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Chattanooga Starts Signing Up 1 Gbps Subscribers
Despite users acknowledging they likely can't even fully utilize such speeds...

Last week Chattanooga, Tennessee's municipal fiber build began offering 1 Gbps symmetrical connections to locals for $350 a month -- "just because we can." As with Google's 1 Gig deployment promise, Chattanooga's blisteringly-fast service generated massive national media interest, again hinting at a U.S. in more robust alternatives to their monopoly/duopoly provider(s). Telecompetitor directs us to the fact that utility is signing up "a few" subscribers for the service, even if they're not quite sure what to do with all that speed:

quote:
Allan Davis concedes he won’t be able to use all the broadband capacity of EPB’s new gigabit-per-second Internet service at his North Chattanooga home. But the 32-year-old founder of Access America wants to be among the first to be hooked up to America’s fastest broadband service, which will be more than 200 times faster than the average broadband service in the United States today.

"I know there is absolutely nothing I can do with a gigabit-per-second service to my home right now," Davis said Friday. "But this is a very powerful symbol of what Chattanooga is going to be in the future, and I wanted to be one of the early pioneers to support this effort."
Of course EPD offers a selection of slightly less ridiculously-fast tiers, including a symmetrical 100 Mbps for $140 a month, or symmetrical 30 Mbps for $58 a month.
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hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

1 edit

hottboiinnc4

Member

Chattanooga

the future? mmmhmmmm.... sure!

The founder of Access America being quoted doesn't even have his business based there let alone own it anymore! It's based in Richmond VA! LMAO!

Uncle Paul
join:2003-02-04
USA

Uncle Paul

Member

Re: Chattanooga

Why not Chattanooga? Probably has a greater chance of being the future than Cleveland.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

Mid-large businesses may want $350/mo svc but small businesses could easily get by on the lower tiers. And all except millionaire homeowners should skip the gigabit tier.

You need an office bldg full of tenants and employees to justify the gigabit speeds.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

and use those speeds for what? you're not going to get those speeds anywhere on the Internet. It's pointless.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

You're right, you likely won't find one single point on the Internet capable of serving up a gbps of traffic. However a business with a couple hundred employees and a small data warehouse might be interested

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

have you heard of akamai?
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

Yes. Why do you ask?

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

i only bring them up because they could easily keep up with gigabit speeds
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

Great. Show me a real world sample of a sustained connection approaching 1 Gbps between any host and Akamai...or any service provider for that matter. I don't dispute that a connection approaching 1 Gbps can't be engineered and implemented as such, but I'm doubtful that non-proprietary, "real world" service providers are capable of such throughput.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

chicken and egg my friend. if I could get my hands on a service provider that offered the service I would be happy to show you.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff to openbox9

MVM,

to openbox9
said by openbox9:

Great. Show me a real world sample of a sustained connection approaching 1 Gbps between any host and Akamai...or any service provider for that matter. I don't dispute that a connection approaching 1 Gbps can't be engineered and implemented as such, but I'm doubtful that non-proprietary, "real world" service providers are capable of such throughput.
We have gigabit at work.

Today I downloaded updates from apple.com at a sustained 40MB/sec. Granted it's not saturating the 1Gbps line, but it's about 3.5x faster than 100Mb. I was getting bursts up to 60MB/sec, too.

Michail
Premium Member
join:2000-08-02
Boynton Beach, FL

Michail to hottboiinnc4

Premium Member

to hottboiinnc4
said by hottboiinnc4:

and use those speeds for what? you're not going to get those speeds anywhere on the Internet. It's pointless.
I remember people saying that about 1.5mbps.

As for uses, here comes could computing:). However, you'd be hard pressed to find a data center that could keep up.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

said by Michail:

As for uses, here comes cloud computing:). However, you'd be hard pressed to find a data center that could keep up.
Amazon S3 data warehouse and their competitors with a huge distributed system could keep up. IF you have enough employees and traffic to justify it. Say like a porn provider distributing thousands of streams of porn videos.

Maybe Chattanooga can become the home of new porn startups needing a lot of bandwidth at low cost.
stephen431
join:2008-12-04
Phoenix, AZ

1 recommendation

stephen431

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

said by FFH5:

Maybe Chattanooga can become the home of new porn startups needing a lot of bandwidth at low cost.
Just what we need. More Chattanooga porn.
Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
Aptos, CA

Ulmo to Michail

Member

to Michail
said by Michail:

said by hottboiinnc4:

and use those speeds for what? you're not going to get those speeds anywhere on the Internet. It's pointless.
I remember people saying that about 1.5mbps.
People used to say that about 56kbps, and 9600bps before that, and about 2400bps before that. I've heard it more about 2400bps (circa 1985?) than any other speed since.

