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Gigabit Internet Access Now Supported By 84 US ISPs
An anonymous reader writes: According to Michael Render, principal analyst at market researcher RVA LLC, 83 Internet access providers have joined Google to offer gigabit Internet access service (all priced in the $50-$150 per month range).Render's data shows that new subscribers are signing up at an annualized growth rate of 480 percent each year. That "annualized" is an important thing to note, though; this is early days, and adding a few households, relatively speaking, means an impressive percentage change.
The article summary needs to specify that it's about offering RESIDENTIAL service. Thousands of ISPs offer gigabit Internet access in datacenters and businesses all over the US. 84 of them also reach the home.
Of note - ALL current US ISPs offering RESIDENTIAL gigabit service do so on the oversell model, such that they CAN deliver UP TO 1Gbps to a customer, but likely will be delivering less as they share upstream bandwidth across facilities, areas, and customers. This is not a Bad Thing -- it's how the costs are leveraged across multiple residential customers so it is 7-10x lower than business-grade gigabit service.
This is a really great thing!
E
Whats left unsaid is how many ISPs (including those that dont yet exist except on paper or in someones head) would LIKE to offer super fast broadband but are unable to because local or state authorities have been convinced by dinosaur companies like Comcast and Time Warner to block alternative ISPs comming into the area and providing good access.
If governments at all levels stopped listening to the dinosaur ISPs and their friends in Hollywood and started listening to the people who elected them, the number of people able to get gigabit service (or even just super fast service) might start to be a meaningful percentage of the total population.
Speedtest sites don't tell the whole story, especially at higher speeds...
Some of the speedtest sites are only on 100mbit themselves, even those on gigabit are usually sharing the bandwidth at their end... And then there's peering, the interconnect between your isp and the speedtest site might not have 1gbit of free capacity at the time your testing. The end devices (or the software running on them) might also not be up to the 1gbps rate - lots of cheaper gigabit nics can't handle wire speed, long or bad cabling, flash based speedtest apps etc.
I've had a box with 1gbps in a data centre for a few years now, and i can quite happily pull 1gbps doing torrent downloads and from some linux mirror sites, but i get a lot less from speedtest sites and many things download a lot slower because the other end or something in between can't handle it.
You need to test a variety of different things, and at different times of the day...
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"83 Internet access providers have joined Google to offer gigabit Internet access service (all priced in the $50-$150 per month range)."
Meanwhile, people still pay ~$40 for a 4mbit at&t line. There being lots of smaller regional players providing some service to a limited population doesn't mean crap in the more global view of how things are standing. Reality is, very many cties how only 1 to 3 choices, none of them really good, and absolutely none of them priced realistically. I don't care about statistics, when we can see the reality wit our own eyes.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Guess who's not using a gigabit connection?
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I don't see why a file download or upload should be done in seconds
Years sound fine to me. Why do we even need to communicate in the first place? The quicker the better, within reason. 1Gb/s is cheap, 10Gb is still expensive, but not for long. There's no reason we should have the fastest cheap networks.
Of note - ALL current US ISPs offering RESIDENTIAL gigabit service do so on the oversell model, such that they CAN deliver UP TO 1Gbps to a customer
My Midwest USA ISP sells 1Gb/s residential, and they do not say "up to". Instead they guarantee that you will not get congestion on their network or to their transit provider. I have called in on 10ms ping increased and they have fixed the issues. They take congestion spuriously.
Taken from marketing
1 Gbps Symmetrical. It’s dedicated symmetrical fiber so speeds never go down or change.
Extremely large online backups
Web hosting
Webinar hosting
Cloud computing
Online gaming
Uninterrupted HD streaming (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu)
Taken from terms and conditions
No Unreasonable Discrimination
The Company does not unreasonably discriminate in its transmission of lawful traffic over the broadband Internet access services of its customers.
The Company does not block, impair, degrade or delay VoIP applications or services that compete with its voice services and those of its affiliates.
The Company does not block, impair, degrade, delay or otherwise inhibit access by its customers to lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices.
The Company does not impair free expression by actions such as slowing traffic from particular websites or blogs.
The Company does not use or demand “pay-for-priority” or similar arrangements that directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic.
The Company does not prioritize its own content, application, services, or devices, or those of its affiliates.
The Company does not retain, store or provide customer traffic information, except as required by law under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act