1000Mbps LAN, 100Mbps WAN

[Ramdu]

Hi,

I am thinking about upgrading my home network to gigabit technology. I was going to buy a D-Link gigabit broadband router and a switch. However, upon reading the specs of the router I discovered that there is only a 100Mbps connection between the router and my DSL modem.

This got me to thinking that a gigabit internal network would really not be worth the money if my connection between my network and the Internet was bottlenecked at 100Mbps because of the WAN port on the gigabit router.

I spend a lot of time online and don't really need the bandwidth that much internally on my home network. Or at least it seems that way.

Any thoughts?

Ramdu

 

[riser]

Gigabit, at this time and in my opinion, really only needs to be used in a corporate environment with heavy network traffic. At home, it's hard to find home users who truly need those kinds of speeds to transfer data between computers.

ISP connections are not as fast as your home network, thus the 100mbps WAN connection. I'm not aware of any home connections that really exceed 100Mbps. Even then, realizing those speeds is very hard.

Gigabit gets a lot of hype for it's speeds but it doesn't help out your internet connection speeds. That soley falls upon your ISP. Gigabit, in my opinion, really isn't needed in the home user market.

Stick with 100mbps and you'll see the same speeds as if you switched to 1000mbps unless transferring huge data files between computers.

 

[folken]

Do you really have an internet connection that is over 100MB? The absolute only time you would need a 1GB wan port is if you had a 1GB internet connection. If you have and can afford a 1GB internet connection you should have enough money for something better than a d-link 😉

 

[Ramdu]

I realize that the nomenclature about speeds is deceptive because it all depends on what part you are talking about and how that speed is reported.

I have DSL through Verizon which is rated at 1.5Mbps, so I guess the WAN connection between my router and DSL modem is actually faster than my Internet connection, correct?

If that is the case, then the point is well taken that I do not need a gigabit network at home, even though I have four computers playing MMORPG's at the same time.

I'm not an expert on this, I'm still learning and trying to sort through all the hype and marketing buzzwords and get to the real truth of the issue.

Thanks to everyone for their comments.

 

[folken]

100MB would definatly be more than enough for a 1.5MB dsl connection 😉
Gigabit may not be 100% ready for home use but with all the new multimedia stuff out there it is getting close. If you have a couple media extenders on a media center 2005 box it is goona start to hurt 100MB.
Once I put together a file server at home I saw the value of gigabit

If the vast majority of your time is spent playing games you will not see the value of gigabit much at all. Only when you have to copy several gigabytes of movies or other large files will you see the value.

 

[upec]

Gigabit network is very useful if you need to move large files around.
The speed to transfer large file is about 3-4 time faster than 100 mbps network.