
IoT, 4K, virtual reality signal a critical need for broadband speed - PaulHoule
http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/internet-things-4k-virtual-reality-signal-critical-need-broadband-speed/2016-03-30
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kayoone
I think there should be more focus on latency and upload improvements as well.
With all the realtime streaming/communication going on, really low latency is
crucial for the future. Also we are sending a lot more data these days, so
broadband with 100/6 Mbps or 200/8 Mbps is very unbalanced.

You don't really need more than 25Mbps downstream for streaming even 4K with
one client, not uncompressed of course. However 100+ Mbps with <10ms latency
allows for real time gaming via streams in high quality for example, making
expensive hardware at home obsolete.

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cm2187
What we should really achieve is 1Gbps symmetric connections. Then the cloud
is your LAN and then only you can seriously consider working on files stored
or backed-up in the cloud.

Right now the best upload speed you can get with optic fiber with BT in the UK
is 30Mbit. Not a technical limitation, purely a commercial one.

I actually don't understand why ISP do not offer better upload speeds. I
thought the whole system of peering relied on having balanced upload and
download flows, which created problems in datacenters and ISPs, which by
nature are one flow only (end users downloading data from datacenters). I
would assume both ISP and datacenters would want to encourage having flows the
other way, by mean of people backing up their data in the cloud.

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osweiller
Most users pull far more data than they push, so it's a simple reaction to the
market -- with technologies like DOCSIS you have a set number of channels and
you assign them to either downstream or upstream bandwidth. More users benefit
from a fatter downstream pipe. ADSL has the same sort of bandwidth allocation.
Having a symmetrical connection generally means limiting the downstream
connection.

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cm2187
Yes but I don't expect this sort of performance for cable or DSL. We are
talking about Optic Fiber really.

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osweiller
My cable modem pulls 120Mbps down, pushes 10Mbps. 24/7\. DOCSIS 3.1 promises
up to 10Gbps down, 1Gbps up (again, because it biases the bandwidth to down).
It's a signal on a medium.

And when we talk about fiber optics, 9 times out of 10 it isn't _really_ fiber
optics. The vast majority of BT "fiber optic" installs are a copper twisted
pair, with exactly the issue I mentioned. But their junction box, just like
cable internet applications, has fiber optics going to it, for what's that
worth. For a real pure fiber optic connection, which is rare, the service
usually is symmetric because that compromise didn't need to be made.

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cm2187
Yes but by Optic Fibre I meant FTTP, not FTTC. FTTC is nothing more than a
thick layer of lipstick on the DSL pig.

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coldtea
What's "critical" about IoT, 4K and VR though?

At best they could enable some important new functionality -- maybe.

But that's hardly "critical". Desirable, nice to have, etc, yes.

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tdkl
Simple, it's critical to the industry who saw existing hardware sales stalling
and needs a boost - ergo 4K and VR. Now they just have to convince the
consumer his life is miserable without them.

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_pmf_
Trying to recreate the success story of the VirtualBoy and the Nintendo Glove.

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nomercy400
4K I can understand, virtual reality as well, but IoT? How much data do you
expect to send to saturate a 3mbit/s upload line?

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kantos
I'd assume IoT concerns are about the number of devices rather than bandwidth,
which probably translates to "switch everyone over to IPv6 already".

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dsr_
Both number of devices and bandwidth could be conserved if we had a standard
protocol for these things to talk to a local hub that would (a) proxy
interactions with the outside, (b) enforce privacy rules and (c) handle
management overhead.

As it is now, a house can easily find itself with three brands of "smart"
light bulbs, a thermostat, a power meter, six video systems and a camera: all
of them demanding their own IP address and exposing varying levels of private
information.

I expect there are six standards for such hubs already. Insert XKCD here...

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7952
I am not sure that is is a good idea to put such devices in a special class of
their own. It risks giving devices permissions and trust that they don't
actually deserve. Better to treat them as an internet server and use existing
procotols (OAuth, CORS, TLS, WebSockets etc.). As far as I know all those
protocols work perfectly well on a local network behind a NAT. More
importantly browsers already have well understood restrictions to prevent XSS
built in.

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grillvogel
critical need for who? businesses who need to sell these products?

