How much would it take to provision every house in the country with fibre at ANY speed? (even 10/30 would cost billions as the 'last mile' to many BOUNDARIES would still be an astronomical distance in fibre, and isn't even currently possible on copper!)
I don't think anyone could argue that you "need" gigabit in residential connections, or could even take advantage of it. But think back 10 years ago to what was available and what we were doing with it. As the capability grows, people will find ways to take advantage of it. VR is one candidate that could need very high bandwidth, especially as the VR screens get higher resolution. There will be other things we couldn't conceive of, just like it would have been hard to conceive of streaming 4K video over the Internet 15 years ago.
Put another way, do you see the demand for bandwidth in 10 years getting larger, smaller, or staying the same as today? I'd find it hard to bet against the demand being for more.
We're about to survey our gig customers so it'll be interesting to see what they have to say about it.
I know it makes a meaningful difference for customers downloading software - OS/application updates and games in particular. A 50GB game will come down the tubes in (roughly) an hour on 100Mbps, 30 minutes on 200Mbps and 5-10 minutes on 1Gbps.
We're about to add a second 10Gbps uplink into our core to further increase the chance that popular content comes down the wire as fast possible.
For sure, 1gbit is where the UFB is heading but how quick is a different story. One of the great things about the UFB was that it put glass in the ground and to the homes it's connected and now that the medium is there you can upgrade away to whatever you want, 10GEPon can share the same glass with 1GEPon at the same time which makes upgrading the network alot simpler
Most problems are the result of previous solutions...
All comment's I make are my own personal opinion and do not in any way, shape or form reflect the views of current or former employers unless specifically stated
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