Do you need gigabit Internet? If you’re a longtime Internet user, you may have started on dial-up with transfer rates of 56 kilobits per second (Kbps), then graduated to dedicated access at several megabits per second (Mbps), which increased into the hundreds over the years. Depending on your location, today 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), also known as 1 gig, may be an option.
Broadband Internet is defined as high-speed access that’s always on and faster than dial-up. Wired broadband connections are delivered over high-speed transmission technologies such as digital subscriber line (DSL), cable modem and fiber.
In 2015 the Federal Communications Commission redefined broadband as 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream, an increase over 2010’s 4 Mbps/1 Mbps. Speed standards for broadband will continue to evolve over time. The FCC’s original standard set more than a decade ago was 200 Kbps, which was fine when most Web content was text-based.
Akamai Technologies, a Massachusetts-based content delivery network and cloud services provider, measures broadband to determine average and peak connection speeds globally. Its 2014 State of the Internet report says that among U.S. customers, 74 percent have bandwidth rates above 4 Mbps, 39 percent above 10 Mbps and 18 percent above 15 Mbps. Of Hawaii customers, 89 percent have rates above 4 Mbps.
Broadband tester Ookla operates Pingtest.net and Speedtest.net, which allow visitors to test the performance of their access from hundreds of sites around the world. Over 50 million tests per month are collected and averaged by locality and service provider. The average monthly download rate for Hawaii is over 41 Mbps, slightly higher than the 36 Mbps national average.
Consumer demand, mainly the explosion of smart devices sharing the same broadband connection, is the main driver of ultrafast speeds like 1 gig. With next-generation HDTV 4K televisions on the market, online video streaming services will be expected to increase accordingly. Netflix suggests 25 Mbps or higher to properly stream ultra-HD programming.
Social networks also add pressure for larger upstream bandwidth as video-based sharing from services such as Snapshot, Twitch and Vine grow in popularity.
Hawaiian Telcom launched Hawaii’s fastest Internet of 1 gig service on June 8, putting our state on the map of limited areas in the U.S. where such speeds are available. As the Internet of Things (IoT) trend continues to grow, so will broadband speeds in order to meet the demands of our increasingly connected lifestyles.
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Vincent Hoang is an enterprise architect at Hawaiian Telcom, a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Systems and Network Auditor (GSNA) and Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP). Reach him at vincent.hoang@hawaiiantel.com.
