[ahnick]

It's pretty obvious isn't it? They don't want anyone to understand how the system really works. They should not be allowed to put the words "Unlimited" anywhere in their advertisement. period. It's all deceptive advertising and they should be raked over the coals for it.

If it's shared then say "Shared gigabit internet for only X dollars!" I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose competitor services if they were honest. Cable companies are soul sucking monopolies/duopolies and deserve no quarter.

[Sophira]

That reminds me of the way JCPenney had a thing where they would do no promotional pricing in a bid to be honest with the consumer about the actual price of their products... and it backfired massively. People assumed that because they didn't have any sales that they weren't the cheapest prices.

In the end, people go for what they perceive to be the cheapest prices, not necessarily the prices that actually are the cheapest.

[nyjah]

I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose competitor services if they were honest

Competitor services? Starlink aside, I have no options but what I have. I think many people at least in USA are in similar situation.

[dehrmann]

There's a difference between a data center connection and a home connection. For 99% of home users, moderately oversubscribed gigabit is perfectly fine, and no one would pay the premium (and it's a big premium) for more. Once 1 GB downloads are slow or the connection can't handle 5 HD streams, it's getting into false advertising territory.

[SkiFire13]

> If it's shared then say "Shared gigabit internet for only X dollars!" I guess the reason they don't do that is because a lot of people would choose competitor services if they were honest.

I don't think any competitor will give you a dedicated gigabit to you for a reasonable price, especially if everyone suddently starts asking for one.

[no_wizard]

I have Ziply Fiber in Oregon.

I pay for a Symmetrical gigabit connection, it’s 60 dollars a month. I record speed tests multiple times a day every day and have ever since I got the service last year. They’re growing gang busters too, my entire neighborhood is on Ziply (90% of household converted from what I understand)

Aside from them adjusting some things due to the rapid unexpected uptake, I have gotten full connection speeds for upload and download every day for over a year. Its been uptime of 99.999% (the adjustment period happened over 2 days and they only slowed service to 300/300 temporarily)

It can be done. It won’t be done by Comcast et. al.

[oooyay]

I'm also in Oregon, specifically Portland. DMARCs for fiber are largely shared by providers which is why you can have multiple providers in a given area. That way they don't take up extra pole space and the city can pay a single provider to maintain sections of line.

As long as the DMARC isn't saturated then you're only limited by the other lines also going to the DMARC and the collective activity of subscribers upstream of you between you and the central office. That's to say, you are right that it can be done but only insofar as other posters have indicated: last mile providers need to provision higher capacity lines between the DMARC and the central office.

[SkiFire13]

This doesn't prove anything, it just means that when you're doing a speedtest there aren't other users that are also saturating the connection.

Note that this doesn't means that there are exactly 0 users downloading in those moments. Usually there are multiple gigabits dedicated to a group of users, so that multiple users can navigate at 1Gbps without slowing down others, but not all the group at once. How much bandwidth is allocated to how many users can vary though, and some providers might allocate less total bandwidth to more users.

In practice this works out fine most of the time and most users won't notice slowdowns like you do, but if everyone started a speedtest at the same time you will notice it.

[daeros]

i'm in oregon and those assholes won't provide fiber to the home to my neighborhood on the far western edge of the metro area out near forest grove.

[trilbyglens]

Them none should be allowed to advertise as such

[internet101010]

There usually are no competitors.

[brewdad]

Most people should have at least two choices. Their cable company and their phone company. These choices may be comparable in price and service level or wildly divergent depending on your specific location however.

[kelnos]

I live in San Francisco, and Comcast's DOCSIS 3.1 offering (~1Gbps down / 25Gbps up) is my only useful option. AT&T offers DSL, and MonkeyBrains will give me a microwave link (more or less symmetric, but probably would top out at around 100Mbps), but that's it, aside from the LTE/5G providers.

I live one block away from one of the main fiber trunks in the city, but I was quoted (both by Comcast and AT&T) that it would be $20k-$30k to run that fiber to my building.

Unfortunately I think my experience is pretty common in the US, though sure, there are plenty of people who can choose between e.g. cable and fiber.

[daeros]

They won't even let me pay them the 20k-30k even after I made it clear that it might take me awhile to save it up, but I could feasibly do it.

[saagarjha]

I'm sorry 25 Gbps up?