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It's Time to Stop Buying the Capacity Crisis Myth
Like the 'Exaflood,' Looming Wireless Apocalypse a Lie

Anybody who warns of an unavoidable capacity crisis on wireline or wireless networks is lying in order to sell you something. That may be a blunt assessment to some, but it's the only conclusion you can draw as we see time and time again that claims about a looming network apocalypse (remember the Exaflood?) violently overestimate future traffic loads and underestimate the ingenuity of modern network engineers. Fear sells. Drink orange juice or you'll die of cancer. Get more insurance or you're a bad family man. Vote for me or lose your job and see your grandma deported. Pay $2.50 per gigabyte or face Internet brown outs. Be afraid.

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You'll recall the litany of predictions that video would crush the Internet permeating the newswires over the last five years. Most of those claims came from hardware vendors trying to sell network gear, or ISP lobbyists and executives trying to sell bad policy (caps, throttling, overages, neutrality violations). All were repeatedly debunked simply by looking at real data, which showed that the Internet video age was easily handled by even modest network investment.

With the rumors of a looming landline network apocalypse disproven, you'll notice the doomsday predictions have shifted to wireless as we debate spectrum policy. Carriers like AT&T proclaim they're facing a capacity crunch that simply can't be avoided unless we do "X" (let them acquire T-Mobile, let them charge $50 per gigabyte, let them squat on oceans of spectrum). Research firms warn of a spectrum doomsday so they can sell LTE-Advanced hardware. The FCC nods dumbly throughout this cycle of hysteria because they want the revenue delivered by spectrum sales.

As usual though, actually bothering to listen to and look at the data tells a different story. Nobody argues that spectrum is infinite, but buried below industry histrionics is data noting that there really isn't a spectrum crisis as much as a bunch of lazy and gigantic spectrum squatters, hoarding public-owned assets to limit competition, while skimping on network investment to appease short-sighted investors. Insiders at the FCC quietly lamented that the very idea of a spectrum crisis was manufactured for the convenience of government and industry. Now Dave Burstein this week bothered to actually look at wireless growth rates to (surprise surprise) find them to be completely reasonable:

quote:
"Data consumption right now is growing 40% a year," John Stankey of AT&T told investors and his CEO Randall Stephenson confirmed on the investor call. That’s far less than the 92% predicted by Cisco’s VNI model or the FCC’s 120% to 2012 and 90% to 2013 figure in the "spectrum crunch" analysis...With growth rates less than half of the predictions, a data-driven FCC and Congress has no reason to rush to bad policy. 40% growth is still substantial, but wireless technology is improving at a breathtaking pace. LTE has about 10x the capacity of 2.5G and 4x the capacity of 3G. LTE Advanced, deploying beginning 2013 at Verizon, is designed for 10x the capacity of LTE.
Burstein correctly reminds us that there's nothing to fear, and with modern technology like LTE Advanced and more-than adequate resources, any wireless company struggling to keep pace with demand is either incompetent or cutting corners (or both). The idea that our modern networks face rotating oblivion scenarios lest we not rush to do "X" is the fear mongering of lobbyists, politicians, and salesmen. All of them use fear by trade, but the key failure point when it comes to capacity hysteria seems to continually be the press, which likes to unskeptically repeat whatever hysterical scenario gets shoveled their direction each month.

The reality is that the evolution of wireless and wireline networks has been an amazing act of engineering, one that quietly and consistently keeps pace with demand. While politicians wrangle, lobbyists distort the truth, and marketing departments pollute the discourse with fear for personal gain, network engineers quietly do their jobs and do it well.
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59677028 (banned)
join:2012-01-19
Pontypool, ON

59677028 (banned)

