With more people uploading heavy files (audio, video, large presentations), it’s surprising that ISPs continue to deliver the paltry amounts of upstream bandwidth that they’ve been providing for years. Why aren’t more people complaining about this?I’ve been wondering for a long time why Internet service providers and the people who buy their services focus only on downstream bandwidth. Ads for Internet access promise “only $19.95″ for 1 Mbps, but when you read the fine print, it’s “up to” 1 Mbps downstream and somewhere between 256 Kbps – 512 Kbps upstream.
Indeed one of my friends in San Francisco reports that one of his friends was thrilled to have signed up recently for $49.95 per month DSL service that provides 3 Mbps downstream and 384 Kbps upstream. I am amazed to see that people pay so much for bandwidth. The prices in Amsterdam are far lower and the speeds much higher. We have more competition in the market for broadband services, but in the DSL market, the downstream speeds far outstrip the upstream speeds.
This thoughtful piece on upstream bandwidth identifies the problem for businesses and individuals when ISPs scrimp on upstream bandwidth. With files getting bigger (video, photos, presentations, audio), how it is possible that the upstream bandwidth offered by the ISPs has barely budged in the past few years?
In all the Muni Networks that we are putting up we are doing symmetrical speeds. We are doing this to give us a leg up on the providers that are doing the asymmetrical speeds. We think that this give us an marketing advantage.
Consumer Internet marketing and service offerings are of course for the consumer experience where the upstream traffic load is a small fraction of the downstream. Since capacity costs a lot of capital, the upstream bandwidth is set to make the browser experience good but discourage high capacity demands on the upstream.
The inefficiencies of today’s VoIP make today’s consumer upstream marginal for real time protocols.
But on the whole, this is all to keep the carriers’ capital costs low and cope with the constraints of the DSL and Cable Modem MAC and PHY. Fiber changes everything.