I can find uses for a terabit/s, so all the "can't find a use for it" generation should just die off.

BTW, the message systems I used to use at 300bps were faster than the ones now at 50000000bps; the servers are trying to jamb so much more crap down that tube, that it takes it longer to organize it before sending it. The old systems were purpose-tailored, so they didn't spend time on useless resources serving useless content with inefficient code. You'd send it a "U", and within 1/30th of a second, you'd see the response, and within 1/6th of a second, you'd be reading and interpreting new data. These days, you press a button with a mouse (1/2 second to 1 second to move it around, target, click, etc.), then you get a response (2 seconds), and then it takes 6 seconds just to parse the page with your brain so you can find what you want to read.

Anyway, yes, higher speeds have loads of uses for lots of people, and yes, speed is not everything, to be sure. I am on both extremes of the usefulness of speed saying both super slow and super fast are very useful; I'm not part of the "it's useless" camp that says that about 300bps OR about 3000000000000000bps. They're both SUPER useful. Criminals might necessitate something slightly mightier than 300bps, though, so you can packetize and verify authenticity more quickly, but that's about it. Heck, 1bps cryptographically secured packets are useful in some situations.
nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD

nasadude to hottboiinnc4

Member

to hottboiinnc4
said by hottboiinnc4:

and use those speeds for what? you're not going to get those speeds anywhere on the Internet. It's pointless.
you can infringe more copyrights in a shorter period of time; if the media industry had their sh1t together, you could select, pay for and download a first run, HD movie just a few minutes before you wanted to watch it (instead of planning half a day ahead).
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

Meh, you can do insta-play 1080p on a 50 Mbps connection...assuming the servers are well-connected enough.
brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Tampa, FL

brianiscool to hottboiinnc4

Member

to hottboiinnc4
Yea, you can. »127.0.0.1 -- most elite connection on the net.
AstroBoy
join:2008-08-08
Parkville, MD

AstroBoy

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

said by brianiscool:

Yea, you can. »127.0.0.1 -- most elite connection on the net.
I just checked! That's a porn site!

Wait... oops!

gatorkram
Need for Speed
Premium Member
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC

gatorkram

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

said by AstroBoy:
said by brianiscool:

Yea, you can. »127.0.0.1 -- most elite connection on the net.
I just checked! That's a porn site!

Wait... oops!
Made me lol irl...

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

1 recommendation

SpaethCo to hottboiinnc4

MVM

to hottboiinnc4
said by hottboiinnc4:

and use those speeds for what? you're not going to get those speeds anywhere on the Internet. It's pointless.
I'm pretty sure it's possible.

--2010-09-20 14:48:30--  http://speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip
Resolving speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com... 74.86.116.210
Connecting to speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com|74.86.116.210|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 524288000 (500M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `/dev/null'
 
100%[=======================================================>] 524,288,000 97.7M/s   in 6.3s    
 
2010-09-20 14:48:36 (79.3 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [524288000/524288000]
 

781.6mbps peak in a single TCP thread isn't too bad, and had the file been larger TCP might have been able to ramp up even further. That's a download from my box with ColoQuest in Chicago.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to hottboiinnc4

Member

to hottboiinnc4
Really? I've got a virtual private server on a gigabit port that can hit 70+ MB/s (560+ Mbps) without a problem. If I had the server to myself (which would cost around $200 instead of $9 per month) then I could certainly get gigabit speeds.

In most cases though I agree; above about 50 Mbps not many sites can handle your side of the internet connection. Though that number goes up all the time (used to be 15 Mbps).
jagged
join:2003-07-01
Boynton Beach, FL

jagged

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

$9, that's called overselling

likely you're on a server with 100mbps port could even be a shared 100mbps port with other VPS customers on the same box. $200/month with internal gig port would be difficult to come by at top tier hosts I think
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

root@vps:~# wget »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· t500.zip -O /dev/null
--2010-09-20 20:49:34-- »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· t500.zip
Resolving speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com... 74.86.116.210
Connecting to speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com|74.86.116.210|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 524288000 (500M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[======================================>] 524,288,000 108M/s in 4.6s

2010-09-20 20:49:39 (108 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [524288000/524288000]

THat's the $9 per month box. Hosted on a »100tb.com server.

