There is not much difference in perception to a normal customer between 50Mbit and 1Gb - the former manages two 1080p YouTube streams perfectly well with quite some headroom for extra misc traffic. Torrenters will always crave more bandwidth, but even there its going to be tough to fill 1Gb downstream.
But all of that is missing the point. The internet is not just a better TV with cats - it has true full duplex communication!
It's hard to believe because the monopolies in control of the last mile will generally offer you tons of downstream with little to no upstream. In some cases, the upstream is merely enough to send TCP ACKs for when you use all of your downstream. Its a natural move for these big old companies because upstream traffic from customers is more expensive for them and they are still stuck in the mindset of the "media consumption machine".
Google, of course, realizes that 1Mb of upstream is bad news for Google Hangouts and terrible for uploading 1080p video to YouTube. And all kind of distributed systems benefit tremendously from matching upload and download bandwidth.
There's no good reason why I shouldn't be able to participate in lifelike HD video conferences from here in Austin with my team back in CA, along with our other remote members.
But, of course, the problem is that while all of us easily have enough bandwidth to pull down streams of high-quality HD video, the video streams we're trying to pull down are choked into low quality by the sender's lack of upstream bandwidth.
For cable systems there have historically been some good technical reasons why upstream speeds are much lower. DOCSIS3 solves most of those problems. If there is a demand for it cable upload speeds can jump to 10-15Mbit/sec in the near future without much trouble.
These speeds are already available. I've had 50Mbps/15Mbps from Comcast for over a year, for about $100/month -- and I actually get those speeds so long as the server with the content is willing. Dual-stack support is soon as well, so I'll have an IPv6 address.
In the next week or so, my downstream will be increasing to 105Mbps at no additional charge[1]. In some markets (mine included) Comcast will be offering 305Mbps downstream service (granted at $300/mo), which is 90% of the bandwidth the DOCSIS 3.0 specification would allow over 8 channels.
Granted, on the opposite end we have Verizon now trying to slowly kill their DSL service and replace it with LTE. [2]
From the ISP perspective it's actually getting easier to accommodate these faster speeds. Very few customers can actually saturate a 100Mbit/sec connection for more than a few minutes. I suspect the usage on a 305Mbit/sec package would be nearly identical to the 50 or 100Mbit package for most customers. Once we got past this 15-20Mbit/sec mark usage stays about the same as you scale speeds upwards. The old model of oversubscription works again. There's a lot of gloom & doom about US broadband but the reality is we're actually in pretty good shape now that most cable operators have deployed DOCSIS3 equipment.
Does that include cable? I pay 105$ a month for 75/35 + cable w/HD DVR from Verizon FIOS which might make Comcast better after that upgrade.
Or, if it's just internet then 150/75 is 99$ and 300/65 Mbps is 200$/month from FIOS which would make Comcast a little behind but still reasonable alternative. Which is a lot better than the last time I compared them.
With the most basic of TV service, taxes, fees, etc. my total bill comes to about $116.81/mo. If I punted the TV service, my savings would be about $4/mo. I don't bother with TV service because to get the one channel I want, the required pre-reqs and equipment would double my bill.
Regarding Verizon, I'd love to have FiOS, but they won't deploy in Boston without major tax breaks, which Boston refuses to offer. FiOS is great if it's available, but it's not in most markets. There aren't many other options in the continental US where you can get 100Mbps service for ~$100/mo if FiOS is unavailable (and for most of the US, that's the case).
But all of that is missing the point. The internet is not just a better TV with cats - it has true full duplex communication!
It's hard to believe because the monopolies in control of the last mile will generally offer you tons of downstream with little to no upstream. In some cases, the upstream is merely enough to send TCP ACKs for when you use all of your downstream. Its a natural move for these big old companies because upstream traffic from customers is more expensive for them and they are still stuck in the mindset of the "media consumption machine".
Google, of course, realizes that 1Mb of upstream is bad news for Google Hangouts and terrible for uploading 1080p video to YouTube. And all kind of distributed systems benefit tremendously from matching upload and download bandwidth.