Can Modems Handle Google Fiber?

[XtremeAero426]

So lately, I've been really interested in Google's new service: Google Fiber which offers 1Gbps upload AND download speed for the amazingly low price of SEVENTY DOLLARS. So I was wondering, can modems really handle 1Gbps internet speed wirelessly? I know ethernet can do that but can modems distribute speeds up to 1Gbps though wireless connections? If modems can't do this then when do you think they will be able to?

(Additional Note: This was meant to be a discussion not a question but I accidentally forgot to un-check the question/discussion area. Sorry.)

 

[Tom Farrow]

802.11N and below - No, 802.11ac - yes
The real question is, does any of your equipment support ac? Chances are SLIM. VERY.

801.11n supports up to 300Mbps with 3 antennas. In 802.11ac, you can get up to 1.3Gb/s wirelessly, but note that this is shared.

Also, be careful, google offers 1Gb/s, not 1GB/s, 1GB/s would be an insane speed, a HD movie faster than every second.

 

[InvalidError]

Modems? Google fiber uses an optical network terminator (ONT); there is no modem. As far as wireless routers go, there is no consumer-grade wireless solution that can reliably handle 1Gbps... though the new generation of AC2400 routers might come close if you have multiple AC2400-capable clients to use its MU-MIMO features.

 

[USAFRet]

If you can actually get Google fiber, whatever they install will handle the 1GB interface.

Wireless after that? No. There are no consumer grade 1GB/s WiFi devices.

 

[Tom Farrow]

Google Fibre offers 1000Mbps, that's 1Gbps, not GB/s

Here's a consumer grade device supporting that:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/D-Link-DIR-850L-Wireless-router-4-port-switch-Gigabit-LAN-802-11ac-draft-/131157552129?pt=UK_Computing_Wireless_Routers&hash=item1e89996c01

Pretty cheap too

 

[USAFRet]

Google Fibre offers 1000Mbps, that's 1Gbps, not GB/s

Here's a consumer grade device supporting that:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/D-Link-DIR-850L-Wireless-router-4-port-switch-Gigabit-LAN-802-11ac-draft-/131157552129?pt=UK_Computing_Wireless_Routers&hash=item1e89996c01

Pretty cheap too

Yes, I had the B-b wrong. And I wasn't aware that 802.11ac Draft 2.0 was on sale already.

 

[Tom Farrow]

I'm impressed to see them on the market already. It was only 9 months ago that Xirrus were trying to sell me their new super-cool 802.11ac access points with 8 radios in each. Now for £60 I can get 3 radios and a 4 port switch. Impressive

 

[XtremeAero426]

So based on what everyone here is saying, these speeds can only be handled through ethernet still. Meaning that I cannot get a wireless connection that is 1 Gbps with today's technology.

Another question is that why are wireless cards seemingly ahead of routers and modems?

(This wireless card says it can handle wireless speeds of 1300 Mbps in both upload and download speed: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-wireless-network-card-pceac68)

 

[Tom Farrow]

As I already said, you can get 1.3Gbps from a Wireless 802.11ac connection. I even gave you a link to an access point with this capacity.

The device which comes with Google Fiber can support 300Mbps, why you'd need any higher on a wireless connection is beyond me. That's a 720p film in 19 seconds. However, as I already pointed out, and you've discovered, 1.3Gbps is possible with ac.

1300Mbps=1.3Gbps/802.11ac

 

[USAFRet]

So based on what everyone here is saying, these speeds can only be handled through ethernet still. Meaning that I cannot get a wireless connection that is 1 Gbps with today's technology.

Another question is that why are wireless cards seemingly ahead of routers and modems?

(This wireless card says it can handle wireless speeds of 1300 Mbps in both upload and download speed: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-wireless-network-card-pceac68)

As with all WiFi, it is very environmentally dependent. You might see that when the router and PC are right next to each other.

 

[XtremeAero426]

As I already said, you can get 1.3Gbps from a Wireless 802.11ac connection. I even gave you a link to an access point with this capacity.

The device which comes with Google Fiber can support 300Mbps, why you'd need any higher on a wireless connection is beyond me. That's a 720p film in 19 seconds. However, as I already pointed out, and you've discovered, 1.3Gbps is possible with ac.

1300Mbps=1.3Gbps/802.11ac

Ah, I understand now. 1300 Mbps is all that is possible with current technology. (Not that we'll be having internet speeds that high so soon...)

