Author Topic: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?  (Read 22426 times)

JLee

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #50 on: September 15, 2015, 09:49:28 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

Sustained from Steam, basically as long as nobody else uses the connection :P  Maybe 11.7MB/sec, but pretty close. It might be higher if I had a gigabit network, but I have a cheap router right now (gigabit one died).  I was seeing around 110Mbps on the gigabit router, but now speedtest.net shows around 95mbps.

Villanelle

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #51 on: September 15, 2015, 09:52:20 AM »
I'm just leaving a home in Germany (and not super rural) that didn't even have cable internet. Our DSL usually averaged 1.3-1.8 mbs.

Given that, cable internet--which we had for years before moving here-- is going to seem like some fancy service from the future.  Hedonistic adaptation.  So I can't imagine paying more when I'm already going to be blown away by the cable internet speeds. 

BlueMR2

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #52 on: September 15, 2015, 09:56:18 AM »
Or would you stay with slower but cheaper cable internet? Or reap the competitive benefit by getting faster cable internet at lower cost due to competition from Google? Or maybe take Google up on their offer of slow (5mbs) free (plus tax and fees) internet?

I definitely wouldn't pay $70/mo.  My current 1 Mib/s DSL is sufficient as is only $22.95/mo.  If the taxes and fees were less than that, sure I'd change to the "free" one. However, if they were more, then no...

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #53 on: September 15, 2015, 10:06:31 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

Sustained from Steam, basically as long as nobody else uses the connection :P  Maybe 11.7MB/sec, but pretty close. It might be higher if I had a gigabit network, but I have a cheap router right now (gigabit one died).  I was seeing around 110Mbps on the gigabit router, but now speedtest.net shows around 95mbps.

I'll admit I don't know the networking underpinnings of Steam.  If it's P2P... I could see how it might could scale. *see note

My point is the server side is still (mostly) hovering with 1Gb with some 10Gb stuff starting to filter in.  Let's assume you've got a monster 10Gb server (and that it can actually put out a full 10Gb.)  That's an expensive box to serve 10 people (assuming no multicasting).  I just don't think there is a supply side for this yet.

The last time I checked (several months ago), speedtest.net's software (Ookla) was only certified up to about 300Mbps.  It will measure above that... but not they don't make any guarantees.  Again: This is probably one server with a couple of Gb interfaces.  It's really hard to scale that up to accurately test 10 people or more at a time. 

*note: I'll leave this as a warning.  Hopefully Google Fiber will make me wrong on this.  ISPs really market to the average user.  There is a huge trend to monitor bandwidth and bill for usage above some high water mark.  And this usage is geared toward "average user".  So average Joe with a 100Mb connection has a pretty big bucket.  But there is always the 3% of folks that will want to pull 100Mb 24 hours a day.  If you can do it and fly under the radar: excellent.  But ISPs generally want to get rid of those users and are adding fees to try to make life miserable for them.  The reason is pretty obvious... it's just outrageously expensive to engineer all of the links to handle that amount of traffic.  It's much easier to market to the other 97%.  (I used to work at an ISP.  No one there likes the idea of usage billing.  But at some point it became an ugly necessity.)

johnny847

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #54 on: September 15, 2015, 10:23:57 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

Sustained from Steam, basically as long as nobody else uses the connection :P  Maybe 11.7MB/sec, but pretty close. It might be higher if I had a gigabit network, but I have a cheap router right now (gigabit one died).  I was seeing around 110Mbps on the gigabit router, but now speedtest.net shows around 95mbps.

I'll admit I don't know the networking underpinnings of Steam.  If it's P2P... I could see how it might could scale. *see note

My point is the server side is still (mostly) hovering with 1Gb with some 10Gb stuff starting to filter in.  Let's assume you've got a monster 10Gb server (and that it can actually put out a full 10Gb.)  That's an expensive box to serve 10 people (assuming no multicasting).  I just don't think there is a supply side for this yet.