Member

ipv4 vs 6

ask the federal us govt how many million upon hundreds of millions of ips they have for what?
and then you see what they are doing eating them up forcing this v6 at everyone to make a buck...why the fbi alone has 120 million dedicated for just honey potting i hearzzzz

vpoko
Premium Member
join:2003-07-03
Boston, MA

1 recommendation

vpoko

Premium Member

Re: ipv4 vs 6

With IP it's a bit different: unlike network capacity, the number of IP addresses is a known quantity. IPv4 gives you, at most, about 4 billion IP addresses. Being that the population of the world is 7 billion, it's just not enough. We could delay the inevitable for a short time by reclaiming IP addresses, using more NAT, etc, but a 32 bit address space really is too small in an age when more and more people and devices are connecting to the internet.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin to 59677028

Member

to 59677028
said by 59677028:

ask the federal us govt how many million upon hundreds of millions of ips they have for what?
and then you see what they are doing eating them up forcing this v6 at everyone to make a buck...why the fbi alone has 120 million dedicated for just honey potting i hearzzzz

Sigh... why is your completely irrelevant conspiracy theorist comment hogging up the top spot on this article?

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 recommendation

tschmidt to 59677028

MVM

to 59677028
Could you explain how the conversion from IVv4 to IPv6 is a windfall for the US government.

Leaving wasted IPv4 addresses aside the 32-bit address field limits IPv4 to around 4 billion addresses. The worlds population is currently 7 billion. Most folks in the industrialized world now have more the one IP based device.

Should be obvious the address limitation of IPv4 is a severe problem.

/tom
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

1 recommendation

rradina

Member

Re: ipv4 vs 6

Obvious? That depends. Unless all of those devices need to accept unsolicited inbound communications, PAT enables 192.168.1.1 to be used by billions of devices. In fact, I'll bet with most routers default setup using the 192.168 class-b, there are already many millions if not billions of devices completely unaware of the address crunch.

I'm certainly pro IPV6 and there are real challenges with IPV4 but I don't think multiplying the world's population by n devices is the best way to convince folks of why IPV6 is important.

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Comcast and ATT worst offenders

Of the Exaflood myth.

N3OGH
Yo Soy Col. "Bat" Guano
Premium Member
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs

N3OGH

Premium Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

Yep. Until my iPhone is getting 56k speeds, I'm not buying it. My Fios at home is pretty much too fast for just about every web server I download content from.

Given the national data backbone is upgradable by switching out the gear at either end of the fiber runs, and the exaflood becomes as believable as the missile gap or the bomber gap... In 2012.....

bbeesley
join:2003-08-07
Richardson, TX

bbeesley

Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

said by N3OGH:

Given the national data backbone is upgradable by switching out the gear at either end of the fiber runs

That is an oversimplification.

Changing out even just the interface cards is really, really....REALLY expensive.

Say you are a service provider with 5 or 6 40G links between two cities. Your capacity has filled up because of stuff like over the top video and cloud access that you make no money on - you didn't get new customers and you don't have a new product line to generate revenue - but you still have to upgrade your backbone because you have to provide a consistent level of service so you decide to upgrade the links to a have 100G capacity...so 5 or 6 100G transponders at each end at around $100k and you just spent about $1.2 million!...

But wait, that's not all!...

Those runs are too long to not have ILAs or Regens and you have to upgrade their interfaces too....let's call it an even $5million at this point to make the math simple....and that's just one leg...if you are a backbone provider you probably have dozens of those to upgrade at the same time.

Great business to be in where you have to spend millions just to satisfy the existing revenue you are pulling in and there isn't any new money to pay for it.

I am not suggesting that caps or price increases are something I want as a user but to not recognize that their is a very real economic challenge to overcome here is naive and one sided
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

1 recommendation

rradina

Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

You do these things to keep customers and retain the margin you have. Just because an ISP has built a network doesn't mean they can just sit around and print money.

I wish I could convince my employer that since I've completed what I consider enough projects that they now owe me a liftetime salary.

If anyone has a job like this or runs a business like this, please enlighten me.

I was flipping channels the other night and paused on the Weather Channel (mainly because the reporter was someone who I find very attractive). It was a program about a new kind of "sand bag" that uses (I think) the same moisture absorbing stuff that's in feminine hygiene products and diapers. When they get wet, they expand to many times their former size. Hundreds of bags can quickly be deployed without any back-breaking labor. You can either wait for the rising water to expand the bags or take a garden hose and "activate" the bags. I was dumbfounded how simple the idea is and how effective it is to enable folks to easily buy, transport and RAPIDLY deploy flood barriers. Someone is pure genius.

