How long before 100Mbps Internet become affordable (~$40-50 a month)?

[Dust]

How long before 100Mbps Internet become affordable (~$40-50 a month)?

100 Mbps Internet = ~10 MB/sec speed, which allow you to download a 36GB file in 1 hour. This would be very crucial to HD Digital Download.

[crazzeto]

With DOCSIS3, I'm guessing sooner rather than later.

[mk.2]

My ISP just finished upgrading to full scale 24Mbps this year (earlier they also provided 10Mbps). Given that it took them, like, 3 years to make a transition from 10Mbps>24Mbps, I'd say 100Mbps will be out of reach for at least 7-10 years. I guess because the market is not there. We see more people using Internet but only a handful of people (I'm talking about individuals, not corporates) need high-speed Internet, hence Dial-Up is still around.

Even we could get it in 7 years, I think it would be hard to get a good package for the price you suggested. US$50 is around AU$65.. which at this price, at this moment, I could only get 24Mbps with 10GB quota (AU$69). I don't know about the Stages, but in Australia, we don't have unlimited Internet (speed will be capped to 56Kbps when usage quota is exceeded.) To be able to download HD medias, we will also need large amount of usage allowance. Something like a few hundreds GB quota which I don't think it will happen soon. And if we would include effect of inflation, price should be a lot higher.

My guess is that, in around 2015, some companies might provide 100Mbps for home users at a premium.

[billd]

Originally Posted by Dust

How long before 100Mbps Internet become affordable (~$40-50 a month)?
100 Mbps Internet = ~10 MB/sec speed, which allow you to download a 36GB file in 1 hour. This would be very crucial to HD Digital Download.

In Hong Kong, two ISPs provide 1000 Mbps to the home. PCCW Netvigator list prices are US$280/month for 1000 Mbps and $75/month for 100 Mps. This includes cable modem rental, the equivalent of basic cable service (broadband TV) along with HD Set-Top-Box, and city-wide WIFI access. The slowest access speed offered by competitor HKBN is 25 Mbps.

[mrspeakers]

Probably 3 years. 100Gbps will probably be required at the distribution layer. Switch vendors are cooking these devices up as we speak, then it needs to be purchased and deployed.

Of course, when will also be a function of where, and which vendor. TimeWarner has been pretty good to me; I get 16Mpbs down and 2Mbps up

[pazuzu]

what about the rural areas.... the ones without cable and dsl service? There are going to be parts of the country that will not get uber fast internet for a LOOONG time (if ever). These custmers will always be in the market for physical media. Imagine 30gb file over dialup or satelite internet...

[mrspeakers]

Yup, too true.

[steaky]

I have 100mbit/s now and it is $50 a month, but it is only available because I am in a newer high rise condo, and Telus (teleco) is using the development as a test bed for offering this sort of service.

I cant see it being rolled out very quickly though. that is a lot of expensive cable to lay.

[ZenOps]

Originally Posted by Dust

How long before 100Mbps Internet become affordable (~$40-50 a month)?

100 Mbps Internet = ~10 MB/sec speed, which allow you to download a 36GB file in 1 hour. This would be very crucial to HD Digital Download.

I don't know that 100Mbit is really all that crucial. If you don't plan on real time streaming it, I'd think most people would be willing to wait for an overnight torrented or mirrored download, especially if they can get it a month or so before it can be made into physical media and distributed like Bluray.

I mean, you could pre-order the movie, and the cable provider might be able to give you a date or set of dates that you can simply leave your computer on, and by morning - Instant Hi-def video long before any of your Bluray buddies get to see the movie.

[mrspeakers]

With 16Mbps today, AppleTV downloads enough of a movie to start play while the rest streams within less than a minute. It was as fast as starting on demand by cable, but way higher quality.

[Liqwid]

Originally Posted by pazuzu

what about the rural areas.... the ones without cable and dsl service? There are going to be parts of the country that will not get uber fast internet for a LOOONG time (if ever). These custmers will always be in the market for physical media. Imagine 30gb file over dialup or satelite internet...

I live in a rural area, and I can assure you that we have cable. Now, people living out further in the boondocks have problems, as they're satellite and dial-up only, and their telephone provider won't allow DSL service (Bellsouth = assholes, Ardmore Telephone Company = worse than Bellsouth).

But, where I'm out at, I can get up to 10mbps, but their 3mbps service is just fine, at the moment, and I can download a 4-6GB HD quality rental in 30 minutes, which isn't all that bad.

I'll go with 2016, showing how slow we're moving right now, I doubt anyone will be moving 50mbps around 2011, unless you make good money.

[Jessejames]

Virgin Media are trialing 50mb cable in the UK at the moment. They should push to 100 mbps by 2010, providing the infrastructure is in place.

[wildvlad]

Originally Posted by Dust

How long before 100Mbps Internet become affordable (~$40-50 a month)?

100 Mbps Internet = ~10 MB/sec speed, which allow you to download a 36GB file in 1 hour. This would be very crucial to HD Digital Download.

Why da hell 100Mbps?
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/
1. If you remember the max video bitrate on blu ray is 40Mbps; Data transfer rate for video + audio is 54.0Mbps;and HDDVD has lower rates, something around 30Mpbs which is enough (but more time to do quality encode as it's cheaper to throw extra bits in than tweak all 1000 parameters in h264 per scene ...)...

2. Remember the difference between "peak" bitrate and "average"? The later is much lower usually having VBR encodings and have more to deal with resulting file size...

3. Why you want to have download faster than real-time? You want to have download at least at the real-time if you watch online, but if you have just "digital download" it may be even slower than real-time...

So, I think 30Mbps sustained download speed is more than enough to have HD-downloads with acceptable user experience.

p.s. if you care about HD-downloads, don't forget to dump that Celeron-based PC if you still have one as it can't play even 1mbps video

[MrBig]

Hell, I long for the day I can get 3Mbps...yes you read right, THREE. That'd be double what I can get now! I shouldn't complain though, just down the road a bit it's still dial-up land.

[hidefimports]

I have 3Mbps right now. Maybe I should upgrade to 6Mbps.