The last time I checked (several months ago), speedtest.net's software (Ookla) was only certified up to about 300Mbps.  It will measure above that... but not they don't make any guarantees.  Again: This is probably one server with a couple of Gb interfaces.  It's really hard to scale that up to accurately test 10 people or more at a time. 

*note: I'll leave this as a warning.  Hopefully Google Fiber will make me wrong on this.  ISPs really market to the average user.  There is a huge trend to monitor bandwidth and bill for usage above some high water mark.  And this usage is geared toward "average user".  So average Joe with a 100Mb connection has a pretty big bucket.  But there is always the 3% of folks that will want to pull 100Mb 24 hours a day.  If you can do it and fly under the radar: excellent.  But ISPs generally want to get rid of those users and are adding fees to try to make life miserable for them.  The reason is pretty obvious... it's just outrageously expensive to engineer all of the links to handle that amount of traffic.  It's much easier to market to the other 97%.  (I used to work at an ISP.  No one there likes the idea of usage billing.  But at some point it became an ugly necessity.)

From some quick googling it appears they do not use P2P.

But whatever they're doing, they're doing something right. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/
Peak download bandwidth used in the last 24 hours: 2.2 Tbps worldwide. 665.2 Gbps in North America. 1.1 Tbps in Europe.

JLee

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #55 on: September 15, 2015, 10:29:12 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

Sustained from Steam, basically as long as nobody else uses the connection :P  Maybe 11.7MB/sec, but pretty close. It might be higher if I had a gigabit network, but I have a cheap router right now (gigabit one died).  I was seeing around 110Mbps on the gigabit router, but now speedtest.net shows around 95mbps.

I'll admit I don't know the networking underpinnings of Steam.  If it's P2P... I could see how it might could scale. *see note

My point is the server side is still (mostly) hovering with 1Gb with some 10Gb stuff starting to filter in.  Let's assume you've got a monster 10Gb server (and that it can actually put out a full 10Gb.)  That's an expensive box to serve 10 people (assuming no multicasting).  I just don't think there is a supply side for this yet.

The last time I checked (several months ago), speedtest.net's software (Ookla) was only certified up to about 300Mbps.  It will measure above that... but not they don't make any guarantees.  Again: This is probably one server with a couple of Gb interfaces.  It's really hard to scale that up to accurately test 10 people or more at a time. 

*note: I'll leave this as a warning.  Hopefully Google Fiber will make me wrong on this.  ISPs really market to the average user.  There is a huge trend to monitor bandwidth and bill for usage above some high water mark.  And this usage is geared toward "average user".  So average Joe with a 100Mb connection has a pretty big bucket.  But there is always the 3% of folks that will want to pull 100Mb 24 hours a day.  If you can do it and fly under the radar: excellent.  But ISPs generally want to get rid of those users and are adding fees to try to make life miserable for them.  The reason is pretty obvious... it's just outrageously expensive to engineer all of the links to handle that amount of traffic.  It's much easier to market to the other 97%.  (I used to work at an ISP.  No one there likes the idea of usage billing.  But at some point it became an ugly necessity.)
Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #56 on: September 15, 2015, 10:45:54 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

johnny847

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #57 on: September 15, 2015, 10:50:29 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

Spork

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #58 on: September 15, 2015, 11:00:33 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

I should have specified "For HD video" there.  Yes, there is UHD.  Yes it will eventually grab hold.  But HD is the norm.

5Mbps from here:  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306   

johnny847

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #59 on: September 15, 2015, 11:05:07 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

I should have specified "For HD video" there.  Yes, there is UHD.  Yes it will eventually grab hold.  But HD is the norm.

5Mbps from here:  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
I do find it odd how Netflix says 3GB/hr for HD which is 6.667 Mbps, but then recommend a 5 Mbps connection for it.

Scandium

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #60 on: September 15, 2015, 11:06:19 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

This was going to be my question to everyone saying 5 Mbps is "fine". Fine for what? Our main use is Netflix and I hate buffering and grainy looking videos so not real hot on the idea of dropping my 25 Mbps to 5. So it looks like at least 7 is the minimum for HD, assuming you do nothing else at the same time.. What is "Ultra HD"? Is that 4k, or just less compressed 1080p?