They also showed large tubes much like the ones that corral oil on water except the tubes were filled with water. Instant dam.

These are examples of why we just can't sit on our rears and print money. Things change and it's natural to invest in your business to make sure it keeps pace with what your customers demand. Isn't this business 101?
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080 to DataRiker

Member

to DataRiker
said by DataRiker:

Of the Exaflood myth.

Verizon's wireless is catching up fast. Consumers seem addicted to keeping POSTPAID accounts at any price. Millions of consumers now pay higher rates than wired networks for DATA which essentially is internet & ip newtwork access. In major metro areas.. they really don't have to because there are tons of wireless wifi spots they could use locally-- even for free VOIP over an android/ios tablet... even an unactivated smart phone with wifi capability-- and you have free 911 incase of a real emergency. There are more free hotspots than payphones around.. so if you can rollback your lifestyle to 15 years ago you can have free or dirt cheap data, internet AND voice calling without the cost of 15 years ago.

norbert26
Premium Member
join:2010-08-10
Warwick, RI

norbert26

Premium Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

said by tmc8080:

said by DataRiker:

Of the Exaflood myth.

Verizon's wireless is catching up fast. Consumers seem addicted to keeping POSTPAID accounts at any price. Millions of consumers now pay higher rates than wired networks for DATA which essentially is internet & ip newtwork access. In major metro areas.. they really don't have to because there are tons of wireless wifi spots they could use locally-- even for free VOIP over an android/ios tablet... even an unactivated smart phone with wifi capability-- and you have free 911 incase of a real emergency. There are more free hotspots than payphones around.. so if you can rollback your lifestyle to 15 years ago you can have free or dirt cheap data, internet AND voice calling without the cost of 15 years ago.

Before i got my iPhone 4 with grandfathered Verizon unlimited Data i tried using an iPod Touch. The free hotspots were NOT dependable . Some of them required an agreement page to be checked which the iPod touch did not support. Other "hot spots" were simply locked and required a password. For further laughs a Dunkin Donuts had a sign in the window Free WIFI with just below it NO LOITERING !!!! In other cases i could log onto the "free WIFI" however it was so congested it was NOT usable. Needless to say the "free WIFI experiment" i conducted FAILED and it was onto the iPhone for me.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

I can't really go more than a 1/2 mile in NYC without finding an open free wifi hotspot. Maybe things are different in Rhode Island. YMMV (your mileage may vary) caveats apply.

There's no reason why some muni wireless coudln't fill in the gaps (MICRO REGIONAL WIRELESS ISP'S) left behind by Verizon, for example in West Virginia! Why should Verizon or AT&T be the only ones to put predatory pricing in place for wireless without competition? These things will have to happen at the state level, since the federal government is only interested in being manipulated by 3 industries: war, banks and oil-- regardless of party. It's just that the republicans will sell out the country's national interests for less than democrats will (at least that's current perception).
djcrazy
Premium Member
join:2009-08-05
Minneapolis, MN

djcrazy

Premium Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

said by tmc8080:

....These things will have to happen at the state level, since the federal government is only interested in being manipulated by 3 industries: war, banks and oil-- regardless of party..

You forgot another big one. Hollywood with the likes of the MPAA, RIAA, etc. So make that 4.
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman to tmc8080

Premium Member

to tmc8080
Try using WiFi at 80mph on an Interstate Highway, 60 mph on your local parkway, or even 40 mph on city streets. You cannot do it yet. That is one reason we pay extra for cellular data plans, so we can really get information on the go.

AuraReturn
Premium Member
join:2003-08-18
USA

AuraReturn

Premium Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

said by davidhoffman:

Try using WiFi at 80mph on an Interstate Highway, 60 mph on your local parkway, or even 40 mph on city streets. You cannot do it yet. That is one reason we pay extra for cellular data plans, so we can really get information on the go.

