Google Fiber Touts 20Gbps Download Speed In Test, Promises Eventual 100Gbps (arstechnica.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google Fiber is touting a test that delivered 20Gbps download speeds to a house in Kansas City, calling it a milestone on the path to offering 100Gbps symmetrical Internet. The company said it will also offer new multi-gigabit tiers in the near future. "We used to get asked, 'who needs a gig?' Today it's no longer a question," Google Fiber CEO Dinni Jain wrote in a blog post yesterday. "Every major provider in the US seems to have now gotten the gigabit memo, and it's only going up from there -- some providers are already offering 2, 5, 8, even 10 Gig products."
The Alphabet division recently began selling 2Gbps download speeds with 1Gbps uploads for $100, alongside its longstanding offer of symmetrical 1Gbps speeds for $70 a month. "In the coming months, we'll have announcements to dramatically expand our multi-gigabit tiers. These will be critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical Internet," Jain wrote. Google Fiber is "closer than you might think" to that goal, Jain wrote. "This month, we took our testing out of the lab and into the home, starting with our first trusted tester, Nick Saporito, the Head of Commercial Strategy for GFiber." Jain provided a screenshot from a test at Saporito's home in Kansas City showing 20.2Gbps download speeds. [...] The screenshot doesn't show upload speeds. The municipal broadband provider EPB in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recently launched a symmetrical 25Gbps service, notes Ars, but its costs "$1,500 per month for residential customers and $12,500 a month for business customers."
The Alphabet division recently began selling 2Gbps download speeds with 1Gbps uploads for $100, alongside its longstanding offer of symmetrical 1Gbps speeds for $70 a month. "In the coming months, we'll have announcements to dramatically expand our multi-gigabit tiers. These will be critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical Internet," Jain wrote. Google Fiber is "closer than you might think" to that goal, Jain wrote. "This month, we took our testing out of the lab and into the home, starting with our first trusted tester, Nick Saporito, the Head of Commercial Strategy for GFiber." Jain provided a screenshot from a test at Saporito's home in Kansas City showing 20.2Gbps download speeds. [...] The screenshot doesn't show upload speeds. The municipal broadband provider EPB in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recently launched a symmetrical 25Gbps service, notes Ars, but its costs "$1,500 per month for residential customers and $12,500 a month for business customers."
Love them or hate them (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
True. I've noticed the big ISPs price according to competitors in general. I think even disregarding symmetrical offerings, the cable companies have been shown to charge considerably more for the exact same packages when they don't have a competitor in a given city offering similar broadband connections.
Personally, I find the most valuable bandwidth is the upload speed. That, traditionally, cost a lot because the mindset was that you didn't need a fast upload speed unless you were hosting something of comm
Re: Love them or hate them (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Local cable monopoly advertises 300mbps that is actually 150 mbps at best in actual use.
Local phone monopoly advertises 1gbps speeds -- but not in my area. I can only get 50 mbps.
The number of people getting actually gigabit speeds in the U.S. is very low.
But, one guy in Kansas City, * who works for Google *, is getting great speeds. So, I guess we're supposed to be impressed, or something.
Re: Love them or hate them (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
They need a nice fat path so that all the devices in your home that they're mining for YOUR data can phone home and allow them to sell it for a profit.
Personally, I get a bit over 300mbits down and about 10-15mbits up from Comcast. The service has been adequate, but every 2 years they attempt to significantly increase the price since there is zero competition. The instant someone comes along with a better deal, I'll kick Comcast to the curb, but for now this is more than enough bandwidth for my family. T
Re: (Score:2)
The one that matters more, is the upload speed. Sure, most people don't need gigabit upload speeds. It's more about having a larger, or more symmetrical, upload speed. With the
Re:Who really does need a Gig? (Score:4)
I have 1Gbps, most of the time, servers can't keep up, and when they can, the only time I actually need to wait is when downloading large games (tens of GB). I have roommates too, including a heavy gamer, my link bandwidth is never the problem.
So no, for me, 1Gbps is close to useless. Also, all my network is gigabit Ethernet, so in order to take advantage of the extra bandwidth I need to change my gear, or have several devices simultaneously requesting large amounts of data to take advantage of it. FYI, Netflix recommends 15Mbps for 4K streaming, I could watch 50 streams simultaneously if I wanted to and still have bandwidth to spare.
The only reason I would want more is if I had a server. But the thing is: I have a server, for personal stuff, I also work from home, and I can barely make a dent in my bandwidth.
Seriously, for 99.9% of people, 1Gbps is more than enough. There are things that can be improved: latency, reliability, peering and backbones, etc... but last mile bandwidth for residential customers is what I consider a solved problem now, if you have fiber that is, some people still have cable, DSL or worse.
