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The Internet Network

Frontier Is the First National ISP To Offer 2 Gbps Internet Across Its Entire Network (zdnet.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the more-speed-more-better dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Frontier, a national Internet Service Provider (ISP), is now bringing 2 Gbps broadband to all its fiber customers. While Frontier is best known for its rural DSL internet service, the company has been expanding its fiber network. Frontier's 2 Gbps service will be available to approximately 4 million customers in 19 states as part of its launch. This 2 Gbps service is symmetrical; this means you'll get 2 Gbps speeds both up and down. Frontier's not the only one that offers multi-Gbps speeds. AT&T, Google Fiber, Verizon Fios, Xfinity, and Ziply Fiber also offer this level of performance, but none of them offer it over their entire network like Frontier.
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Frontier Is the First National ISP To Offer 2 Gbps Internet Across Its Entire Network More

Frontier Is the First National ISP To Offer 2 Gbps Internet Across Its Entire Network

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  • With a 2GB monthly cap? (Score:4, Funny)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2022 @08:01AM (#62294999)

    badum tss

  • They cover what, 5% of the country? Whoopeeshit

    • Re:And? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2022 @08:44AM (#62295095)

      Urban areas [visualcapitalist.com] account for only 2% of land, but 82% of the population.

      This is what I don't get about places like the US and Canada (where I live) not having good internet access. There's not reason that we can't have 1 gbps unlimited throughput to at least 80% of the population, other than corporations being greedy. If we can build a paved road to an area, we can sure as hell build a decent internet infrastructure. It costs about a million dollars [roadbotics.com] to repave a mile of road that has already been paved, but only costs about $27000 [ustelecom.org] to lay a mile of fibre network.

      • Frontier doesn't cover very many urban areas, either.

      • If we can build a paved road to an area, we can sure as hell build a decent internet infrastructure. It costs about a million dollars [roadbotics.com] to repave a mile of road that has already been paved, but only costs about $27000 [ustelecom.org] to lay a mile of fibre network.

        The difference is that the government (drumroll kneejerk stream of criticism ...) is thinking about the needs of the community while the corporation is thinking about the needs of the corporation. The $27k to lay a mile of fiber likely doesn't include the last mile hookups to the homes nor the legal costs involved. Furthermore, the break-even time for ROI is likely sufficiently far into the future beyond the horizon for stock vesting.

        The US just spent a ton of money for vaccines and testing. The problem

        • "The problem isn't money for government infrastructure"

          Where do you think government gets money from? It's either from raising taxes or from raising debt/printing more money. The second of which fuels inflation.
            Government does not have an unlimited supply of money to spend on whatever populist idea pops up next.

    • Our area has Frontier as one of the ISP's. They only offer broadband DSL 30 down and 3 up. That was actually good enough to stream 4K HDR videos. But, a small fiber company started up over two years ago and has been poaching Frontier customers since then with 100/100 speeds at about the same price as Frontier's 30/3. This looks like Frontier PR, which has never represented reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Seriously. Frontier no longer offer copper services in my rural area, and refuse to roll out fiber here. :(

  • Does the modem has a 10GB Ethernet port? (Score:3)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2022 @08:07AM (#62295015)

    If it's still gigabit Ethernet, it's kind of pointless. I know some modems have 2 gigabit Ethernet ports and that theorically you can benefit from that speed using 2 devices, but still... most people are going to hook up their AC2100 router and don't even understand they'll never get more than 1 Gbps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pollux ( 102520 )

      I trust that companies that offer speeds higher than 1 Gbps will provide DOCSIS 3.1 cable modems like this one [surfboard.com] with a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port.

      On the other hand, since there's so very few computers right now shipping with multi-gig (2.5Gbps / 5Gbps) ethernet ports, it's probably a moot point. On the other, other hand, perhaps this start of broadband speeds higher than 1 Gbps will incentivize the industry to finally provide multi-gig ethernet ports as standard in their PCs. I mean, the protocol has only been [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: Does the modem has a 10GB Ethernet port? (Score:4, Informative)

        by madbrain ( 11432 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2022 @09:09AM (#62295183) Homepage Journal

        2.5/5gbase-t was only standardized in 2016. Hardware shipped shortly thereafter. I have been using switches and NICs that support it since 2018. Mostly running at 10G speed, though, not 2.5 . I have tried USB 2.5G NICs. They aren't capable of full duplex 2.5gig speed, even on a high speed desktop. USB 3.0 is the limiting factor. One direction does work at full 2.5g. Single board computers aren't able to realize the full benefit, though.
        Newer USB, either 3.1 gen2 or 3.1 gen2x2 or USB 4.0, or thunderbolt are needed. Or PCIe in the case of desktop.

