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Old 03-30-2016, 09:45 AM
509 509 started this thread
 
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We live in a small county in eastern Washington. Currently we have 100Mbps service at $50/month.

The internet provider is now offering 1Gbps service for $150/month.

Is the 1 Gbps service worth it??

I was thinking of shifting all my photo's, video's etc. and storing them in the cloud. I also have a astronomical observatory that I can run remotely, so am hoping that it would speed downloading of those photo files which are getting fairly large.

There are no data caps or restrictions on the service.
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Old 03-30-2016, 11:34 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
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You have 100 now? For $50? I'm moving to Washington!!
That's pretty fast. 1GB is 10X faster. 100 should be plenty for what you want to do.
Do you think it's slow?
Only you can decide if the extra money is worth the speed.
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Old 03-30-2016, 03:11 PM
 
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What would you need that kind of speed for and what services are going to support it?

Video is going to be the most demanding thing you will do. Let's put this into perspective, you could simultaneously stream about 200 "HD" quality videos from Netflix. Do you have 200 TV's in your house and the people to use them? Even if was bluray quality HD you still have space for 40 simultaneous connections.

The bigger issue is the server on the other end. There is not going to be a whole lot of services that will support that kind of speed.
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Old 03-30-2016, 05:37 PM
509 509 started this thread
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman View Post
What would you need that kind of speed for and what services are going to support it?

Video is going to be the most demanding thing you will do. Let's put this into perspective, you could simultaneously stream about 200 "HD" quality videos from Netflix. Do you have 200 TV's in your house and the people to use them? Even if was bluray quality HD you still have space for 40 simultaneous connections.

The bigger issue is the server on the other end. There is not going to be a whole lot of services that will support that kind of speed.
When we went to 100 Mbps years ago it was you could really tell which sites had high speed "on the other end". Last few years, that problem is getting less and less obvious which, I think, means the rest of the USA is getting faster.

Our internet provider also had to deal with that problem. So they have moved NetFlix, Hulu, and other high demand video services to their local servers.

This is an interesting overview of how they are dealing with this issue: Thank You For Contact LocalTel

There are nine internet providers that use the PUD fiber network. Most of those are business oriented rather than consumer.

I think that the estimated services that you can run are optimistic. We have a 100 Mbps connection to ONE computer and the router. The rest of the TV's in the house and computers all run off the router.

We can stream FOUR HD feeds from NetFlix and surf with two or three typical connections to the internet. Anymore, and even at 100 Mbps we tend to see the internet connections slow down. It might be a router problem since it is several years old.

We currently pay $140 for all HD cable TV and 100 Mbps internet. Since we really don't care about TV we are thinking that $150 for 1 Gbps internet might be worthwhile.

It was about 10 years ago that we went from 25 Mbps to 100 Mbps. That was just a factor of 4. So the jump from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps is tempting.

BTW....we don't have the fastest internet in the country.....that belongs to a small town about an hours drive east of Wenatchee: http://www.dailydot.com/technology/e...t-internet-us/

Last edited by 509; 03-30-2016 at 05:48 PM..
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Old 03-30-2016, 11:14 PM
 
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Chances are that the vast majority of the time, you won't use anywhere near 1Gbps.

That being said, it can come in handy for a few things... like uploading video to the cloud. So if you don't want to wait around, it'll be useful.

The good thing is that it's extremely affordable.

Around here, we don't have a 1Gbps option, but we do have a 2Gbps option. I've been contemplating it.
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Old 03-30-2016, 11:18 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine View Post
You have 100 now? For $50? I'm moving to Washington!!
That's pretty fast. 1GB is 10X faster. 100 should be plenty for what you want to do.
Do you think it's slow?
Only you can decide if the extra money is worth the speed.
OP indicated he has 100Mb right now. 1GB would be 80X as fast.
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Old 03-31-2016, 04:42 AM
Status: "Made the Retirement Run in under 12 parsecs!!!" (set 11 days ago)
 
Location: Cary, NC
43,118 posts, read 76,693,175 times
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Synchronous?


Most 1GB service offerings are synchronous. 1Gb up and down.
If the OP has 100Mb up and down, popping the extra Benjamin each month doesn't seem terribly compelling.
But if I have 100Mb service, here where I live, my upload speed will be 20Mb. I would have more interest in 1Gb service.
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Old 03-31-2016, 06:49 AM
 
Location: The DMV
6,563 posts, read 11,212,602 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 509 View Post
We live in a small county in eastern Washington. Currently we have 100Mbps service at $50/month.

The internet provider is now offering 1Gbps service for $150/month.

Is the 1 Gbps service worth it??

I was thinking of shifting all my photo's, video's etc. and storing them in the cloud. I also have a astronomical observatory that I can run remotely, so am hoping that it would speed downloading of those photo files which are getting fairly large.

There are no data caps or restrictions on the service.

Price /Mbps? Absolutely. You're getting 10x the speed by paying .5x more.

That said - paying 50% more is still $600 a year. How much of a real difference will that $600 get you? How unhappy are you with your current speed?

Network wise, there are so many factors that impact your throughput (which is different from bandwidth) - It may be worthwhile to just run some tests (look up Netcps) and perhaps upgrading your router/switch will make you happy enough.
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Old 03-31-2016, 08:04 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,483 posts, read 19,531,968 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest View Post
OP indicated he has 100Mb right now. 1GB would be 80X as fast.
Did you really need to point out how bad I am at math? Jerk. (j/k
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Old 03-31-2016, 10:48 AM
 
Location: McAllen, TX
5,947 posts, read 5,415,729 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest View Post
OP indicated he has 100Mb right now. 1GB would be 80X as fast.
OP stated it was 1Gb NOT 1GB. Note the lower case b which means bits NOT bytes. So Peregrine was correct after all. 1Gbps is 10x faster than 100Mbps. As far as I know 1GB does not exist with home internet service. Most people don't notice or know the difference between lower and upper case.

Bits, Bytes and Bandwidth Reference Guide
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