 

[bill001g]

Before you guys jump up and down about 1300m you need to go read smallnetbuilder and see what devices really get. You get nowhere near 1300m. The top of the line devices can get maybe half that but that is unload and download running at the same time. You can not get it all download or all upload. Since most people mostly worry about download speeds most routers get well under 300m. These tests are also done with only a single wireless client it degrades much more if you run multiple clients. Still it is faster than 802.11n.

The big problem is that more and more people are going to 802.11ac and 802.11ac is a pig. It uses 4 of the 8 channels(non radar)...the new one uses all 8 for a single user. This will likely quickly degrade into the mess we have on 2.4g with 802.11n where nobody can get any decent bandwidth in a high density neighborhood.

If you have any option to use wired connections for some or all your device you will get the best results. The same site pretty much claims any router can pass close to 1g of traffic using only wired ports. Not sure how they test but I do know that it isn't the raw traffic that bottle necks the router it is the total number of session it has open and the size of the packets.

 

[XtremeAero426]

Before you guys jump up and down about 1300m you need to go read smallnetbuilder and see what devices really get. You get nowhere near 1300m. The top of the line devices can get maybe half that but that is unload and download running at the same time. You can not get it all download or all upload. Since most people mostly worry about download speeds most routers get well under 300m. These tests are also done with only a single wireless client it degrades much more if you run multiple clients. Still it is faster than 802.11n.

The big problem is that more and more people are going to 802.11ac and 802.11ac is a pig. It uses 4 of the 8 channels(non radar)...the new one uses all 8 for a single user. This will likely quickly degrade into the mess we have on 2.4g with 802.11n where nobody can get any decent bandwidth in a high density neighborhood.

If you have any option to use wired connections for some or all your device you will get the best results. The same site pretty much claims any router can pass close to 1g of traffic using only wired ports. Not sure how they test but I do know that it isn't the raw traffic that bottle necks the router it is the total number of session it has open and the size of the packets.

Certain wireless cards can get that (according to the users and specs of these products) under 802.11ac connections.

 

[bill001g]

Before you guys jump up and down about 1300m you need to go read smallnetbuilder and see what devices really get. You get nowhere near 1300m. The top of the line devices can get maybe half that but that is unload and download running at the same time. You can not get it all download or all upload. Since most people mostly worry about download speeds most routers get well under 300m. These tests are also done with only a single wireless client it degrades much more if you run multiple clients. Still it is faster than 802.11n.

The big problem is that more and more people are going to 802.11ac and 802.11ac is a pig. It uses 4 of the 8 channels(non radar)...the new one uses all 8 for a single user. This will likely quickly degrade into the mess we have on 2.4g with 802.11n where nobody can get any decent bandwidth in a high density neighborhood.

If you have any option to use wired connections for some or all your device you will get the best results. The same site pretty much claims any router can pass close to 1g of traffic using only wired ports. Not sure how they test but I do know that it isn't the raw traffic that bottle necks the router it is the total number of session it has open and the size of the packets.

Certain wireless cards can get that (according to the users and specs of these products) under 802.11ac connections.

So I should just believe you and ignore all the testing data on a site that has been around for years. If you believe you can get anywhere near any wireless rated speeds then I suppose you buy everything that is marked "new and improved" just because the manufacture states it.

 

[InvalidError]

Certain wireless cards can get that (according to the users and specs of these products) under 802.11ac connections.

Real-world results on WiFi even under best circumstances are less than half what the theoretical maximum says it should be.

 

[XtremeAero426]

Before you guys jump up and down about 1300m you need to go read smallnetbuilder and see what devices really get. You get nowhere near 1300m. The top of the line devices can get maybe half that but that is unload and download running at the same time. You can not get it all download or all upload. Since most people mostly worry about download speeds most routers get well under 300m. These tests are also done with only a single wireless client it degrades much more if you run multiple clients. Still it is faster than 802.11n.

The big problem is that more and more people are going to 802.11ac and 802.11ac is a pig. It uses 4 of the 8 channels(non radar)...the new one uses all 8 for a single user. This will likely quickly degrade into the mess we have on 2.4g with 802.11n where nobody can get any decent bandwidth in a high density neighborhood.

If you have any option to use wired connections for some or all your device you will get the best results. The same site pretty much claims any router can pass close to 1g of traffic using only wired ports. Not sure how they test but I do know that it isn't the raw traffic that bottle necks the router it is the total number of session it has open and the size of the packets.

Certain wireless cards can get that (according to the users and specs of these products) under 802.11ac connections.

So I should just believe you and ignore all the testing data on a site that has been around for years. If you believe you can get anywhere near any wireless rated speeds then I suppose you buy everything that is marked "new and improved" just because the manufacture states it.

