Internet connection has come a long way. Gone are the days where we had to settle for slow, wobbly speeds and not much else to look at. A trend that has changed to see with the different implementations, networks and technology that has made it possible, for example, that we can navigate at breakneck speeds, such as 10 Gbps. But what good is this? What utility does it have?
The 10 Gbps, an infinite Internet connection
The Internet connection speed that we achieve today in our homes has nothing to do with that of just a few years ago. We can hire rates of several hundred Mbps both upload and download. This allows us to share files quickly, download content, watch streaming videos of the highest quality and much more.
And that is what we have, directly, with the 10 Gbps . A reality that is already established in Spain, and with operators like Digi as the most advanced with it, but from what we also know that several others are looking for their place to reach these speeds unimaginable until recently.
But there are not a few who maintain that for a home network to have this Internet connection does not make much sense (unless you work with large operators, systems and networks). But at the user level, it is not something that boasts of being or having many more uses than we can normally have.
How is
And it is not that we do not want to have as much power as possible in our homes, but rather that we believe that in practice it is too early to be able to take full advantage of it. At least with the technology and domestic use of the vast majority of people.
One thing that is clear and undeniable is that the amount of data we generate every day is increasing. Both at a business level and at a domestic level, the tendency is to manage increasingly larger files . Just a few years ago a photograph weighed 2MB. Now the cameras shoot generating RAW images of 40 and 50 MB. 4K has become popular in video and there are cameras that record in RAW formats and record with a bitrate of 120MB/sg.
As such, 10 Gbps is about a telecommunications technology that transmits data packets at a speed of 10 billion bits per second. This innovation extended the traditional and familiar use of local area network (LAN) to a much broader field of network application, including high-speed storage area networks (SAN), wide area networks (WAN) and metropolitan area networks.
Is this Internet connection viable?
For example; What Movistar did is what is known as GPON, a standard that allows connection to various clients at speeds greater than 1 Gbps. And symmetrically . That is, the same upload speed as download. In addition, it has other advantages, such as a range of up to 20 kilometers, support for all kinds of services such as voice or Internet, and other more technological aspects that need not be mentioned. In any case, with this internet connection we have two impediments that do not make it so necessary:
- Most houses are not prepared for it. With luck we have Gigabit equipment via ethernet or Plastic Fiber Optic, therefore, we will be able to achieve a maximum theoretical speed of 1Gbps in our local network. More modern and advanced homes may have backbones with speeds of 2.5Gbps, which is slightly more than twice the speed of the typical interface. But they still fall far short of 10Gbps.
- The most advanced WiFi does not arrive . Assuming that we have the most advanced wireless devices, the maximum speed that we can achieve with WiFi6 that uses two antennas and 160MHz of channel width would be a theoretical 2,402Mbps, a speed that translates to a real 1200Mbps via WiFi. Therefore, we will not be able to take advantage of higher speeds, much less pretend to reach 10Gbps. Today this is simply not possible.
What advantages does it have
For the average user, having this fiber that uses GPON has several advantages. For example, each user has their own optical network termination. In those, what you can get, for example, your own home network via Ethernet or WiFi and connect all kinds and number of devices.
Well from televisions, computers, smartphones, smart devices and appliances… In the case of Movistar, your Smart WiFi Router is both ONT, router and WiFi access point. A three in one so you don’t fill your house with appliances. Another advantage of the 10 Gbps fiber Internet connection is lower latency and, above all, being able to connect more devices that require high data consumption.
For the home user, having a 10 Gbps network means playing online without problems with servers or other players. Specifically, the latency is four times lower than with current fiber optic networks. Likewise, today, as we have mentioned, there are probably not many homes that need more than 1 Gbps, and its availability is much more widespread. Even 300 Mbps will suffice in many cases (Netflix, for example, requires 25 Mbps for its 4k streaming).