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One reason for getting a faster link is that most broadband connections in the US are not symmetric. Comcast in my area doesn't even make claims of upload spee

One reason for getting a faster link is that most broadband connections in the US are not symmetric. Comcast in my area doesn't even make claims of upload speed anymore, but my recollection of when they used to is that it was about 10% of the download speed. If you want more than 2 Mbps upload, that 20 Mbps plan wouldn't cut it.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
I don't disagree that asymmetric speeds are a problem, but I think there's this bubble where tech professionals think that once everyone has gigabit up and down, your average Joe is going to be demanding 10 gigabit and up, and the data isn't proving that out. People are happy to stream a couple of views of Netflix at once and that's it (even if you're thinking everyone is going to do live syncing of block volumes to the cloud; everyone might use iCloud for their Mac backups once Apple supports it natively for Time Machine, but even then deduplication and off peak transfers will do the heavy lifting).
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Agreed with that, my connection is plenty fast. It would be nice to have a faster one, but not enough that I'm going to pay more for it. I think I'm around 50 Mbps and it could be used much more heavily, but it doesn't make any sense on YouTube's end to send me a 50 megabit video stream. It's a the storage and upload costs on the provider side limiting that. Even if you pay extra for Netflix's 4K support, that only needs 25 megabits. It's compressed to hell compared to a 4K bluray, but if we all had faster internet I don't know if that would change. It's lot harder to market the actual visual quality of a video compared to talking about how many pixels it has. Maybe we'll see whole new services that need the bandwidth, but most stuff that sends a lot of data could be downloaded in advance if you don't mind waiting 5 minutes instead of having it instantly accessible. How many billion dollars are we willing to spend to build out faster networks to avoid that? What's the selling point for very fast streams, we go back to cloud mainframes and all of our devices are dumb terminals that stream our games and the whole OS from an AWS datacenter?
- gwright 7y ago
  Why is asymmetric speeds a problem? I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with having multiple types of service for different use cases. That is true with other utilities (electric, water, gas) and is part of general infrastructure planning in those areas. Of course the actual pricing, availability, etc are also important but I don't think there needs to be a one-size-fits-all model for Internet bandwidth.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Constrains end user capabilities. Harder to live stream or heavily use something like Dropbox with under 5Mbps up.
    - gwright 7y ago
      I get that. I'm not saying that there aren't different use cases, I'm saying that it is reasonable that there should be different price points for the different use cases. Even if the physical plant supported symmetric bandwidth, I would expect different pricing plans for different utilization patterns.
- calvinmorrison 7y ago
  Well, for one 4k streaming will probably significantly increase desired download speeds.
Teknoman117 7y ago
This. Cox basically always provides an upload bandwidth of 10x less than the download (except their gigabit plan, which is 1000/30, which is bullshit). So I pay for 300/30, because I upload things. Man I wish I could get 1000/1000 where I live...
pdmccormick 7y ago
Part of the reason for asymmetric cable modem (DOCSIS) speeds is due to the coaxial medium being essentially half duplex. Operators split the RF spectrum into a lower frequency range for upstream, and a higher frequency range for downstream. Increasing the width of the upstream range would eat into the available downstream bandwidth, and also has other implications in terms of power, noise and overall network design. There is a full duplex version of DOCSIS, but its adoption faces some challenges due to how operators have to re-architect their physical networks to support it. There is also currently a push to extend the downstream spectrum up to higher frequencies, enabling both more downstream bandwidth and also the ability to move the upstream split higher, therefore increasing upstream bandwidth. (Disclaimer: I work with a client who develops products in this space.)

toomuchtodo 7y ago

I don't disagree that asymmetric speeds are a problem, but I think there's this bubble where tech professionals think that once everyone has gigabit up and down, your average Joe is going to be demanding 10 gigabit and up, and the data isn't proving that out. People are happy to stream a couple of views of Netflix at once and that's it (even if you're thinking everyone is going to do live syncing of block volumes to the cloud; everyone might use iCloud for their Mac backups once Apple supports it natively for Time Machine, but even then deduplication and off peak transfers will do the heavy lifting).

wlesieutre 7y ago
Agreed with that, my connection is plenty fast. It would be nice to have a faster one, but not enough that I'm going to pay more for it. I think I'm around 50 Mbps and it could be used much more heavily, but it doesn't make any sense on YouTube's end to send me a 50 megabit video stream. It's a the storage and upload costs on the provider side limiting that. Even if you pay extra for Netflix's 4K support, that only needs 25 megabits. It's compressed to hell compared to a 4K bluray, but if we all had faster internet I don't know if that would change. It's lot harder to market the actual visual quality of a video compared to talking about how many pixels it has. Maybe we'll see whole new services that need the bandwidth, but most stuff that sends a lot of data could be downloaded in advance if you don't mind waiting 5 minutes instead of having it instantly accessible. How many billion dollars are we willing to spend to build out faster networks to avoid that? What's the selling point for very fast streams, we go back to cloud mainframes and all of our devices are dumb terminals that stream our games and the whole OS from an AWS datacenter?
gwright 7y ago
Why is asymmetric speeds a problem? I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with having multiple types of service for different use cases. That is true with other utilities (electric, water, gas) and is part of general infrastructure planning in those areas. Of course the actual pricing, availability, etc are also important but I don't think there needs to be a one-size-fits-all model for Internet bandwidth.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Constrains end user capabilities. Harder to live stream or heavily use something like Dropbox with under 5Mbps up.
  - gwright 7y ago
    I get that. I'm not saying that there aren't different use cases, I'm saying that it is reasonable that there should be different price points for the different use cases. Even if the physical plant supported symmetric bandwidth, I would expect different pricing plans for different utilization patterns.
calvinmorrison 7y ago
Well, for one 4k streaming will probably significantly increase desired download speeds.

Teknoman117 7y ago

This. Cox basically always provides an upload bandwidth of 10x less than the download (except their gigabit plan, which is 1000/30, which is bullshit). So I pay for 300/30, because I upload things. Man I wish I could get 1000/1000 where I live...

pdmccormick 7y ago

Part of the reason for asymmetric cable modem (DOCSIS) speeds is due to the coaxial medium being essentially half duplex. Operators split the RF spectrum into a lower frequency range for upstream, and a higher frequency range for downstream. Increasing the width of the upstream range would eat into the available downstream bandwidth, and also has other implications in terms of power, noise and overall network design. There is a full duplex version of DOCSIS, but its adoption faces some challenges due to how operators have to re-architect their physical networks to support it. There is also currently a push to extend the downstream spectrum up to higher frequencies, enabling both more downstream bandwidth and also the ability to move the upstream split higher, therefore increasing upstream bandwidth. (Disclaimer: I work with a client who develops products in this space.)