Are they using a connection even that high in the first place? Last time I checked, Google Fiber is the only service using speeds that high.

 

[Tom Farrow]

Before you guys jump up and down about 1300m you need to go read smallnetbuilder and see what devices really get. You get nowhere near 1300m. The top of the line devices can get maybe half that but that is unload and download running at the same time. You can not get it all download or all upload. Since most people mostly worry about download speeds most routers get well under 300m. These tests are also done with only a single wireless client it degrades much more if you run multiple clients. Still it is faster than 802.11n.

The big problem is that more and more people are going to 802.11ac and 802.11ac is a pig. It uses 4 of the 8 channels(non radar)...the new one uses all 8 for a single user. This will likely quickly degrade into the mess we have on 2.4g with 802.11n where nobody can get any decent bandwidth in a high density neighborhood.

If you have any option to use wired connections for some or all your device you will get the best results. The same site pretty much claims any router can pass close to 1g of traffic using only wired ports. Not sure how they test but I do know that it isn't the raw traffic that bottle necks the router it is the total number of session it has open and the size of the packets.

Certain wireless cards can get that (according to the users and specs of these products) under 802.11ac connections.

So I should just believe you and ignore all the testing data on a site that has been around for years. If you believe you can get anywhere near any wireless rated speeds then I suppose you buy everything that is marked "new and improved" just because the manufacture states it.

Are they using a connection even that high in the first place? Last time I checked, Google Fiber is the only service using speeds that high.

That amuses me.

The internet *relies* on connections much higher than what Google could even dream of offering to consumers. We're talking about Tbps and above, not Gbps. Connections of 1Gbps, 10Gbps and sometimes 100Gbps are frequently leased by enterprises. An office with 500 people on a 1Gbps connection that Google gives you for $70, that's only 2Mbps of bandwidth per workspace. That'd be hilarious to watch from the comfort of my 60Mbps home connection.

They won't even be testing using internet connections anyways, they will be testing within their LAN, otherwise the testing is very inaccurate, and we shouldn't ever rely on it

 

[InvalidError]

An office with 500 people on a 1Gbps connection that Google gives you for $70, that's only 2Mbps of bandwidth per workspace. That'd be hilarious to watch from the comfort of my 60Mbps home connection.

2Mbps per seat is very generous when regular work does not require much if any actual internet access, which is usually the case for most office and engineering jobs where most resources needed on a regular workday will be on the intranet and never leave the corporate LAN anyway.

 

[Tom Farrow]

An office with 500 people on a 1Gbps connection that Google gives you for $70, that's only 2Mbps of bandwidth per workspace. That'd be hilarious to watch from the comfort of my 60Mbps home connection.

2Mbps per seat is very generous when regular work does not require much if any actual internet access, which is usually the case for most office and engineering jobs where most resources needed on a regular workday will be on the intranet and never leave the corporate LAN anyway.

Depends what you mean by "regular work"

I'd love to see a large IT enterprise office (which makes up a vast amount of CA) give 2Mbps per user. Work would be near impossible.

I talk as a tech guy who does work for tech people.

But yes, 1-800-FLOWERS probably doesn't need that much.

 

[USAFRet]

An office with 500 people on a 1Gbps connection that Google gives you for $70, that's only 2Mbps of bandwidth per workspace. That'd be hilarious to watch from the comfort of my 60Mbps home connection.

2Mbps per seat is very generous when regular work does not require much if any actual internet access, which is usually the case for most office and engineering jobs where most resources needed on a regular workday will be on the intranet and never leave the corporate LAN anyway.

Depends what you mean by "regular work"

I'd love to see a large IT enterprise office (which makes up a vast amount of CA) give 2Mbps per user. Work would be near impossible.

I talk as a tech guy who does work for tech people.

But yes, 1-800-FLOWERS probably doesn't need that much.

The majority of office workers data either stays on their workstation, or maybe connects to a server downstairs.
Rarely does that go outside the building.

 

[InvalidError]

Depends what you mean by "regular work"

I was specific about work that does not relies heavily on internet-based stuff - namely because most of what employees need is on the intranet.

The engineering departments of most companies for example does not require much internet bandwidth since all the design resources including server farms for simulations are hosted on the LAN. Aside from emails to external providers to sort out tool issues, reading documentation and other relatively trivial stuff like that, the average seat uses little to no external transit on a normal day. Bigger downloads like tool suite updates are irrelevant since they have to go through IT approval and won't be deployed until IT has had a week or so to mess around with it first anyway.