4 ms·

The Future Is in Symmetrical, High-Speed Internet Speeds

20 points by billyharris 5y ago

mark_l_watson 5y ago
Their best argument “There is zero chance a network built to deliver 100/20 Mbps that isn’t premised on fiber can offer a scalable, low-cost solution in the future” is sufficient to not stick with our current partial fiber infrastructure.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Fiber is key. I see that here (Switzerland) where places that have existing and new fiber to home can now get 25gbit synchronous for peanuts (~80 USD per month). It's difficult to even purchase hw to deal with 25gbit. Meanwhile 5g promise of 2gbits actually delivers in most places around 200mbits download and maybe 50mbit up. What I hate is when companies like Sunrise state on their website that 5G is just like fiber when it will never be. Moving light through a clean dedicated piece of glass can't be compared to a medium constantly changing in water and gas content.
  - rektide 5y ago
    there was a road crew cutting up pavement in front of my house & I went out to chat. 5g is coming to the street pole outside. guess what's not coming to it? fiber. the cell will just have power, just be a repeater. it's distressing to me that we're chopping up this city & have an exclusive huge 5g provider rolling out really expensive hardware, and a large-ish % of those radios haven't even been afforded their own net connection. most of my neighbors have fiber but the cellular system itself is in sizable part repeaters? this feels like a scalability problem in the making, feels like a way to foolishly recreate bandwidth scarcity on the airwaves.
Proven 5y ago
The article claims to know how the future will look like because technical reasons and market logic mean it's unavoidable. But the first paragraph starts with "Congress" and the last calls for government to pay for it. Which is it - does this really make sense, and if so why don't people who find it useful simply pay for it? To be honest, it looks like American socialists and crony (telco) capitalists are jointly campaigning for government handouts. Last week Cory Doctorow wrote a bad article on this topic, now the EFF simply rehashed it. Doesn't the EFF have other things to do?

20 points by billyharris 5y ago

Their best argument “There is zero chance a network built to deliver 100/20 Mbps that isn’t premised on fiber can offer a scalable, low-cost solution in the future” is sufficient to not stick with our current partial fiber infrastructure.

sschueller 5y ago
Fiber is key. I see that here (Switzerland) where places that have existing and new fiber to home can now get 25gbit synchronous for peanuts (~80 USD per month). It's difficult to even purchase hw to deal with 25gbit. Meanwhile 5g promise of 2gbits actually delivers in most places around 200mbits download and maybe 50mbit up. What I hate is when companies like Sunrise state on their website that 5G is just like fiber when it will never be. Moving light through a clean dedicated piece of glass can't be compared to a medium constantly changing in water and gas content.
- rektide 5y ago
  there was a road crew cutting up pavement in front of my house & I went out to chat. 5g is coming to the street pole outside. guess what's not coming to it? fiber. the cell will just have power, just be a repeater. it's distressing to me that we're chopping up this city & have an exclusive huge 5g provider rolling out really expensive hardware, and a large-ish % of those radios haven't even been afforded their own net connection. most of my neighbors have fiber but the cellular system itself is in sizable part repeaters? this feels like a scalability problem in the making, feels like a way to foolishly recreate bandwidth scarcity on the airwaves.

Proven 5y ago

The article claims to know how the future will look like because technical reasons and market logic mean it's unavoidable. But the first paragraph starts with "Congress" and the last calls for government to pay for it. Which is it - does this really make sense, and if so why don't people who find it useful simply pay for it? To be honest, it looks like American socialists and crony (telco) capitalists are jointly campaigning for government handouts. Last week Cory Doctorow wrote a bad article on this topic, now the EFF simply rehashed it. Doesn't the EFF have other things to do?