Why We Don't Need Gigabit Networks (Yet) 359
AmyVernon writes "Most computers today can't support gigabit connections and current Wi-Fi networks can't offer those speeds either. The first trial of Sonic.Net's gigabit network was a speed test on a generic laptop that showed off 420 Mbps down; the laptop couldn't handle a full gig. Plus, few applications need those speeds. It's hard to justify such a huge investment in a network that will have few subscribers and few applications that need it. Of course, that can change, and then these networks will be vital. This story has a good analysis of where things stand and what has to change."
Could Not Disagree More (Score:5, Insightful)
Gigabit networks are important when working with almost any kind of file copy. I am not sure the last time someone tried to backup even just 100GB of data (Think backups) over a 100 megabit network. Copies like that can take for ever a fully saturate 100 megabit network and slow down traffic for everyone. While copies over gigabit rarely use the entire pipe its good to know that there is still bandwidth left over for other tasks.
HERETICS! (Score:5, Insightful)
How DARE you say we don't need faster networks! This article should be purged from the interwebs and timothy should be strung up by his gonads for even considering posting it!
Infrastructure is long term. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason this post is stupid is that infrastructure is long term. When you go to the trouble of sending out a crew to dig up and put fiber in the ground your putting in an infrastructure asset that should have a 15-30 year lifespan. The fact that can average machine can't saturate it today means we're being forward thinking.
The idea of faster network... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HERETICS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, it smells of "x should be enough for anyone" and does nothing but stifle progress. The thing with a lot of IT stuff is it's a bit chicken and egg, sometimes just because you don't need something now doesn't mean that someone won't come up with a novel use for it.
A few years ago, you could have argued that you don't really need much more than 1Mbit down. In an age of 56k modems, 1meg would have certainly made you king of the castle, as it were, but today 1meg isn't nearly enough for basic internet use.
Furthermore, their example as to why it's not needed - a "generic" laptop couldn't handle it, is rubbish. That's like saying we don't need better fuel sources because our existing power producers can't use it.
Live streaming (Score:5, Insightful)
The streaming model can die the death it deserves at that point.
Streaming is still the only model I can see for live events such as news talk shows, sports, scripted sports (e.g. WWE PPV), concerts, and the like where viewing begins before the whole video has even been recorded.
Re:Fileserver (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but the argument is "this cheap and shitty laptop could only manage to use half of the gig connection, so therefore no one needs gig speeds for the home".
An argument that is easily destroyed by saying "ok, do you live alone? Do you have more than one person using a computer at the same time?"
It's not just servers. I share a house with 4 other people and we can all watch HD streaming video on the connection we have, just. If the bandwidth goes up a little, or people start using off-site backup more frequently I can see a market for a consumer-level gig connection. I know you can already get them in some other European countries (here in the UK, the best you can get on a consumer budget is 100Mb (soon to be 200Mb) from Virgin cable).
One shitty laptop might choke on a gig connection, but three or four computers will happily share it.
Why would you plug a wire into a notebook? (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously, you plug the Gigabit Ethernet into a router and serve multiple computers with Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Then you can run Netflix all day in the living room and still have fast access from other systems.
And all Macs have had Gigabit Ethernet since the turn of the century, with the exception of older MacBook Air models that don't have Thunderbolt. That is a lot of data heavy users, video people and so on.
And any machine with Thunderbolt or PCI-Express has a faster connection than Gigabit, so the idea that Gigabit is too big for today's computers is not right.
Re:Big surprise: Bad Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article as a laptop being too slow because of its drive not handling data that quickly.
That neatly bypasses a very real need for high speed low latency remote connections where disk speed is irrelevant -- remote desktops, remote apps and VPN, often in combinations. And in combination with other things that suck bandwidth too.
There's more to bandwidth than file transfers.