Villanelle

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #61 on: September 15, 2015, 11:09:56 AM »
Complaining about "grainy videos" seems like something that should get MMM face punches, no?  To me it seems comparable to someone bitching about having to make his own coffee or not having a heated seat in his clown car. 

JLee

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #62 on: September 15, 2015, 11:12:33 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

I should have specified "For HD video" there.  Yes, there is UHD.  Yes it will eventually grab hold.  But HD is the norm.

5Mbps from here:  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
I do find it odd how Netflix says 3GB/hr for HD which is 6.667 Mbps, but then recommend a 5 Mbps connection for it.
They classify HD as 720p or better. Quality can automatically scale based on the available data rate or can be fixed from options of low/medium/high (0.3GB/hr, 0.7GB/hr, 3GB/hr respectively).

JLee

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #63 on: September 15, 2015, 11:16:51 AM »
Complaining about "grainy videos" seems like something that should get MMM face punches, no?  To me it seems comparable to someone bitching about having to make his own coffee or not having a heated seat in his clown car.

If I choose to use my spare time to watch something, I want it to be a quality experience.

If you can't tell the difference between FM radio and lossless audio, or between VHS and blu-ray, then more power to you. :)

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #64 on: September 15, 2015, 11:22:35 AM »
Keep in mind that resolution labels don't tell the whole story. Not all 720p or 1080p encodes are created equal. I'll take a quality 576p, 2GB feature film encode done by someone who knows what they're doing over a bloated 5GB "HD" encode any day of the week.

johnny847

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #65 on: September 15, 2015, 11:37:00 AM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

I should have specified "For HD video" there.  Yes, there is UHD.  Yes it will eventually grab hold.  But HD is the norm.

5Mbps from here:  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
I do find it odd how Netflix says 3GB/hr for HD which is 6.667 Mbps, but then recommend a 5 Mbps connection for it.
They classify HD as 720p or better. Quality can automatically scale based on the available data rate or can be fixed from options of low/medium/high (0.3GB/hr, 0.7GB/hr, 3GB/hr respectively).

Duh. That makes sense.
I'm used to thinking of just 1080p as HD.

Keep in mind that resolution labels don't tell the whole story. Not all 720p or 1080p encodes are created equal. I'll take a quality 576p, 2GB feature film encode done by someone who knows what they're doing over a bloated 5GB "HD" encode any day of the week.

Somebody would have to be really dumb to create a bloated HD encode that's 5GB and looks worse than a "high quality encode" of a 576p feature film of the same length that's 2GB in size. Just use x264. Use x264 and set a bit rate target that will result in a 5GB file. As in, take 5GB and divide it by the length of the video and convert to kbps (Call this number X). Put that in to a parameter to ffmpeg which uses x264 like this:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v X output.mp4.
Done.

Villanelle

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #66 on: September 15, 2015, 11:37:52 AM »
Complaining about "grainy videos" seems like something that should get MMM face punches, no?  To me it seems comparable to someone bitching about having to make his own coffee or not having a heated seat in his clown car.

If I choose to use my spare time to watch something, I want it to be a quality experience.

If you can't tell the difference between FM radio and lossless audio, or between VHS and blu-ray, then more power to you. :)

I can tell the difference, just as I can tell the difference between a Mercedes and a Ford Focus.  That doesn't mean it's very mustachian to drive a Mercedes, just because when you drive you want it to be a quality experience. 

I mean, I don't really care.  I have a few indulgences that aren't super mustachian, like travel.  But I'm aware that they are indulgences and the extremely fancypants.  So it seemed worth pointing out because I didn't sense that awareness in the post.  Take from it whatever you might, including nothing at all. 
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 11:40:54 AM by Villanelle »

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #67 on: September 15, 2015, 12:00:46 PM »

Oh I don't disagree - I think it will be very rare to find something that will be able to saturate a gigabit line. Steam has generally impressed me with their throughput ability.