Granted, I'm pulling the file to memory rather than to disk, and I'm pulling from something in the same data center, but it *is* quite possible to pull hundreds of Mbps on my VPS.

powerspec88
Premium Member
join:2007-03-11
Lees Summit, MO

powerspec88

Premium Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

Damn thats fast, this is what I get from my VPS hosted at The Planet. Where is this 9$ plan, I don't see it on their site.

wget »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· t500.zip -O /dev/null
--2010-09-21 04:25:53-- »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· t500.zip
Resolving speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com... 74.86.116.210
Connecting to speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com|74.86.116.210|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 524288000 (500M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[======================================>] 524,288,000 68.8M/s in 7.0s

2010-09-21 04:26:00 (71.1 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [524288000/524288000]
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

I use QuickWeb for my VPS. The plan I have is a special that they run from time to time.
iansltx

iansltx to jagged

Member

to jagged
Oh, and here's a download to disk...

root@vps:~# wget »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· 10-09-20 20:51:29-- »speedtest.dal01.softlaye ··· t500.zip
Resolving speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com... 74.86.116.210
Connecting to speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com|74.86.116.210|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 524288000 (500M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `test500.zip'

100%[======================================>] 524,288,000 103M/s in 4.9s

2010-09-20 20:51:34 (101 MB/s) - `test500.zip' saved [524288000/524288000]
nanaki333
join:2010-08-11
Chantilly, VA

nanaki333 to jagged

Member

to jagged
it's only $201/month with 100TB.com for a full gigabit port and a quad core, 8GB ram server. i have 2 of them for work and get gigabit speeds all day.
Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
Aptos, CA

Ulmo to iansltx

Member

to iansltx
Oh definitely that number has been rising rapidly over the last few years.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

en102 to FFH5

Member

to FFH5
Well, maybe you want to run a datacenter from your basement

This should almost be a good business kick for the city - small businesses wanting to setup hosting will have GigE speeds for T1 prices.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: Mid-large business may want $350/mo svc

You won't get BGP or multiple IPs out of them. Well you can get multiple IPs but it's very expensive.

aztecnology
O Rly?
Premium Member
join:2003-02-12
Murrieta, CA

aztecnology to FFH5

Premium Member

to FFH5
said by FFH5:

You need an office bldg full of tenants and employees to justify the gigabit speeds.
For those prices you don't need to hardly justify anything to have this offering...

N10Cities
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
0000000
Asus RT-AC87

1 edit

N10Cities

Premium Member

But it's there.....

But it's there if you need it. I bet Netflix streams pretty nice on that. Probably could stream quite a few HD streams on that!

Would get rid of cable PDQ if I had that service (especially paying over $350 a month, couldn't afford cable with my current budget!! LOL)...
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: But it's there.....

your download may be high on your end but what about NetFlix's end? your speed will be cut to what they're able to dish out to all their users. This service doesn't make sense to get for at home or even business use unless your hosting a server. that isn't internal.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: But it's there.....

They use Limelight and Level3 for their CDNs. Pretty sure they have some decent bandwidth, though the servers at that point may not *need* to dish out more than 10 Mbps.

Edrick
I aspire to tell the story of a lifetime
Premium Member
join:2004-09-11
San Diego, CA

Edrick

Premium Member

Bandwidth

As it is all of the media providers (Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, Hulu) have issues keeping up with my connection and I'm only on 25/25.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

SpaethCo

MVM

Re: Bandwidth

said by Edrick:

As it is all of the media providers (Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, Hulu) have issues keeping up with my connection and I'm only on 25/25.
All of those services have limits on the maximum transfer rate per video flow. They do that to prevent bursts of traffic on faster connections from impacting multiple existing video streams.

mix
join:2002-03-19
Romeo, MI

mix

Member

Usage Caps?

Are there any caps on this service or is it truly unlimited?
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: Usage Caps?

"unlimited" as of now.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5 to mix

Premium Member

to mix
said by mix:

Are there any caps on this service or is it truly unlimited?
A search of their web site reveals no "Terms of Use" page except for using their web site. No TERMS listed anywhere for their actual service offerings.

Maybe once you sign up you get to see what the TERMS are.

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

A 40/40 connection from TWC

cost about 55k a year. This 1gbps would cost $4200 a year. Thats crazy.

••••

io chico
Premium Member
join:2003-12-30
Marble Falls, TX

io chico

Premium Member

Sign Me Up!

I'd give them $55 a month for 2Mbps. (currently paying $55 for 0.7Mbps)
duranr
join:2006-10-14
Leonia, NJ

duranr

Member

Symetrical 100 for $140 and 30Mbs for $58

I'd kill for Symmetrical 30Mb at that price and know several others who would do the same. Getting 10/.5 from earthlink (TWC) currently. :-(

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

In other news....

