Absurdly fast internetconnection - Why the hell for?

[Realitycrash]

I guess for people who download all of their games digitally via Steam, D2D, Impulse etc. it's really handy. Also two or three of my friends are in game design and are frequently downloading eachother's work, usually rather large files.

Sure it's situational, but the only reason there isn't an application for it yet is because it's not widespread enough. Once the whole world it operating at these speeds there'll be more uses for the speed.

Wait, Doesn't Steam limit connection speeds to 2 meg, because that's all i got when downloading games, and i have a 14meg connection.

Also, I believe certain sites put a cap on download speeds if I'm not mistaken.

No, no it doesn't not by a long shot. Using a certain internet in a certain area I've gotten nearly 40MB/s download speed. Yes I did mean Megabytes not bits when I stated that.

Well, on steam my average download speed is 12MB/s sometimes as high as 18.

About regular uses you were wondering about, more and more things become cloud-based. Experts expect that most PC's in the future won't be full-fledged PC's but front-end consoles streaming everything from servers like your OS and all other crap. This would of course require really high connection speeds, but would be way cheaper overall as you are basicly just using a screen, keyboard and mouse.
Some companies are already using this although a more commonly used application of this is an image of an already installed and configured OS that can be downloaded to a PC so it can be used immediately instead of having to do everything manualy. This can be either in-company or at home. Also remote controlling a PC at work, or from work to your home is pretty common these days. And that uses a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have digital TV and such.

Probably forgot some stuff but that's some basic examples for fast uses.

Okey, cloud-computing might eat bandwith like hell, but be honestly, how viable is it at the moment? Is it going to show up in the next ten years?

 

[CrazyBlaze]

I hate everyone here, i live in Canada and the best plan i can get is over 100 bucks a month with 2 meg speed and a 200gb download limit.

capcha make haste... oh go to hell lol

..Seriously, is that near any urban center, or "out in the woods"? Because 100 bucks for 2meg is fucking laughable.

Hope not. Canadian here. I'm paying $60 CAD a month for 25/MBit and no bandwidth cap.
Our infastructure is overpriced and owned my only 2 companies who will never get stuck with monopoly laws because they're best buddies with the CRTC. But 100 bucks for 2/MB is atrocious.

Whos is your provider? My landlords have rogers with 18mb download and 512kb upload with a 70GB limit for sixty dollrs. I share with seven other people. Yeah it sucks. I think what he Realitycrash has is the ultimante bundle from roger. $100 CAD for 75B download, 2MB upload and 250 GB limit.

I'm with TekSavvy, but they only service Southern Ontario and some of Quebec. Not sure where you are.

Southern Ontario. I told my landlords about teksavvy. They didn't listen. Also I hate that Bell and Rogers control everything. Open Media for life.

 

[JFrog84]

I wonder if it's anything similar to this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108873-Google-Building-Ultra-Highspeed-Internet-Line-in-Kansas-City

 

[Realitycrash]

As I understand it, you update the infrastructure because you can, and hope that soon some new technology comes along that can make use of it...

Lol the technology's already here, OP's just doesn't get it.

Really? Then impress me, oh guru of the internet. What technology is there that the average user (not the minimal-part of the population that are avid gamers) need 100mbit for, instead of 25mbit, or even lower?
As I said, I could stream, download basic stuff and surf without a problem before I had 100mbit.

Downloading Games and Hi-Def movies at a reasonable rate.

Most internet users that aren't gamers don't download games. Most internet users aren't gamers, period..
There might be more and more people who are legally buying their movies, this is true, but I still doubt it.
I do believe that very many pirate movies, though, but as I said before, this seems to be one of the few reasons. So you haven't provided me with any new info of things I don't "get".
Thanks for th attitude, tho.

 

[Realitycrash]

Snip

Lucky bastard.

My internet goes at about 120kb/sec MAX! (And at about 30kb/sec for 70% of the time)

I hate living in the English countryside......

Ah, but you get to take in all that lovely scenery when you are waiting for the Escapist to load ^^

 

[NightHawk21]

I think the main consideration is shared housing. If you have 1 person wanting to play online or stream, you don't need ultra fast. You get 3 or 4 people all wanting to do it at the same time and you need something to pick up the pace. They're constantly having to upgrade infrastructure where I live to account for the number of students. Apparently shared student housing has the highest demand, which is something that makes sense the more I think about it.

That's what I'm thinking. I get 15Mbps (not the fastest but its unlimited), and the only time I have problems is if my sister is using skype for video messaging or downloading something. So the upgrades are likely to help households with multiple people in them.

 

[Aetherlblade]

I guess for people who download all of their games digitally via Steam, D2D, Impulse etc. it's really handy. Also two or three of my friends are in game design and are frequently downloading eachother's work, usually rather large files.