Most of our servers are running twelve gigabit NICs, but we're running VMs so 30-40 virtual servers, the host management network, storage, etc has to be load balanced across them. I would assume that Google/Amazon/etc are running multiple 10GbE NICs on their servers, but I honestly have no idea.

The big content providers (read: Netflix & Google) actually host gigantic cache engine boxes inside the cable company head ends.  That movie you're watching on Netflix has been pre-transcoded to every possible speed you might end up playing it at.  And it's sitting waiting on a server 10 miles from your house.  ...and they're not trying to stream faster than about 5Mbps.

Yes they are:
Quote
Adjust your data usage settings

Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are four data usage settings to choose from. Each estimate below is per stream:

    Low (0.3 GB per hour)
    Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)
    High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)
    Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
3GB/hr = 6.666667 Mbps
7GB/hr = 15.5555556 Mbps

I should have specified "For HD video" there.  Yes, there is UHD.  Yes it will eventually grab hold.  But HD is the norm.

5Mbps from here:  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
I do find it odd how Netflix says 3GB/hr for HD which is 6.667 Mbps, but then recommend a 5 Mbps connection for it.
They classify HD as 720p or better. Quality can automatically scale based on the available data rate or can be fixed from options of low/medium/high (0.3GB/hr, 0.7GB/hr, 3GB/hr respectively).

It could also just be "easy maths for the user."   We're talking an hourly usage rollup here, not really a data rate.  So it's easier to say 3GB/hr than 2.25GB/hr.


This was going to be my question to everyone saying 5 Mbps is "fine". Fine for what? Our main use is Netflix and I hate buffering and grainy looking videos so not real hot on the idea of dropping my 25 Mbps to 5. So it looks like at least 7 is the minimum for HD, assuming you do nothing else at the same time.. What is "Ultra HD"? Is that 4k, or just less compressed 1080p?

I believe Netflix is talking about 4k for UHD.

As to 25M vs 5M...  There will be a cutoff somewhere (and any other background data is going to interfere.)  I'm not sure where it is going to be without actually trying it.   I can tell you I consistently get 12M now and consistently had 50M when I worked for an ISP -- and there was no noticeable difference in Netflix quality between the two.  This is going to vary by ISP and how their network is engineered.... so take that with a grain of salt.   Around my area, there isn't really even a 5M option.  12M is the lowest they go (and will be bumped to 50M after some physical rebuilds.)

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #68 on: September 15, 2015, 07:16:12 PM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

It's easy to hit speeds much faster than that when you download PC games. I've hit as high as 38MB/s (300Mbps) downloading games on my old school network because I'd download games on Sunday mornings when I knew everyone was asleep (during peak hours you couldn't even stream Netflix, not even close.)

To the poster above, 12MB/s is 100Mbps (12*8 = 96 ~100).

As much as I'm irritated by my AT&T connection for disconnecting periodically for about 20 seconds at a time, I will say that they always deliver the speed they sold me (45 Mbps) and that's really saying something. It shows how badly Comcast & company have screwed up our country's infrastructure when I consider not being the victim of false advertising a huge bonus above and beyond what's expected.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #69 on: September 15, 2015, 07:17:46 PM »
Somebody would have to be really dumb to create a bloated HD encode that's 5GB and looks worse than a "high quality encode" of a 576p feature film of the same length that's 2GB in size. Just use x264. Use x264 and set a bit rate target that will result in a 5GB file. As in, take 5GB and divide it by the length of the video and convert to kbps (Call this number X). Put that in to a parameter to ffmpeg which uses x264 like this:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v X output.mp4.
Done.
LOL, I wonder how much of us actually understood what you just said...

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #70 on: September 15, 2015, 07:32:27 PM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

It's easy to hit speeds much faster than that when you download PC games. I've hit as high as 38MB/s (300Mbps) downloading games on my old school network because I'd download games on Sunday mornings when I knew everyone was asleep (during peak hours you couldn't even stream Netflix, not even close.)

