Comment Re:105 megabits per second (Score 1) 401
Hitting 100Mbit/s peak? Well, today I bought Divinity: Original Sin on Steam and of course that was faster. And it's July, if I want to go to our cabin (no fixed line, barely 3G w/mobile cap) I need to download anything I'd like to bring with me for a rainy day. After a trip with some friends I sent him the videos we'd made (raw 1080p/60 from the camera) and that maxed my line.
Of course, I didn't need 100 Mbit for any of that but on the other hand what's the savings to the ISP if I up/download the same number of GB slower? Across many thousands of subscribers in my city it evens out anyway and they still have to maintain the fiber line and modems at each end so there's no last mile bottleneck, in fact they can switch speeds at will with a simple software update. I suppose with higher speeds I might become a bit more careless about bits and bytes but for the most part it's just convenience, not total throughput.
I think that's reflected in the pricing too, the lowest they offer here is 5/5. Next level: +400% bandwidth, +30% price. After that: +150% bandwidth, +23% price. Finally to reach 100/100: +100% bandwidth, +18% price. Unlike water, electricity or other utilities the higher speeds you got, the faster you're done and the line returns to idle and the premium is not even remotely close to the theoretical increase in bandwidth.
Over the next couple years they'll be rolling out gigabit Internet, do people need it? Of course not, but it's nice to have. I'll probably get it if the premium is not too high, with fiber it could become as standard as GigE on motherboards and all you really pay for is bulk bandwidth. I ran into that on my cell phone this month (vacation time), cap used up so I'm on slooow connection until next month rolls around or pay more this month for increased cap.