I can barely use my "3G" service going 65 mph.
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman

Premium Member

Re: Comcast and ATT worst offenders

I use it on I-16 between Macon, Georgia and Savannah, Georgia. Average speed is 75mph. I also use it on I-75 between Macon and Atlanta. Average speed of 65 mph. I use a USB760 modem and a netbook to mainly surf the web for maps or business websites. Sometimes make reservations for river cruises or hotels. Obviously I am not driving and am a passenger, so I can deal with the occasional dead zone or overloaded tower between Atlanta and Macon. The problem usually lasts only about 1 minute. There are 5 spots along I-75 I know the signal will fail for 30 to 90 seconds. I just wait until we are through them. If I get permission from the vehicle owner/driver to put a magnetic external antenna on the roof of the vehicle, the signal loss problem is significantly reduced. Usually I just refresh the browser to reload a partially loaded website. I do not try to watch video because it does not work well enough to be enjoyable. Maybe when LTE is fully deployed I will try video watching.

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

FFH5

Premium Member

Siri is causing capacity problem on wireless networks

»www.washingtonpost.com/o ··· ory.html

Paul Farhi covers media for The Post.

Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.

To make your wish her command, Siri floods your cell network with a stream of data; her responses require a similarly large flow in return. A study published this month by Arieso, an Atlanta firm that specializes in mobile networks, found that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S uses twice as much data as does the plain old iPhone 4 and nearly three times as much as does the iPhone 3G. The new phone requires far more data than most other advanced smartphones, which are pretty data-intensive themselves, The Post has reported.

Arieso says that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S “appears to unleash data consumption behaviors that have no precedent.”

Cell and data networks are like any common resource; they have limits. And once they hit their limit, regardless of which group is using its share and then some, there’s no more to go around.

This means that Siri’s data-hogging ways are a problem for more than just those willing to foot the bill. As networks become congested, everyone’s service deteriorates. Private desire becomes a public issue. Calls are dropped or never completed; Internet access slows.

no matter how many cell towers we throw up, sooner or later we’ll bump up against the rigid limits of the electromagnetic spectrum, the invisible frequencies over which all electronic communications move. And building new capacity isn’t cheap. Everyone — not just the first-class passengers — ends up paying for it. So prepare for higher cellphone bills.

And in the meantime? Prepare to sit and wait. That call to Grandma might not get through until the congestion clears.

The government’s top airwaves cop, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, has long warned about a looming “spectrum crunch.” If the United States can’t free up more bandwidth for mobile uses, more people than just cellphone users would be inconvenienced, he warns. The lack of new capacity, he says, would threaten U.S. jobs in the telecom industry and stifle technical progress.

The only way to free up some now is to reshuffle the lineup, moving older users (say, over-the-air TV and radio stations and government agencies) to another part of the band in favor of the up-and-coming hot shots. Of course, that kind of change is disruptive. A massive political battle looms, pitting the haves against the want-mores.

It is all the iPhone 4S's fault and that talkative SIRI biatch.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

MVM

Re: Siri is causing capacity problem on wireless networks

Siri uses speex for audio compression... The amount of bandwidth that even a heavy siri user would consume in a day is trivial. Watch one youtube video on your phone and you've probably used more bandwidth than a week of siri use.

Alex J
@jillyred.net

Alex J to FFH5

Anon

to FFH5
And again, not so much:

»arstechnica.com/apple/ne ··· ates.ars

If you use Siri 2-3 times per day at an average of 63KB per instance, you might expect to use 126KB to 189KB per day, or 3.7 to 5.5MB per month. For 4-6 times a day, that might come out to 252KB to 378KB per day, or 7.4 to 11MB per month. If you use it 10-15 times per day, you might end up using 630KB to 945KB per day, or 18.5 to 27.7MB per month.


Chucks Truck
@teksavvy.com

Chucks Truck

Anon

Re: Siri is causing capacity problem on wireless networks

I totally agree with you.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

1 recommendation

battleop to Alex J

Member

to Alex J
Good thing only one person owns a iPhone. Imagine what would happen if millions had one and used it at the same time.