To the poster above, 12MB/s is 100Mbps (12*8 = 96 ~100).

As much as I'm irritated by my AT&T connection for disconnecting periodically for about 20 seconds at a time, I will say that they always deliver the speed they sold me (45 Mbps) and that's really saying something. It shows how badly Comcast & company have screwed up our country's infrastructure when I consider not being the victim of false advertising a huge bonus above and beyond what's expected.

I would much rather have a 5mbps connection without random outages than a 45mbps connection with outages. When you have outages like that it makes it hard to use the internet for any real time application, like VoIP or Skype.

EDIT: fixed horrendous typos.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 08:22:24 PM by johnny847 »

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #71 on: September 15, 2015, 08:18:43 PM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

It's easy to hit speeds much faster than that when you download PC games. I've hit as high as 38MB/s (300Mbps) downloading games on my old school network because I'd download games on Sunday mornings when I knew everyone was asleep (during peak hours you couldn't even stream Netflix, not even close.)

To the poster above, 12MB/s is 100Mbps (12*8 = 96 ~100).

As much as I'm irritated by my AT&T connection for disconnecting periodically for about 20 seconds at a time, I will say that they always deliver the speed they sold me (45 Mbps) and that's really saying something. It shows how badly Comcast & company have screwed up our country's infrastructure when I consider not being the victim of false advertising a huge bonus above and beyond what's expected.

I would much rather have a 5mbps connection without random outages than a 45mbps connection with outages.When you have outages like that itakes it hard to use the internet for any real time application .like VoIP .or Skype .

While I agree with the sentiment, 5 is below my cutoff, especially because I have two housemates. On the other hand, $70/3 would be an awesome price to share a Gbps connection.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #72 on: September 15, 2015, 08:25:26 PM »
I would much rather have a 5mbps connection without random outages than a 45mbps connection with outages.When you have outages like that itakes it hard to use the internet for any real time application .like VoIP .or Skype .

While I agree with the sentiment, 5 is below my cutoff, especially because I have two housemates. On the other hand, $70/3 would be an awesome price to share a Gbps connection.

Oh yeah 5 mbps for 3 people would be below my tolerance too. But just for myself it'd be fine. Not great. Just fine. But most of the time, there aren't bad products, just bad prices.

I couldn't stomach $70/month for gigabit for myself, but with even just one roommate? I'd jump on that in an instant.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #73 on: September 15, 2015, 10:00:40 PM »
Funny the way that works.  About a day after Google announced they were coming to San Antonio, the jerks at Time Warner "doubled" their (largely fake) advertised speed.

Still, I'd switch to Google Fiber in a heart beat.  I'm already paying over $50/month for sluggish internet (rarely comes close to advertised speeds).  Until their recent speed increase, I was getting about what Google offers for free, and that was okay with me.

Google offers far more speed for the price, and no one in the world has worse customer service than Time Warner.

I only wish Google offered something between 5 M at $0 and 1 G at $70/month.  I'd gladly pay them $40 or $50/month for 100 M.

Google can't get her fast enough.  I'll dump Time Warner on Day ONE.

Well, I will say one thing for my experience with TWC. I do get the speed I pay for, plus about 15% more. I think the term is “over provision”. My 15mbs always tests out to about 17.5mbs.

Reliability has been a different matter. They have fried two Motorola modems, and I got frequent reboots until I bought a Zoom modem. Plus the occasional outage.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #74 on: September 15, 2015, 10:07:41 PM »
I have had Google Fiber for a few months now. I did choose the $70 per month plan. No complaints here.

It is a little pricey. I do wish they had a mid-option. The free ($300) option would have been good for a minimum of seven years. However, the speed was less than I had with my previous service which wasn't sufficient.

It seems crazy that they don't have a middle option. I'd gladly take 100mbs for $35, even though it would be only one tenth the speed of the $70 option. It would still be a huge speed increase for me, for $5 less than I'm paying now.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #75 on: September 16, 2015, 08:34:18 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

It's easy to hit speeds much faster than that when you download PC games. I've hit as high as 38MB/s (300Mbps) downloading games on my old school network because I'd download games on Sunday mornings when I knew everyone was asleep (during peak hours you couldn't even stream Netflix, not even close.)

