Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by orijing on Saturday June 11, 2011 @12:45PM
(#2644268)
That's mostly true, but there's still the latency benefits of physical proximity. For example, just for an electric signal to travel 6000km across the country, it will take t=6000km/v where v=c/n (c = speed of light, 3e8 m/s and n = refractive index of fiber, 1.62). So it'll take 32.4 ms just to send a packet across the states, and another 32.4 ms to receive one back. This doesn't even take into effect the latency from the routers in the way, and other things like that your message doesn't go in a completely straight path.
So latency is really important if you're doing something like playing a real time game. 32ms is basically a single frame if you're playing at 30 fps. Some people will notice if they're constantly a frame behind.
Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by Klinky on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:34PM
(#2644489)
Latency exists with any medium. Latency isn't really comparable to bandwidth, though a lack of bandwidth can impair latency. Most people aren't connecting to a server that is 3000 miles away from them, they are connecting to a CDN that is strategically located within a few states from them. Even in latency sensitive applications like gaming or VoIP, usually 100ms or less is enough for satisfactory results. Then there are a whole host of things where latency really doesn't matter all that much like file backup or video streaming...
I'm well aware of latency. I chose the example I did specfically because high bandwidth trumps locality when emailing a picture across the room..
Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by orijing on Sunday June 12, 2011 @12:12PM
(#2646709)
I wasn't saying that high speed internet is not good, just wanted to be careful in declaring that it'll make everything feel as fast as LAN.
Not to mention the fact that the other endpoint needs to be as fast if you want fast communication.
If you can store all your stuff remotely, and get it as quickly and easily as if it were on a local NAS suddenly things get a lot easier.
Ironically, it's the non-geeks who need this the most, because they can't setup a NAS. How many people do you see emailing images to themselves so they can get it on their other computer? Every person who does that needs 1Gbps internet so they can do that for their entire photo and film collection.
(And yes, I know Dropbox helps with this scenario, but even Dropbox is better with 1Gbps intenet...)