EPB just announced a Rate Hike on the Electric side of the house. I guess they are trying to drown that out with the 1Gb stories.

•••••••

kontos
xyzzy
join:2001-10-04
West Henrietta, NY

kontos

Member

Transit/Peering capacity

I'd love to see a statement from the utility on what the total capacity of their internet connection(s) is(are).

I'd LOL if it is less that 1 Gbps.

••••
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Gigabit is overrated, 50/100 Mbit is underrated

Realistically, most folks won't be able to put a gigabit to good use for the next few years.

50 or 100 Mbps on the other hand is within reach for a midrange to high-end home router (as low as $60). Major websites can serve up content at 50 Mbps, as can CDNs etc. At 100 Mbps the number of sites is lower but home networks etc. can handle that, so photo/video sharing can be done between multiple people as if they are on the same LAN, blurring the lines between "internet" and LAN. Especially when IPv6 gets turned on...which EPB doesn't seem to have yet FWIW.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

great service

they're lucky to have that option.

IPv6 will be sooner than most think. But it will not be an overnight transition. It will come slowly.

It will enable Mobile IP so your phone will have the same IP regardless of where you are.

Comcast started IPv6 trials in some areas. You can't sign up though, they have already all volunteers they need.
jriskin
join:2001-10-11
Topanga, CA

jriskin

Member

Actually its $317 not $350 for 1000mbit + phone service

Oddly, if you add phone service the its LESS expensive than pure internet alone. It's only $1 cheaper on the 100mbit plan and more expensive on the cheaper plans.

I wonder if that's a bug or as intended.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

Transmaster

Member

Can you hear it

Screaming, arrrrgh!!!! lamentations, chest beating, oh the humanity
etc this is the sound of the MPAA reviewing these speeds. They can down load at what speed!!!!!! Avatar is how many seconds more screaming. It is worth having such a system out there just to think of such anguish. Yes I know in practice the download speeds will not be any where near the max available but the idiots at the RIAA and the MPAA are too stupid to realize this.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Chattanooga

I don't live there, but I've been through. Let's see, it's a medium-sized city that's close to Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham, and Huntsville, to name a few places. It looks to have good public transit, I know it has a fantastic downtown area, the scenery is absolutely stunning, and now they have the fastest Internet in the nation. What's not to like?

•••••
PerfectCode
join:2009-06-12
Portland, OR

PerfectCode

Member

You Cant Break These Cuffs

I can break these cuffs.

Six Gun Kid
Premium Member
join:2001-07-02
Huntsville, AL

Six Gun Kid

Premium Member

Chattanooga

I lived and worked for for 3 years. Very Progressive and proactive city, wish I had stayed honestly.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

more customers at 100mbit

I'm sure they'd get plenty of subsribers at the 100/100 symmetrical level for $50 a month. Just to prove to Verizon that they can turn a profit from such usage/pricing tiers.

cpsycho
join:2008-06-03
Treadeu Land

cpsycho

Member

Use that biznich!

I know I would use it. I would be doing lots of stuff with it including folding at home.

Downloading would not be my main mission it would be running servers. You know like 10 of them, NWN server, NWN2 server, Counter Strike 1.6 and source server and the list goes on and on. There are plenty of legal and honest ways to use this connection.

I would still stream the odd movie here and there but like I have said in the past if the movie is good I will buy it

•••

macphisto
@comcast.net

macphisto

Anon

Impressive throughput, ridiculous cap

My Chattanooga-based company replaced Comcast Workplace with EPB fiber three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the bandwidth caps were not disclosed to us when we signed the contract.

Our $100 25 Mbps EPB fiber plan is capped at 175 GB of bandwidth per month. The $210 55 Mbps connection is capped at 200 GB per month. The $380 100 Mbps and $575 150 Mbps connections are capped at 250 and 300 GB per month respectively. EPB should be embarrassed -- even the $575 per month plan comes out to less than 1 Mbps sustained. Keep in mind that these are business plans, but the residential connections are apparently capped too. Our $95.00 per month Comcast Workplace link is uncapped (fortunately, we hadn't cancelled it yet).

I'd much rather have uncapped bandwidth than gigabit fiber. The former is actually useful. The latter is only about bragging rights.

I had planned to switch my home services from Comcast to EPB, but now I'm going to wait until EPB either eliminates the caps or raises them significantly.

•••

rob_in_chatt
Premium Member
join:2004-09-17
Chattanooga, TN

rob_in_chatt

Premium Member

Chattanooga

not to mention it again, but we have Volkswagon here too
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