To the poster above, 12MB/s is 100Mbps (12*8 = 96 ~100).

As much as I'm irritated by my AT&T connection for disconnecting periodically for about 20 seconds at a time, I will say that they always deliver the speed they sold me (45 Mbps) and that's really saying something. It shows how badly Comcast & company have screwed up our country's infrastructure when I consider not being the victim of false advertising a huge bonus above and beyond what's expected.

Yep. To further clarify, gigabit is around 116MB/sec over TCP without jumbo frames. Mixing bits/bytes can lead to an unclear conversation.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #76 on: September 16, 2015, 08:36:36 AM »

It depends on what the other offerings are (and the price).

Unless you've got some of your own systems out in Internetland that are serving you at 1GB...  Or unless you've got 50 devices pulling 20MB from different locations, it's going to be sort of hard to utilize that (and ISPs know this).

You'll also likely have to cough up some dough to buy a bigger router/firewall.  The typical consumer offerings haven't really come down in price yet.

For the most part, at this point in time, most anything about 10-20MB is marketed to people that just want to brag to their friends about what speed they have.  Now, as content changes and the 4k streams really start spooling up at Netflix... this will probably change.

One thing Google really has done with all this is push the cable companies to offer faster/cheaper deals.

Eh I can pull solid 12MB/sec downloads with my 100mbps connection. Gigabit gear isn't that bad - e.g. Edgerouter Lite.  Granted, that's not something I'd want to walk a mainstream user through setting up. :P

From where?  And for how long?

ISPs actually are having a bit of a difficult time even providing the FCC required tools to measure 1G connections. 

Ubiquiti looks cool.   I'm not familiar with them.

It's easy to hit speeds much faster than that when you download PC games. I've hit as high as 38MB/s (300Mbps) downloading games on my old school network because I'd download games on Sunday mornings when I knew everyone was asleep (during peak hours you couldn't even stream Netflix, not even close.)

That's pretty much my point.  You are pulling 300Mbps on a *commercial* connection by timing this when NO ONE IS THERE.  The OP is talking about residential.   (Residential customers are going to be on the bottom of the QoS  heap.)  I might also guess downloading means P2P, but  I might be wrong.

My point is: it is extremely hard to find sites that will consistently fill a 1Gb pipe... and probably hard to even find sites that will burst up to that much.  ...Unless you have a whole bunch of clients or a whole bunch of servers (like P2P) -- or you actually own/admin the server and can dedicate it to yourself.  (Reading between the lines in this thread... it almost sounds like this might be the case for the OP, but maybe I'm reading too much into it).

To the poster above, 12MB/s is 100Mbps (12*8 = 96 ~100).

Yeah, I understood the math and the difference between bits and bytes.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #77 on: September 16, 2015, 09:00:05 AM »
I would build a VPN to my buddy's house. Gigabit WAN..just for lulz. :D

Though gear that can handle that speed is not remotely cheap, so it'd probably be more like 200-300Mbps. :(

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #78 on: September 16, 2015, 09:02:07 AM »
I would build a VPN to my buddy's house. Gigabit WAN..just for lulz. :D

Though gear that can handle that speed is not remotely cheap, so it'd probably be more like 200-300Mbps. :(

I know NOTHING about Google's offering.  I've only seen the traditional MSO's shaking in their boots at the idea.  Is the 1Gb speed synchronous?  Are your upstream speeds limited at all?

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #79 on: September 16, 2015, 09:05:23 AM »
I would build a VPN to my buddy's house. Gigabit WAN..just for lulz. :D

Though gear that can handle that speed is not remotely cheap, so it'd probably be more like 200-300Mbps. :(

I know NOTHING about Google's offering.  I've only seen the traditional MSO's shaking in their boots at the idea.  Is the 1Gb speed synchronous?  Are your upstream speeds limited at all?

