audio + streaming video + OS updates being able to occur simultaneously with minimal interference might justify higher-speed service. - Home-based services. Whether private (VPN over Modem or Router via OpenWRT, Nextbox fileshare, and related services), or public (email, Mastodon, Diaspora, Friendica, and/or web services), the capability to self-host services could be useful. The headache factor remains to be assessed. Truth is that in the local neighbourhood, slow (ADSL) and faster (cable) service are not hugely disproportionate in pricing, so a substantial service boost might be available at little additional cost. Higher-speed cable service largely isn't necessary, and does have a high price premium. I suppose it's a case of fools subsidising the discerning....

asdf333 7y ago

"most people do not fully max out their their pentium-133Mhz cpus. therefore we should not speed up computers" said no one ever. this is the same line of argument

gumby 7y ago

Given that this is the WSJ I have to suspect the telecom cartel encouraged this article to justify caps.

ricardobeat 7y ago

Since torrents and music downloads were killed there is not much to use it for...