Alex J
@ecatel.net

Alex J

Anon

Re: Siri is causing capacity problem on wireless networks

Good thing only one person owns a iPhone. Imagine what would happen if millions had one and used it at the same time.

Yeah, especially if the company with the initial exclusive contract to offer such a device has a long track record of putting acquisitions, executive compensation, and lobbying ahead of actually investing in the network.
Expand your moderator at work

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

MVM

Spectrum crunch: not a problem today, but eventually

There's a fixed amount of wireless spectrum available, and there's a theoretical maximum amount of data that can be pushed through it. That's a laws-of-physics type limitation, no new wireless technology will ever relieve us of that limitation. Is this a problem today, or even in the immediate future? No, there's a very long way to go before we hit there, and we can pump multiple gigabits of bandwidth over the air before we hit that limit. One day, however, we WILL hit that limitation. Cell sizes can shrink, spreading the load, although there are trade-offs there too. One day, in a few decades, we're going to run out of spectrum, and the aggregate wireless transit capacity at that point will be all we'll ever have.

So, the "looming wireless apocalypse" isn't a lie, it just isn't going to happen any time soon. But it'll really suck when it does, way down the road. Personally, I think that demand will eventually subside, making it less of a problem. After all, there are only so many things you can do with bandwidth. Video is driving usage ever higher and higher, but there comes a point where your video content exceeds human ability to perceive it (as in, your eyes can't resolve higher resolutions), and the ever increasing video bitrates taper off. We reached this point long ago for audio; you can transmit perceptually lossless 24-bit audio over a 3G connection without any issues, but nobody really bothers with that even on 24-bit capable hardware because it just doesn't make all that big of a difference.

I'd actually argue that, at the point where you can (or need to) stream perceptually lossless high-framerate 4K 3D video and surround sound audio, we'll have hit that point. Because at that point, you could just stream the entire interface to your device, and there would be no need for any higher amount of bandwidth to your device. That's probably somewhere on the order of one or two hundred megabits per second. Several orders of magnitude beyond current average usage (you might hit 20 megs on your LTE phone, but with a 2GB cap, your average ain't gonna be that high).

••••••••

mix
join:2002-03-19
Romeo, MI

mix

Member

Dark Fiber

Wasn't there a huge glut of dark fiber in this country that people used to talk about a few years ago? What happened to all of this excess capacity?

•••
axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus

Member

Explore the spectrum squatters?

If you or someone has time, could they write one of those featured articles about who has what spectrum, how much, and what purposes can it be used for?
MrShag
join:2006-07-09
Hamilton, ON

MrShag

Member

Ironic don't you think. ( I feel a song coming on)

These companies are scaremongering over their over-extended network. That all the heavy users are going to sink the internet.
And how concerned they are for capacity.
Crying about the fact they HAVE to pay to upgrade.

At the same they are still open to signing up new customers. The very thing that causes the congestion in the first place.

Chucks Truck
@teksavvy.com

Chucks Truck

Anon

Canada prices wireless like everyone is a multimillionaire

Wireless in Canada is only for the well to do. Heck even working two or three jobs the average person still couldn't afford the rates in this country. I'd hate to see what would happen if there was in fact a shortage. Well i guess only the billionaires in this country could then afford it.

koira
Hey Siri Walk Me
Premium Member
join:2004-02-16

koira

Premium Member

Re: Canada prices wireless like everyone is a multimillionaire

sure that why i buy lottery tickets so i can live the dream of net speed
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

1 recommendation

elray

Member

Spectrum is finite

Its no myth. You can't change the laws of physics.

Just exactly how many HD-video-streaming connections do the enlightened folks here think a cell site can handle in a 12 Mhz block?

Video and torrentz and gaming have no natural limit on consumption, where voice traffic can be contained with 8-16kbps.

We've seen what happens when no limits are placed on usage.

••••••
bcltoys
join:2008-07-21

bcltoys

Member

Stop hd video or stop all video.