Looks like people are seeing 600-700Mbps up/down: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/11/google-fiber-is-live-in-kansas-city-real-world-speeds-at-700-mbps/

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #80 on: September 16, 2015, 09:36:30 AM »
I pay $20/month for a 5Mbps fiber connection.  It is much better than the 25 Mbps cable connection that I used to have (for $75/month).  Try the cheaper connection to see if it works for you.  I stream HD video, skype in HD, and have pretty quick download times.  I love it!


That's a heck of a deal... We can't get close to that out here in the boonys

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #81 on: September 16, 2015, 09:38:54 AM »
I would build a VPN to my buddy's house. Gigabit WAN..just for lulz. :D

Though gear that can handle that speed is not remotely cheap, so it'd probably be more like 200-300Mbps. :(

I know NOTHING about Google's offering.  I've only seen the traditional MSO's shaking in their boots at the idea.  Is the 1Gb speed synchronous?  Are your upstream speeds limited at all?

Looks like people are seeing 600-700Mbps up/down: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/11/google-fiber-is-live-in-kansas-city-real-world-speeds-at-700-mbps/

Looks pretty synchronous.  And if they're measuring with Ookla, they may be underestimating their actual bandwidth.  You'd probably have to set up a dedicated iperf server (or similar) to really measure that much bandwidth accurately.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #82 on: September 16, 2015, 10:24:32 AM »
I can tell the difference between DVD and HD video (in an optimal viewing setting), but I wouldn't be willing to spend $70/mo for it. 5mbps would support a few DVD quality streams simultaneously. A single HD stream might occationally have difficulty fitting in 5mbps, but not enough to bother me. Personally, once I get to 480p I don't find increased resolution worth spending more (360p is OK, 240p is not enjoyable).

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #83 on: September 16, 2015, 10:40:27 AM »
I pay $20/month for a 5Mbps fiber connection.  It is much better than the 25 Mbps cable connection that I used to have (for $75/month).  Try the cheaper connection to see if it works for you.  I stream HD video, skype in HD, and have pretty quick download times.  I love it!


That's a heck of a deal... We can't get close to that out here in the boonys
It's a really new service and local to us, but they hope to expand.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #84 on: September 16, 2015, 01:38:08 PM »
If you can get 15-30 Mb service cheaper, this is probably overkill unless you are sharing bandwidth with a lot of people. With that kind of speed you could almost share with a neighbor.

Second, like others have said the speed may be of no use to you depending on your router. The only way you will see the full 1 gbs is if you have a computer or device hardwired to the modem or router. If you have a good 802.11AC wireless router, and a device with a built in 802.11AC capable radio within about 20 ft and no more than 1 wall, you will able to see about 1/3 of that speed over-the-air. Above about 200-300 Mbps is at the limits of the best household wireless routers and the cost around $200.

Older 802.11N cuts out at  about 150 Mbps...

No single video stream uses this kind of bandwidth right now so the only way you will notice a benefit is if you have a lot of people streaming simultaneously, or you regularly download large files like video games and HD movie rips. The only advantage of this service today is large file downloads, and maybe running a business from home.

For reference netflix standard 1080p HD streaming needs 6-12 Mbps. Their 4k standard only needs 15 Mbps.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #85 on: September 16, 2015, 02:00:52 PM »
If you can get 15-30 Mb service cheaper, this is probably overkill unless you are sharing bandwidth with a lot of people. With that kind of speed you could almost share with a neighbor.

Second, like others have said the speed may be of no use to you depending on your router. The only way you will see the full 1 gbs is if you have a computer or device hardwired to the modem or router. If you have a good 802.11AC wireless router, and a device with a built in 802.11AC capable radio within about 20 ft and no more than 1 wall, you will able to see about 1/3 of that speed over-the-air. Above about 200-300 Mbps is at the limits of the best household wireless routers and the cost around $200.

Older 802.11N cuts out at  about 150 Mbps...

