[External] Re: 10g residential CPE

Mark Tinka mark.tinka at seacom.com
Sat Dec 26 12:59:25 UTC 2020



On 12/26/20 13:41, Nuno Vieira wrote:

> Once upon a time a wise main said “Who in their right mind would ever need more than 640k of ram?”

While everyone will take a chance at using this line at some point in a 
computing career, it's somewhat disingenuous to compare (or equate) the 
640KB of RAM to anything today. There is always bare minimums we must 
hit before any additional infrastructure does not yield any further 
value. In economics, I believe it's called the Law of Diminishing Returns.

640KB may not be sufficient for any personal device today. However, what 
would you do with 256GB of RAM on your computer that you can't do with 
64GB, in a home/domestic setting, as an average user?

Yes, 1Mbps of bandwidth is likely too small for today's Internet, but 
what would you do with 10Gbps that you can't with, say, 750Mbps?

Maybe we shall have VR on our devices which will make Zoom much more 
pleasant to use, but for as long as you don't see any 10Gbps CPE or 
XG-PON roll-outs happening en masse, that should signal something to you.

There was a time when the number of megapixels on a phone or camera was 
the most important thing. That doesn't matter anymore, to the point of 
actually more megapixels returning poorer image quality. Just compare a 
photo taken in WhatsApp vs. a photo taken in Apple's native Camera app, 
same device. The smarts aren't in the hardware anymore.

Similarly, while 10Gbps to the home may have sounded completely 
noteworthy in 2005, surprisingly, perhaps less so in 2020. Likely 
because the way the Internet works, how data is delivered, how it is 
stored, the roll of the device, e.t.c., all make the case for either 
more bandwidth (on the provider/backbone side) or less bandwidth (on the 
consumer side).

Mark.




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