I have no problem with stopping all video downloading on cell-network's. You-tube 4 billon download's a day not all on mobile network's but proly half. Let the fire storm/flaming begin.

•••••••
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

there already is a problem

We are already running short on spectrum. Yes, LTE will help, but it is more reactive than proactive at this point, as a lot of urban networks are already over-saturated.

What we need is not more spectrum, but better management of the spectrum we have, with a huge re-alignment to give carriers a more even set of spectrum.

The other issue is that AT&T and Verizon need significantly more data revenue, as they are going to have to add many more urban sites to handle the capacity in the next few years, and that's going to cost big money, both in terms of capEX and opEX.

•••••••••

koira
Hey Siri Walk Me
Premium Member
join:2004-02-16

koira

Premium Member

kapacity krisis

"The reality is that the evolution of wireless and wireline networks has been an amazing act of engineering, one that quietly and consistently keeps pace with demand. "

not to mention the handsets and those still in development ?

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

so, Karl... when are you going to offer unlimited broadband

Wired or wireless is fine. I'll pay you $10/mo for it. Ready... GO!

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: so, Karl... when are you going to offer unlimited broadband

I used to pay 26 dollars for unlimited cable internet from COX.

Capacity is much cheaper today and much more plentiful yet now the price is 45+ dollars for the same connection with caps.

Paladin
Sage of the light
join:2001-08-17
Chester, IL

Paladin

Member

Re: so, Karl... when are you going to offer unlimited broadband

As long as people keep paying, and profits keep growing, then you'll keep seeing caps come on line. Cut off their money supply by seeing a bunch of people leave, however...
Nelson469
join:2009-11-20
Palmer, AK

Nelson469

Member

Bandwidth Crisis? LOL

Sometime ago, I used to have DSL. It was speedy for what I was paying for and the location I was in (Alaska). I did a lot of online gaming and noticed I was running into serious lag and unable to connect to a server in Oregon.

I fired up Visual Route to see where the problem was and who's problem was it. The DSL provider was a cheap ass and had their POP (point of presence) in some little town in Connecticut, not in Seattle where it should have been. Next indicator of a low grade pipe was how the connection was bounced across the United States 2-3 times before reaching it's destination. A nice feature in VR is being able to poll a suspect router for ownership, point of contact phone number and email address. The POP router was owned by AT&T and I promptly contacted them for an explanation. It seemed my local provider was over selling their service and didn't bother to upgrade the pipe to keep up with demand. The local provider kept throwing the excuse of "we'll put a trouble ticket in". I called my local provider again to give them a chance to upgrade and got the same excuse. I told the local provider that I talked with their long haul data provider and told them they were bullsh*itting with the trouble ticket excuse. There was a long pause, then I told the local provider the next action would be a long letter and printouts of evidence to back up my claims to the public utilities commission. It took them a week to get this challenge rectified.

David Smith

Anon

Take Action

I am horrified at the idea of bandwidth capping, as not only do I believe that it stifles the growth of modern media (i.e., the cloud, Netflix, radio streaming), but that if taken to extremes, it could even stifle one's freedom to information, particularly in a democracy. I have decided to take action against ISPs who cap their bandwidth by starting a petition on Change.org. Please take a look at it at: »www.change.org/petitions ··· -capping

Paladin
Sage of the light
join:2001-08-17
Chester, IL

Paladin

Member

Shannon-Hartley Theorem

So in Karl world this is a fantasy that doesn't exist? Okay.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh ··· _theorem

Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
Asus RT-AC3100
(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

1 edit

Packeteers

Premium Member

old crisis

my area just bumped up broadband speed from 7 to 10m
because they finally upgraded their network to wideband,
so they gave all the old broadband users a break. even
old aDSL users can get 3 to 5 or 3 to 7 upgrades at the
same price as their old 3 plan, if they resign for a year.

if there was a "crisis" they would not be doing that for free,
especially in markets where FiOS won't be available for years.
except for a small minority of abusers, most people are only
using a tiny fraction of the bandwidth they pay for Monthly.