[IP] more on comments? Does faster broadband really matter?

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: bob.devine@att.net
Date: December 29, 2005 1:44:12 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on comments? Does faster broadband really matter?

Dave, expanding on the need for speed.

> From: George <inventor@rentaninventor.com>
>   Dave -- I'm certain that I'm not the only one who has said:
> "No matter how fast the computer gets - it will NEVER be fast
> enough to meet our expectations.  George Margolin

In one sense, it is true that everyone wants infinite computing
power.  But I think that there exists a "good enough" level for
most people.  Scanning the industry rags shows that sentiment
is reflected in sales of CPUs.  The sales demand is small except
for persons buying a PC for gaming or heavy graphics.  Jon Forrest
would post his "Forrest Curve" message annually to comp.arch
arguing the same premise.  However, the "good enough" target moves.
People do want more each year; I wonder if there is a law analogous
to Moore's Law for computation consumption.

(The average PC is always 90+% idle.  Donate spare computation
power to http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org)

But for communication speed, I suspect that most people are not
really satisfied with their current network performance.

What is the similiar "good enough" network bandwidth for PCs?
Well, two-way digitized voice takes a few dozen Kbps.
Music with good fidelity takes approximately 100 Kpbs.
Video takes a few Mbps.

For a typical household with multiple concurrent users,
if everyone is sharing the same IP pipe for communications,
then perhaps 50Mbps is enough.  But, of course, latency
matters a lot more than pure bandwidth.  And you need more
for periodic spikes.  And etc.

Bob Devine


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