Re: (Score:2)
Very much this. Very few places on the internet can give me much use for my 500Mbps both ways connection. Mostly download speeds seem.. low. But the jump from the previous 100Mbps was noticeable as apparently with such a speed my connection was the bottleneck.
Only time I can use any significant portion of it is in backups to the private server I have in a data center in middle of night.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, for 99.9% of people, 1Gbps is more than enough. There are things that can be improved: latency, reliability, peering and backbones, etc...
Pretty much this.
Most YouTube videos are still just 1080p, which only needs 4-5 Mbps. Zoom calls require about the same, as do Teams, as does whatever Google is calling their comparable product this week. Same again for all of the Netflix plans other than the highest tier that offers 4K content, at which point you just need 20 Mbps. Purchase a movie? Most are fine receiving it via streaming at those same speeds. Cloud backups? 5 Mbps is already more than needed for anyone generating less than 50 GB of data
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Downloading games? Cloud storage? Something we haven't even considered because before bandwidth made it impossible?
Never assume a current technology is adequate because inevitably you will be proven wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is: we are humans, this is our limit. There is no point watching video in a resolution that exceeds what our eyes are capable of, and with flat screens, we are at that point now, not yet with VR, but it is not that far off. For sound, we can do better than what our ears can hear, and it has been the case for quite a while.
With higher bandwidth, we can imagine games that fetch content directly from a server, a bit like the latest MS Flight Simulator on steroids, but the tendency right now is to hav
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that most servers can't keep up with you is a good thing. It means that one person in the household downloading a big game, or uploading their latest YouTube video that they shot in 8k with their phone, doesn't cripple the connection for everyone else.
Remember that some households have 5+ people in them.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The other problem is security - I can't go above 500M right now, because I'm using a Palo Alto PA-440 for a firewall, and it won't go over 500M with IPS/threat turned on. Hardware that can do 1G is way more expensive (although much better than the 20k it would have cost just a few years ago). Then if you go over 1G, all your other hardware gets much more expensive. Going from 50M to 500M was a big upgrade, but the only place I really see a difference is Steam downloads.
That said, it's probably just a matter
DATA CAPS (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It really doesn't matter how fast a connection is if it's still limited by some arbitrary data cap.
Yes, and no. Data caps are definitely a problem, and it's arguably fair to say they're the bigger problem of the two. However, the whole point of a faster internet connection is to get stuff done faster.
It's like having a car that can do 400Mph but is only allowed to drive 10 miles per day. Meanwhile the person with the slow econobox is able to drive across the country at realistic freeway speeds.
Your car analogy is flawed. Data caps are ISP dependent, not speed dependent. People don't often have any real choice in internet provider. It's not a matter of picking a slow package with no cap, or a fast package with a cap. Aside from that, there is also the matter of how much data you'll actually use.
In
Re: (Score:3)
Google Fiber has no data caps. There's also no contract, so if they decided to implement something, it's easy to switch away. I've had GFiber's 1G/1G service for over 4 years and it has been great. Downloads from Steam come down at well over 900 Mbps, and uploads to my virtual server at Linode also go over 900 Mbps.
2 gig has been available here for a year or more now IIRC, but I haven't upgraded. I use my own router, and getting suitable hardware for >1G is harder, plus they don't directly support using
Re: (Score:3)
It really doesn't matter how fast a connection is if it's still limited by some arbitrary data cap.
Virtually every high end internet tier that comes with 1G+ speed comes with a unlimited data cap. My 1Gb connection is that way and so is the competitors high end tiers. The real limiting factor will be the internal networking equipment of the customer.
My ISP just started offering a 5Gb tier in my area. Every piece of equipment in my home network tops out at 1Gb. It will be the same in 99% of the homes and business out there. Anything above 1Gb is a waste of money.
Fill it with what? (Score:2)
Re:Fill it with what? (Score:5, Funny)
Someone will invent a new crypto token that is proof of work based on upload and download. You mine the coin by transferring needless data to someone else who is mining the coin and sends it back to you. I can see someone at Comcast working on this now, as they laugh maniacally.
Re: (Score:2)
Leave 4K Netflix running all day, not in the room (Score:2)
It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.
And a normal quality video is worth several thousand pictures, when it comes to data size.
And a 4K video costs 20-30 times that.
Over 80% of the internet traffic, by volume, is video streaming like Netflix and Hulu. The folks who leave those streams running all day are the ones using up a fair portion of the world's bandwidth, the ones creating the cost. But consumers demand that they not pay for the costs. That's partly because mobile phone carriers ch
Typo. 8X. Not 20-30 (Score:2)
I don't know what the hell my brain was doing when I typed 20-30X. I'm half asleep. 8X.
