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Current Mood: Bored

“What speed is really Broadband for you?”

Our CPU’s are much faster year by year and all this new user generated content has to come from somewhere. Let the users be free of their upload constraints!

Here’s my semi un-formulated explanation for what I feel should be considered “broadband” today and tomarrow:

I’m quite complacent having not used dial-up in almost 10 years. My first 1.5mbps symmetrical DSL line in 1998 was great, and inexpensive. Even @Home back in the day, provided 10mbit symmetrical for a good price. Nowadays these 8mbps/512kbps cable speeds are expensive and slow. In a perfect world all internet connections would be symmetrical. In this reality upload speed should be minimally 1/4 of your download.

I have a pretty old Ethernet hub from the early 90’s, it’s a 10mbit hub. Today, a 10mbit asymmetrical internet connection should be termed Broadband for cable, and DSL customers. For those of us lucky enough to live in an area with Fiber Optics, 45mbit asymmetrical, with minimally 1/3 available for upload.

Now, in about another year or so, the port cost of 1gbit home switches should transition to where 10/100mbit switches are in price. Spending $40 to get 8ports is a deal today. The lower cost in the near future will then make it a standard on most every computer bought. There by signaling ISP’s to turn up the juice, and that the term broadband needs an upgrade to 90mbit symmetrical. and a minimum speed of 45mbit asymmetrical for transitioning providers, or about 1/4 of the available bandwidth for a 100mbit Full Duplex Ethernet. Again if your lucky enough to live near fiber, then 125-200mbit with 1/3 upload speeds.