Comcast Says It'll Offer Gigabit Internet This Year

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st told an audience at CES that it would start offering home customers gigabit internet speeds in 2015. That's this year! And, well, we'll believe it when we see it.

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just means when streaming 4k Netflix you'll hit your shitty 250GB data cap within the first 2 days of the month and they'll attack you with overage fees.

Can't wait for the pricing on that

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They are 100% correct.

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you're part of the problem.

don't offer GIG, internet remain a steaming pile of hiccups and files that take hours to download.

i guess you think 160x120 quicktime was all people needed on their computers huh?

i guess a 386 processor is 'good enough' to run Windows 3.1.

i guess the idea anyone would ever need a 1GB hard drive is laughable.

i guess nobody needs 4k tvs because 1080p is already good enough that nobody can tell the difference.

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You can only download files as fast as the file distributor allows and what your ISP backbone congestion allows no matter what your speed is. Gigabit internet at home does nothing to change that.

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so your argument is netflix would drop in quality when viewing a movie just as much with GIG as it does now?

eta

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as fast as the file distributor allows

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so distribution networks like google, microsoft, amazon and apple's clouds are the problem? is akamai also unable to adequately ramp up their CDN to handle faster downloads to GIG users?

my phone now shoots 1080p video. is there no advantage to backing up a 10 minute 1080p video via GIG to Google's cloud?

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so your argument is netflix would drop in quality when viewing a movie just as much with GIG as it does now?

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Well it depends on what speed you have now.

I get 80 to 100 mb download on a speed test. I am with Cox in Baton Rouge and I literally never have issues with Netflix.

Someone with 3mb download speeds is not going to be able to say that obviously. But someone with 3MB shouldn't be trying to stream HD anyway.

If the distribution networks and backbones can't handle the load, then your internet speed at home is irrelevant anyway.


You are trying to ask very simple questions to answer a very complex issue. But you know that.

Most people do not need gigabit internet. The main issue IMO lies with ISPs not wanting to upgrade their infrastructure.

Gigabit internet at home does nothing without the infrastructure to back it up.

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The main issue IMO lies with ISPs not wanting to upgrade their infrastructure.

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isn't this the problem now? comcast always shows me a FANTASTIC result on my speedtest but somehow netflix drops to 'shite' quality often when watching HD. i think you'd be surprised how often you're not getting the maximum netflix stream now. they're quite effective in handling it so you don't notice the disruption. i do because i'm OCD and any drop in sharpness i spot right away and its very distracting.

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Gigabit internet at home does nothing without the infrastructure to back it up.

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which infrastructure are you referring to? i listed the main players (google, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc.) and i feel confident they are able to handle my increased connection to the web if comcrap would offer it.

now if you can illustrate to me a user having trouble watching NETFLIX with a GIG connection right now, that might be a better argument that its not comCRAP who's fricking with my bandwidth and that netflix is struggling.

i dont buy that. netflix isn't the issue or they wouldnt be offering 4K streaming.

ETA i have 5 people in my house actively using the Internet (2 teenagers, a 7yo and me & the wife).

often 2 simultaneous netflix streams are going while the 7uo is wathcing youtube on an ipad and the wife is pinteresting and my torrent app is grabbing music.

are you saying a GIG offers no benefit to my situation? that there are not TONS of people out there with families just like mine?

I never said that Netflix was the issue. I said this...

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The main issue IMO lies with ISPs not wanting to upgrade their infrastructure.

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The ISP can set you up so that you can get 1gb on a speed test all day. If they don't upgrade the rest of their infrastructure then you still won't get good quality streaming when the entire customer base is watching Netflix.

You need roughly 4mb/s to stream one HD show (Not 4k) from Netflix. So anyone with 50mb at home should have more than enough to do whatever they want.

IF the rest of the ISPs infrastructure can handle it.

If the ISP infrastructure can't handle it, then it won't matter what your speed is at home.

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ETA i have 5 people in my house actively using the Internet (2 teenagers, a 7yo and me & the wife).

often 2 simultaneous netflix streams are going while the 7uo is wathcing youtube on an ipad and the wife is pinteresting and my torrent app is grabbing music.

are you saying a GIG offers no benefit to my situation?

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It is currently overkill. Like I said, we always find a way to consume more and more so I don't think this will be true long term, but currently a NetFlix HD stream is 5 Mbps and UHD is 25 Mbps. So 1 Gbps can give you 200 HD streams or 40 UHD streams.

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is there no middle ground??

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I'm sure they could do it in software, but the hardware typically increments in base 10. 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps. Maybe HulkHogan can speak more to this since he works for an ISP, but managing/portioning out the data could be seen as an added expense rather than a way to make more money by subdividing your hardware.

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where's the bottleneck?

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Pretty much the ISP infrastructures are the bottleneck.