        Switches are still too expensive. Especially 10g compatible models.

        No affordable wireless APs include such high speed ports, also. Ubiquiti models still only have 1gig ports even though their Wifi6 APs could exceed 1gig speeds.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jon3k ( 691256 )

          I have tried USB 2.5G NICs. They aren't capable of full duplex 2.5gig speed, even on a high speed desktop. USB 3.0 is the limiting factor.

          I think very few people are concerned about full duplex, simultaneous, bidirectional 2.5Gb/s for home use. I'd wager better than 99% just care about 2.5Gb/s download speeds. But, even if you want bidirectional 2.5Gb/s, USB 3.0 still allows for a LOT more than 1Gb/s. USB 3.0 ("SuperSpeed") maximum speeds are 5Gb/s (minus overhead) so you can get pretty close to full duplex 2.5Gb/s before you run into bus limitations.

          I get ~3.1Gb/s download speeds with my Sabrent 5Gb USB 3.0 ethernet adapters [amazon.com], which wo

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by madbrain ( 11432 )

            I wanted to implemented a router on a single board computer, thus full-duplex was a concern.
            I wanted to replace the Comcast XB7 gateway, since its router capabilities suck. I wanted to use the XB7 in bridge mode (modem only - no router, no Wifi AP).

            I tried with a pair of Realtek 2.5Gbps USB NICs. Tried on a Raspberry Pi 4, Odroid XU4, Odroid N2+. I could not max both directions on one NIC, let alone 2.
            I checked in iperf3 against 10Gbps servers on my LAN. The speed I got was not even in both directions. It w

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jon3k ( 691256 )

              I wanted to implemented a router on a single board computer, thus full-duplex was a concern.

              Were you trying to do it over a single 2.5Gb interface with different VLANs? Normally for a router you would use a device with at least 2x2.5Gb/s interfaces, one in, one out. I agree that ARM SBC really aren't capable of keeping up. I recently switched to Lenovo Thinkcentre M700 Mini. Around 5-10x the performance of an rpi4 and very small form factor, around 1L. Definitely check those out, or anything in STH's TinyMiniMicro [servethehome.com]. Not only are they FAR more powerful, they still only cost around $125 each an

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Before 2.5Gbps hardware was commonly available to consumers, ISPs in Japan simply supplied two 1Gbps ethernet ports.

          Currently the spec offered in all major cities and many smaller ones is 10Gbps, with some offering 20. There are no tiers, everyone gets 10Gbps. Most people don't have a computer capable of handling it, let alone a router. The modem they supply has multiple ports and a special connection for TVs, because you can buy cable TV service from them too.

        • And AFAICT 10gbit *copper* is a power-hungry, heat-spewing disaster. Optics seem better, but switches are pricey. If one could do SFP to SFP directly, though, without a switch ...

      • If you want to run 10gb fiber in your lan cheaply, pick up some QLE8140 cards. I got mine for $15 each and they have drivers for Windows and Linux picks the correct driver just fine. The most expensive part will be the MikroTik switch with four SFP ports for $130.

      • It's 2022 not 2002. Nobody connects a PC directly to a cable modem anymore. To benefit those speeds, you need to connect a router with 2.5/5/10 Gbps Ethernet ports. They aren't very common either.

    • The lacking general availability of consumer routers which can keep up with the fiber speed will likely be used to upsell the $20/month AiO modem/router rental. Chances are the CPU in that box can't handle the overhead of routing 2gbps either, but what users will want to shell out the hundreds of dollars necessary to get equipment that actually can?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      If it's still gigabit Ethernet, it's kind of pointless. I know some modems have 2 gigabit Ethernet ports and that theorically you can benefit from that speed using 2 devices, but still... most people are going to hook up their AC2100 router and don't even understand they'll never get more than 1 Gbps.

      Actually, the next step up from Gigabit is 2.5Gbps. You can get SFP+ modules capable of doing 2.5GigE these days. It's extremely common.

