100Mbps broadband may be closer than you think
 

If you're looking forward to a future of streaming movies, gargantuan Internet file exchanges, and other high-bandwidth activities, cheer up.

Broadband service providers in most of the major markets around the country will soon be able to deliver 100Mbps broadband service with no problem. That's enough to download a music album in as little as 5 seconds, an hour-long TV show in about 30 seconds, and a high-definition movie in roughly 7 minutes, 25 seconds. But it's going to cost you.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10465098-266.html

they do seem to forget a crucial part in this story. End user connection may be 100Mbps, doesn't mean the routers, switches and servers are fast enough to allow thousands of users to push their connection to the limit.

Here in Belgium we've had 20Mbps internet connection for some time now, except for some local mirrors hosted by universities, have yet to encounter a server which sends data at full 20Mbps speed.

where this 100Mbps will pay off is replacing dedicated lines between offices and different physical sites, since you can use one connection with a lot more people simultaneously. Their example of a movie in 7min... yeah right, there's no server which will send you the file at 100Mbps, smart switches and routers do bandwidth burst throttling, works perfect for loading html pages, images, as the short burst will be done at maximum speed; if the transfer window remains open for a longer time though, the router will decrease speed and you'll be capped to prevent one user from bringing a site down by downloading large files.

As it is, currently I have only an 8mb connection. My roommate and I cant download at the same time. We both tend to download everything from newsgroups and the servers we use have no trouble maxing out my 8mb connection, so we are constantly stepping on each other toes when we are downloading. While no single source would be likely to fill a 100mb pipe, its not as if 100mb links to the home would not be useful.

Have you tried Steam? Maxes out a 16 megabit connection just fine, downloads still take almost an hour.

Have you guys seen this article?

6Mbps over here and seriously don't think that's going to become any better in the near future because Belgacom thinks it's doing just fine with their current practices. The main problem here is probably that the wiring is too old (and there are too many wires in the ground too) so if we'd want anything better we'd need at least FTT (which Belgacom would probably rent for a gazillion €'s)
In the Netherlands on the other hand, I do think this might be nearer in the future, they're already putting entire cities on FTT just for testing :) .

I switched over to EDPnet last fall, Belgacom in my humble opinion has been the worse company that I have ever dealth with....good riddens. Anyway, with EDPnet I'm currently getting 18 MB down and 1200k Up. I got an email a little while ago I can change that to 20 MB's down and 2 MB up + unlimted "traffic" for an extra €5 - happy days.

I know EDPnet is still using Belgacom lines so whats their excuse for such a crappy business model?

Simply because they can :p

The problem is that even the cheapest ISP's are still way more expensive compared to other countries because Belgacom keeps the rates high :( .

that leaves 4Mbit unused, since Telenet is offering 20Mbit :-)
now imagine 100Mbit connection.... no single server can provide thousands of users with 100Mbit data stream.

yes I saw this, but it's a router, doesn't solve the server disk/bandwidth issue:)

Yea,

I understand, I had just read through the article and was still baffled when I came across this thread so I thought I'd share :)