{"id":475,"date":"2009-10-04T14:02:24","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T06:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tzlee.com\/blog\/?p=475"},"modified":"2009-10-14T03:41:18","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T19:41:18","slug":"why-1-mbps-symmetric-broadband-is-enough-for-everybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tzlee.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/why-1-mbps-symmetric-broadband-is-enough-for-everybody\/","title":{"rendered":"Why FTTH Will Suck and 1 Mbps Symmetric Broadband is Enough for Everybody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch this video. Although this video was made for entertainment, it does goes to show what people think 100 Mbps can give them.<\/p>\n

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I think I need to start my rant. People have the wrong impression of subscribed broadband speeds. If everybody had 100 Mbps to their homes, we’ll be in for big trouble.<\/p>\n

As of 2007, Singapore’s broadband subscriber count<\/a> is 796,500 – approximately 22% of our population. The population has grown from 3.7 million in 2007 to almost 5 million in 2009. If the percentage of subscribers remain, we’ll have approximately 1 million broadband subscribers to date.<\/p>\n

Multiply 1 million subscribers by 100 Mbps each, we need a whooping 100,000,000 Mbps total bandwidth to run broadband in Singapore. That’s 100 Tbit\/s. Does such a bandwidth exist? No. The APCN 2<\/a> cable system has only 2.56 Tbit\/s of capacity shared by the entire Asia Pacific.<\/p>\n

Think of the Internet as a highway. Data travels across the Internet like a car on a highway. Each car is loaded with goodies in the boot – YouTube, Windows Update, Facebook, BitTorrent. What happens if everybody drives a Boeing 747 on the highway? Sure, you can put more YouTube, Facebook and BitTorrent in a plane, but that plane’s not going anywhere because there’s simply not enough space on the highway for so many planes!<\/p>\n

Here’s another problem. Think of an auntie at NTUC with a years’ worth of groceries queuing up at the express cashier. Servers have limited capacity. Most network devices run either 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps. There’s some adoption of 10 Gbps in ISPs, but it’s expensive and not commonplace in enterprises. If one person hogs the server with their all-so-awesome 100 Mbps broadband, you’ll just have to wait for your turn.<\/p>\n

1 Mbps (megabit per second) translates to approximately 125 KB\/s (kilobyte per second). 1 byte contains 8 bits<\/a>. I have a 8 Mbps StarHub broadband at home. Do I see 1000 KB\/s downloads often? Nope. More like 60 KB\/s; that’s barely 512 Kbps. So what makes people think 100 Mbps will make a difference?<\/p>\n

I’ve heard people ask<\/del> complain why we aren’t enjoying 100 Mbps like Japan and Korea. They say Singapore’s broadband providers suck. Well, look guys. Japan and Korea rely highly on local content due to their language.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Facebook and YouTube are the top two visited sites in Singapore. These sites aren’t local. In fact, blame it on the content providers here. They are the ones that suck.<\/p>\n

Korea has 14 million broadband subscribers<\/a> as of December 2006. Do the math. They’ll be in a massive traffic jam if they had relied on international content.<\/p>\n

Humans are born selfish. Everybody wants a piece of the Internet. We need to start giving (uploading) instead of taking (downloading). Broadband has to be symmetric. Up-selling 100 Mbps asymmetric broadband will only make things worse. Just like Globalization, we are consuming more than we can produce. Mark my words.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/p>\n