No single video stream uses this kind of bandwidth right now so the only way you will notice a benefit is if you have a lot of people streaming simultaneously, or you regularly download large files like video games and HD movie rips. The only advantage of this service today is large file downloads, and maybe running a business from home.

For reference netflix standard 1080p HD streaming needs 6-12 Mbps. Their 4k standard only needs 15 Mbps.

Or if you are using cloud storage such as Google Drive. Most ISP services have much lower upload ability than download, with the exception being Verizon FIOS (up to 150Mbps symmetrical).

The upload is the biggest awesome thing about it, but for the vast majority of people it's not really going to change much from a practical perspective.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2015, 02:02:57 PM by JLee »

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #86 on: September 16, 2015, 02:09:48 PM »
1 GBS?  What's the rush?  1GB can hold the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Enough information delivered to you in ONE second to last an entire lifetime.  Why anyone would need that amount of data transfer is beyond me.  (And I work in IT.)

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #87 on: September 16, 2015, 03:12:57 PM »
1 GBS?  What's the rush?  1GB can hold the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Enough information delivered to you in ONE second to last an entire lifetime.  Why anyone would need that amount of data transfer is beyond me.  (And I work in IT.)

Gbps, not GBps.

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #88 on: September 16, 2015, 03:49:41 PM »
Somebody would have to be really dumb to create a bloated HD encode that's 5GB and looks worse than a "high quality encode" of a 576p feature film of the same length that's 2GB in size. Just use x264. Use x264 and set a bit rate target that will result in a 5GB file. As in, take 5GB and divide it by the length of the video and convert to kbps (Call this number X). Put that in to a parameter to ffmpeg which uses x264 like this:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v X output.mp4.
Done.
LOL, I wonder how much of us actually understood what you just said...

(server/db/web admin, spend a good percentage of my work day on the command line...)
I do, especially with ffmpeg since I dabble with creating my own anime encodes. I don't remember all the commands/settings by heart so I rely on a GUI layer, such as TX264, on top of ffmpeg.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2015, 03:58:10 PM by KittyCat »

johnny847

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #89 on: September 16, 2015, 03:51:45 PM »
Somebody would have to be really dumb to create a bloated HD encode that's 5GB and looks worse than a "high quality encode" of a 576p feature film of the same length that's 2GB in size. Just use x264. Use x264 and set a bit rate target that will result in a 5GB file. As in, take 5GB and divide it by the length of the video and convert to kbps (Call this number X). Put that in to a parameter to ffmpeg which uses x264 like this:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v X output.mp4.
Done.
LOL, I wonder how much of us actually understood what you just said...

(server/db/web admin, spend a good percentage of my work day on the command line...)
I do, especially with ffmpeg since I dabble with creating my own anime encodes. I don't remember have all the commands/settings by heart so I rely on a GUI layer, such as TX264, on top of ffmpeg.

Glad to know I'm not alone here =)

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  • Location: CA, USA
Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #90 on: September 16, 2015, 03:57:21 PM »
This was going to be my question to everyone saying 5 Mbps is "fine". Fine for what? Our main use is Netflix and I hate buffering and grainy looking videos so not real hot on the idea of dropping my 25 Mbps to 5. So it looks like at least 7 is the minimum for HD, assuming you do nothing else at the same time.. What is "Ultra HD"? Is that 4k, or just less compressed 1080p?

UltraHD (UHD) is indeed 4k

Duh. That makes sense.
I'm used to thinking of just 1080p as HD.

FullHD (FHD) is 1080p
HD is 720p

I know HD is typically used to cover 1080p as well, but I'm just pointing out that there is an official acronym for it :)

KittyCat

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Re: Would you pay $70 for 1gbs Google Fiber Internet?
« Reply #91 on: September 16, 2015, 04:02:22 PM »
Glad to know I'm not alone here =)

I used to be so ignorant of video quality. 1080p video at only 2GB? People are saying V:10, A:10? Nice!! Now that I know (and have seen) better, the bitrate starvation makes me weep.