      It's not quite an official standard, but it does allow using existing infr

    • Multigig.
  • company that can't get several facilities my company has in Florida (and other states) to have solidly functioning phone / data lines? Frontier Communications, the company that tells us as we report an outage "We're working on the problem..." for a month.

    I doubt the service is 2GB at all. At best it's probably like my AT&T Fiber for home use: "Up to 2GB..." which you won't every see more than 2/3 of that number.... Reality is that you'll probably be lucky to have a stable connection and half the spee

    • If they repair the copper, they can't rip it out. It has to be obsolete and prohibitively expensive to repair before they can do that.

  • I can download an entire film on my old connection in 5 minutes.

    What do people use 2Gbps for ?!

    • Maybe it's the synchronised up down speeds. Here in the UK we're limited by 1GB/50Mb. So nice to get faster up speed when it becomes available.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      To play Elite: Dangerous?

      To use on-line virtual realities, such as the full VR model of ancient Rome?

      To handle libraries of large images? (Most of my TIFF scans of old negatives are 1-2 gigabytes each and I've hundreds of them, and those are old-style monochrome mediums, modern medium film is colour, and we're not even onto large format yet.)

      There may be many reasons for wanting that kind of bitrate. The film you downloaded is unlikely to be 8K resolution, 11.1 audio, but that's what home theatre would need

    • Video games have grown enormous and are distributed online now.

      I don't actually know why the initial download is so enormous and they can't just let you start playing while additional content downloads as needed. (They do somewhat - the full Microsoft Flight Simulator is over 2 TB, and obviously you never hold it all at once. But the initial download is still 150 GB.)

  • While it might not be national, EPB [epb.com] has offered 10G symmetrical fiber to its entire footprint for years now. And there are no data caps..

  • I'd really prefer to see symmetrical fiber rolled out as options for people living all across America first, even if it top out at 1GB or even 500MB speeds.

    Currently, I reside across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, in Alton, IL. I'm surrounded by the towns of Godfrey, Grafton, Bethalto, East Alton and Wood River. Each one seems to have a population of around 26,000 - 30,000 people (except Grafton, which is a little smaller but more of a tourist attraction with bars, wineries and restaurants all along t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      I'd really prefer to see symmetrical fiber rolled out as options for people living all across America first, even if it top out at 1GB or even 500M

      You realize that the single mode fiber being deployed for these networks has enough bandwidth that symmetrical 100GBe can (today) be deployed with a single strand? The hard, difficult part is what you would prefer to be done first. Scaling up speeds once the fiber is on poles or in the ground is just a matter of swapping equipment as it becomes economically feasible and/or ages out. There's really not any sense in saying "Peoria, IL can't have 10GBe until Baton Rouge, LA has 500mbit!"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )

        Well, true -- and I wasn't suggesting they should artificially hold off on selling faster speeds in some areas before deploying fiber in others.

        I'm just saying there's a lot of nonsense still with ISPs happily taking government money to "improvement rural broadband deployment" while not even lifting a finger to deploy it in places with tens of thousands of residents.

        Verizon's FiOS is a great example. They spend a bunch of TV advertising, encouraging people to "Get FiOS!" - yet many markets watching those ad

  • "Frontier is best known for its rural DSL internet service..." That sounds suspiciously like it was meant to be a compliment there, bud.

    What Frontier is known for here in southern Minnesota is notoriously shitty service all around.

    Entire rural CO's and many RT's are still connected to the rest of the world by copper and a small number of T1's. Their DSL service "up to 6Mpbs" service is a complete farce when there often isn't even that much bandwidth available to the entire exchange or remote terminal wort

    • I have no points with which to up vote you. Everything you said was accurate to my experience. 1.3 mega bits up .6 mega bits down. 51/month. I had my own modem and they had a 6/month charge for maintenance. Pretty unreliable too any downtime took 1 to weeks to fix.

  • 2026, perhaps? Right now, the best thing that Frontier offers in my area is same 70Mb/Sec VDSL service that AT&T U-verse offered 10 years ago before they left the state. I'm probably one of the lucky ones, as folks in rural areas are lucky to get 6Mb/Sec ADSL service from them.

    Meanwhile, Comcast is offering 800 Mb/Sec cable Internet service in the area. How Frontier is even still in business is beyond me.

  • Frontier is a pretty shady company. They're now recovering from bankruptcy. So, this PR stunt implies that they have fiber everywhere. In fact, Frontier has very little fiber optic cable laid.

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