4 ms·

Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit internet access?

by snitko 14y ago

MartinCron 14y ago
The same reason we need more than 640K of RAM, maybe?
- Alaskan005 14y ago
  In 5-10 years maybe. Now virtually all sites are slower than a ~ 10-50 mbs connection so having all that extra bandwidth doesn't help you at all. That's the reality.
  - bcbrown 14y ago
    The Internet is more than the World Wide Web.
    - Alaskan005 14y ago
      For what % of people? We should assume that bigger pipes cost more money, at least they do now, so why should Jack and Jill pay for 1Gig/s when a 5-10-20 mbps is more they need? Cable seems to have no problem bringing movies through the old copper wires.
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "We should assume that bigger pipes cost more money" Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid. "Cable seems to have no problem bringing movies through the old copper wires." What companies choose to charge for old copper is irrelevant to how much of a profit one can make off of newer cable drops.
        Alaskan005 14y ago
        "Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid." Not every mile is owned by one company, the internet is a series of tubes
        illuminate 14y ago
        This is true! However costs over the years have plummeted for those uplinks and the reduction in costs have not been passed on to the consumer through much lower priced service.
bradleyland 14y ago
Why would you need a terabyte hard drive? Why would you need 8 GB of RAM? Why would you need a Core i7 processor capable of over 80,000 MIPS? Step back and think about what you do with a computer or mobile device today. Most of what we do involves the Internet. We don't "need" Gigabit internet access any more than we "need" the things above, but when they're present, we're free to find innovative new ways to use them.
- marshray 14y ago
  It's still a fair question though. How many streams of retina-quality video do you need to watch (or feed) simultaneously?
gduffy 14y ago
I think in 10 years this question will be regarded the same as "who needs a personal computer?" is today. Similar questions were asked about always-on broadband (vs dialup), gigabytes/terabytes of memory/disk, etc. We've been pretty good at finding ways to use whatever tech is thrown at us. My pet example use case for 1Gbps is my product, Dropcam (shameless plug: http://www.dropcam.com http://www.dropcam.com), where we could use that extra bandwidth to provide amazingly higher quality video, support for more cameras per location, and generally do much more cutting edge stuff. Symmetric 1Gbps means you don't just access the "cloud" anymore ... you become a part of it. Kinda like the original pioneers of the Internet imagined in the first place.
illuminate 14y ago
Because it can be offered, and we've been ripped off by ISPs for quite some time now.
driverdan 14y ago
Need is a strong word so I'll assume you mean want. 1. Households with more than a couple residents who are bandwidth hungry. Ever live in a place where people are trying to use VoIP, stream 1080p videos, download Windows updates, and play online games at the same time? Having experienced this it's the best use case I can think of. 2. Productivity. The faster you can download the 2GB Xcode update the faster you can get back to work. 3. Lower latency is better for gaming. A better connection can give you an advantage over other players. 4. Because people want it.

Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit internet access?

by snitko 14y ago

Question: why would a private person (as opposed to a business) need a Gigabit internet access?

MartinCron 14y ago

The same reason we need more than 640K of RAM, maybe?

Alaskan005 14y ago
In 5-10 years maybe. Now virtually all sites are slower than a ~ 10-50 mbs connection so having all that extra bandwidth doesn't help you at all. That's the reality.
- bcbrown 14y ago
  The Internet is more than the World Wide Web.
  - Alaskan005 14y ago
    For what % of people? We should assume that bigger pipes cost more money, at least they do now, so why should Jack and Jill pay for 1Gig/s when a 5-10-20 mbps is more they need? Cable seems to have no problem bringing movies through the old copper wires.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "We should assume that bigger pipes cost more money" Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid. "Cable seems to have no problem bringing movies through the old copper wires." What companies choose to charge for old copper is irrelevant to how much of a profit one can make off of newer cable drops.
      - Alaskan005 14y ago
        "Why? The cost for running the fiber has already been paid." Not every mile is owned by one company, the internet is a series of tubes
        illuminate 14y ago
        This is true! However costs over the years have plummeted for those uplinks and the reduction in costs have not been passed on to the consumer through much lower priced service.

bradleyland 14y ago

Why would you need a terabyte hard drive? Why would you need 8 GB of RAM? Why would you need a Core i7 processor capable of over 80,000 MIPS? Step back and think about what you do with a computer or mobile device today. Most of what we do involves the Internet. We don't "need" Gigabit internet access any more than we "need" the things above, but when they're present, we're free to find innovative new ways to use them.

marshray 14y ago
It's still a fair question though. How many streams of retina-quality video do you need to watch (or feed) simultaneously?

gduffy 14y ago

I think in 10 years this question will be regarded the same as "who needs a personal computer?" is today. Similar questions were asked about always-on broadband (vs dialup), gigabytes/terabytes of memory/disk, etc. We've been pretty good at finding ways to use whatever tech is thrown at us. My pet example use case for 1Gbps is my product, Dropcam (shameless plug: http://www.dropcam.com http://www.dropcam.com), where we could use that extra bandwidth to provide amazingly higher quality video, support for more cameras per location, and generally do much more cutting edge stuff. Symmetric 1Gbps means you don't just access the "cloud" anymore ... you become a part of it. Kinda like the original pioneers of the Internet imagined in the first place.

illuminate 14y ago

Because it can be offered, and we've been ripped off by ISPs for quite some time now.

driverdan 14y ago

Need is a strong word so I'll assume you mean want. 1. Households with more than a couple residents who are bandwidth hungry. Ever live in a place where people are trying to use VoIP, stream 1080p videos, download Windows updates, and play online games at the same time? Having experienced this it's the best use case I can think of. 2. Productivity. The faster you can download the 2GB Xcode update the faster you can get back to work. 3. Lower latency is better for gaming. A better connection can give you an advantage over other players. 4. Because people want it.