Re: (Score:3)
Whatever speeds they offer, people are gonna find a way to fill it up
I doubt that. There is actually very little 4K content out there compared to HD. I have yet to see a 8K stream outside of Youtube testing videos. An based on my a-typical house hold use case, I doubt many people will even fill up a 1G feed.
I have a 4k TV that I bought to watch 4K documentaries on. It will ether have one of those or a baseball game up on it. I have my computer in here so it's not uncommon for me to have a HD video of some kind streaming to that. Depending on what I'm watching, a l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I defer to your wisdom on the topic because you have a very valid point. I will leave you with this to ponder. Whoever fills up their bandwidth with 8K Kardashians or the equivalent, will deserve to rot in whatever video hell they have established for themselves.
My daughter says you have a very adorable user name.
Re: Fill it with what? (Score:2)
Well - is Ray G is this Kardashian video?
equipment (Score:2)
How many people have network hardware at home that can support 10G or more? Very few, and it probably was not cheap.
I use my house as one off-site backup location, 10G or more would be fabulous for bulk data copies. But for the average household, 10G or more seems like overkill in 2022.
Re:equipment (Score:4, Informative)
Greater than 10G - none. The next options are 25Gbps SFP, 40Gbps QSFP, 50Gbps SFP and 100G QSFP. There are, afaik, no router/switches that are not datacenter oriented which support these port speeds. Passive cables for such speeds are horrible (imagine something that makes Cat7 ethernet cable look slim and nimble), and optical transceivers require active cooling. 40/100G routers are LOUD. You're looking at a minimum of $200 per link if it goes further than the other side of your desk.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How many people have network hardware at home that can support 10G or more? Very few, and it probably was not cheap.
True, but 2.5 Gbps NICs are pretty cheap, and if they put 4 such ports on the WAN router plus Wifi 6 you could reasonably make pretty good use of it.
I use my house as one off-site backup location, 10G or more would be fabulous for bulk data copies. But for the average household, 10G or more seems like overkill in 2022.
That's true, but it probably won't be overkill in ten years, when all the cable modem hardware including the head ends, or at least the line cards, has had to be replaced at least once to come up to speed...
Multi GBE Switches & Routers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Using enterprise routers, yes. But it's possible if you have a fast enough CPU for your router running VyOS, pf/OpnSense, TNSR for the WAN connection. For 10G and above it may be better to offload most routing to a high speed L3 switch but will incur more complexity.
Need to not allow monopolies on fiber (Score:2)
Moved to Washington state, where I am now on 1 GB Ziply (loving them at $60). Comcast? They offer 1GB as well at $120.
So yes. Competition MATTERS.
Use case does not yet exist (Score:1)
Most home users run 1-2 4K streams and maybe some background noise their various devices spam around all day. 100Mbs is sufficient.
I picked up symmetric 1Gbs because it came with no data usage cap and was the same price as lower speeds once you added the no data cap option to them. We're pretty typical, 4K tv, random devices, kid is on tiktok and Roblox and other social media crap all day.
Don't come anywhere close to 1Gbs.
My router does support 10Gbs. Uhm ok. So what?
Back in the day I ran an office of a
Any chance for a static IP? (Score:2)
It is a shame that high bandwidth home Internet is mostly limited to consumption even when the links are symmetrical.
What about the uplink? (Score:1)
Only in America (Score:2)
In the developed world 100 Gbps has been a consumer service offered for many years. For instance, Sony Nuro has offered such a service uncapped for around $70 a month since 2013.
But good on Google, I guess, for bringing 20 Gbps to the USA.
Re: Only in America (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, a friend was using my account to troll. Password changed.
2 years from now : Google terminates Google Fiber (Score:2)
You can wait for it.
https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Google fiber has existed for a lot longer than that already. But it also only exists in a tiny number of markets. Some of them are sizable, but they are overall few in number. Presumably Google only goes where they can get favorable terms, and isn't interested in competing for scraps.
Yawn (Score:1)
Multiterrabit (Score:2)
Can I just get 200Mbps symmetrical please? (Score:1)
Who needs a Gig indeed (Score:2)
We have 120Mbs and we rarely touch the sides of it. A gig might be nice for some work-related tasks, but not many. 20Gbs is just pointless for individual homes. The market is really landlords supplying a block of flats.
Re: (Score:2)
I have 400 Mbps and I regularly use about half of it, leaving the other half free for my lady's use. She will never touch it, except maybe during a large patch download. In a household with multiple downloaders, it might not be enough.
But yes, you would be hard pressed to use up 10, let alone 20 gigabits for even a large household of hardcore nerds...