Sure it's situational, but the only reason there isn't an application for it yet is because it's not widespread enough. Once the whole world it operating at these speeds there'll be more uses for the speed.

Wait, Doesn't Steam limit connection speeds to 2 meg, because that's all i got when downloading games, and i have a 14meg connection.

Also, I believe certain sites put a cap on download speeds if I'm not mistaken.

No, no it doesn't not by a long shot. Using a certain internet in a certain area I've gotten nearly 40MB/s download speed. Yes I did mean Megabytes not bits when I stated that.

Well, on steam my average download speed is 12MB/s sometimes as high as 18.

About regular uses you were wondering about, more and more things become cloud-based. Experts expect that most PC's in the future won't be full-fledged PC's but front-end consoles streaming everything from servers like your OS and all other crap. This would of course require really high connection speeds, but would be way cheaper overall as you are basicly just using a screen, keyboard and mouse.
Some companies are already using this although a more commonly used application of this is an image of an already installed and configured OS that can be downloaded to a PC so it can be used immediately instead of having to do everything manualy. This can be either in-company or at home. Also remote controlling a PC at work, or from work to your home is pretty common these days. And that uses a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have digital TV and such.

Probably forgot some stuff but that's some basic examples for fast uses.

Okey, cloud-computing might eat bandwith like hell, but be honestly, how viable is it at the moment? Is it going to show up in the next ten years?

Definitely in the next decade. Also what is important too, to me, is that any website opens instantly, no matter how many streaming things are running etc while skyping and such. It just makes everything a lot smoother and as such a better experience.
Aside from that, faster = better = more sales. Also the Netherlands (where I live) wants to have glasfiber everywhere within our borders to increase the speed at which people can work and thus make money . Every small little bit of speed helps with that.

 

[EHKOS]

I use mine for PS3 downloading games/demos/netflix streaming. It's also just really nice to have.

 

[lRookiel]

Snip

Lucky bastard.

My internet goes at about 120kb/sec MAX! (And at about 30kb/sec for 70% of the time)

I hate living in the English countryside......

Ah, but you get to take in all that lovely scenery when you are waiting for the Escapist to load ^^

EDIT: And you still continue to taunt me!

 

[Realitycrash]

2: Downloading stuff. I.e pirating stuff.

Hope you're not indicating that piracy is the only reason you'd want to download a lot of stuff online.

I legally buy games, music, books and sometimes television online through download services and would greatly appreciate more speed. You can't tell me you wouldn't want to get gigs of info faster if your were paying for it, can you?

As far as I know, at least from what I can tell from the people I know, piracy is far more widespread than buying books/music/television online. It might be because of where I live, but in Sweden it is so popular that the government, in order not to alienate young voters, said it wouldn't want to "criminalize a youth-movement" (i.e they called pirating a youth-movement).
So even if it is true that you CAN, I just can't think of that many people (non-gamers) that do buy big files that take time to download.
Of course, there are some. I just can't see the "average internet-user" being one that regulary buys DVD's, music and television. Not here. Not where I live.

 

[Aetherlblade]

I think the OP is simply seeing this in a bit selfish way. With more and more people using the internet more often and many forms of devices we can expect a family to be doing quite a bit. It isn't impossible to have someone downloading a ton of LEGAL music from iTunes while another person LEGALLY steams a movie that they paid for. While the gamer of the house is LEGALLY downloading the game he just bought on Steam.

When you put the modern family into the picture speed and bandwidth become something that is needed for all of them to do what they need. My above example only includes 3 people but it can easily be more than that. But no object to a good thing because you just so happen to not fit into those who will benefit from it. I suppose you are also against fixing roads you do not happen to drive on as well?

I think his question was reasonable. Not a lot of people really need that speed yet, and it costs a lot of money so it's a valid concern. Also your example is crap you should have made the example about a normal road and not wanting to make it a highway, there is nothing to be repaired here.

 

[Realitycrash]

I guess for people who download all of their games digitally via Steam, D2D, Impulse etc. it's really handy. Also two or three of my friends are in game design and are frequently downloading eachother's work, usually rather large files.

Sure it's situational, but the only reason there isn't an application for it yet is because it's not widespread enough. Once the whole world it operating at these speeds there'll be more uses for the speed.

Wait, Doesn't Steam limit connection speeds to 2 meg, because that's all i got when downloading games, and i have a 14meg connection.

Also, I believe certain sites put a cap on download speeds if I'm not mistaken.

No, no it doesn't not by a long shot. Using a certain internet in a certain area I've gotten nearly 40MB/s download speed. Yes I did mean Megabytes not bits when I stated that.

Well, on steam my average download speed is 12MB/s sometimes as high as 18.

About regular uses you were wondering about, more and more things become cloud-based. Experts expect that most PC's in the future won't be full-fledged PC's but front-end consoles streaming everything from servers like your OS and all other crap. This would of course require really high connection speeds, but would be way cheaper overall as you are basicly just using a screen, keyboard and mouse.
Some companies are already using this although a more commonly used application of this is an image of an already installed and configured OS that can be downloaded to a PC so it can be used immediately instead of having to do everything manualy. This can be either in-company or at home. Also remote controlling a PC at work, or from work to your home is pretty common these days. And that uses a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have digital TV and such.

Probably forgot some stuff but that's some basic examples for fast uses.

Okey, cloud-computing might eat bandwith like hell, but be honestly, how viable is it at the moment? Is it going to show up in the next ten years?

Definitely in the next decade. Also what is important too, to me, is that any website opens instantly, no matter how many streaming things are running etc while skyping and such. It just makes everything a lot smoother and as such a better experience.
Aside from that, faster = better = more sales. Also the Netherlands (where I live) wants to have glasfiber everywhere within our borders to increase the speed at which people can work and thus make money . Every small little bit of speed helps with that.

As far as I have seen, my computer-processor gives up far easier than my broadband. I.e I am on my laptop now, and it doesn't matter if I have 25mbit or 100mbit, the reason that shit loads slowly is that my processor can't handle more than a few things at once.

 

[Realitycrash]

Snip

Lucky bastard.

My internet goes at about 120kb/sec MAX! (And at about 30kb/sec for 70% of the time)

I hate living in the English countryside......

Ah, but you get to take in all that lovely scenery when you are waiting for the Escapist to load ^^

Although it made me smile, I suggest you don't reply with an imagine-only next time (it's a suspendable-offense on the Escapist), but with some text as well ^^

 

[Aetherlblade]

I guess for people who download all of their games digitally via Steam, D2D, Impulse etc. it's really handy. Also two or three of my friends are in game design and are frequently downloading eachother's work, usually rather large files.

*snip*

As far as I have seen, my computer-processor gives up far easier than my broadband. I.e I am on my laptop now, and it doesn't matter if I have 25mbit or 100mbit, the reason that shit loads slowly is that my processor can't handle more than a few things at once.

Thats the point! You can have a crappy thing at home that doesnt need to proces crap. You simply stream it from the internet, you are working from a server after all. This way you can play BF3 on ultra on you mobile phone if you have the speedy connection you would need. The whole point is that it doesn't matter anymore what you have in you home/office to use the software you want. You buy the licence and the stream. I'll check if I can find something for you to look at.

--edit: check this
http://www.onlive.com/

this is simply the first thing i found

 

[BlackStar42]

Alright, I'm aware that the US has some rather (extremely) crappy broadband infrastructure, so I can see why you would want somewhat faster and cheaper, but bear with me.

Erhm. So my broadband-provider called today out of the blue and asked me if I was pleased with my current service (25mbit/sec for 29Ea month, around 38 USD or so). I confirmed that I was, and braced myself to ignore a pointless salespitch. Well, the pitch didn't come. Instead, the man in the phone said that they would be upgrading me to 100mbit/sec, four times as fast, if I just signed up on their website and confirmed.
"What's the catch?" I asked.
- "No catch, we're just upgrading our infrastructure and your apartment-building happens to be one of the first to have it installed. It's the same price as before.
" Uh, so 100/mbit a sec for 30E?"
- "Yes."
-" Okeeey..."

Holy crap, it's that fast in Sweden?! At home, I'm lucky to get 2 Mbps!

 

[Aetherlblade]

http://www.onlive.com/service?autoplay=yes

check that for cloud gaming, might be perfect for some of you guys!

 

[Realitycrash]

I guess for people who download all of their games digitally via Steam, D2D, Impulse etc. it's really handy. Also two or three of my friends are in game design and are frequently downloading eachother's work, usually rather large files.

*snip*

As far as I have seen, my computer-processor gives up far easier than my broadband. I.e I am on my laptop now, and it doesn't matter if I have 25mbit or 100mbit, the reason that shit loads slowly is that my processor can't handle more than a few things at once.

Thats the point! You can have a crappy thing at home that doesnt need to proces crap. You simply stream it from the internet, you are working from a server after all. This way you can play BF3 on ultra on you mobile phone if you have the speedy connection you would need. The whole point is that it doesn't matter anymore what you have in you home/office to use the software you want. You buy the licence and the stream. I'll check if I can find something for you to look at.

--edit: check this
http://www.onlive.com/

this is simply the first thing i found

Haha, thanks, but I am fully aware of streaming, and it works just fine when I had 25mbit. My point was that my computer (my laptop, not my desktop) gives up when I have several webpages open at once, because streaming/popups/websites/commericals take processing memory.

 

[MrTub]

People are starting to switch to 1gbits where I live. And I personally would want 1gbit since I have an ssd which means that I remove everything that Im not currently using and with 100mbits it still take some time downloading from Steam/origin.