Who needs 10Gig Internet?

Numerous ISPs, including Google, have begun to advertise and market Internet bandwidth speeds higher than 1 Gig. The availability of faster speeds is not new; some networks began making 10Gig service available several years ago, but it was marketed and priced as a premium service.

What has changed more recently is the cost of 10Gig PON network equipment. Anyone building or expanding a fiber to the home network today is very likely installing the 10GPON equipment because it does not cost appreciably more than the "old" GPON network switches.

Not all ISPs are marketing a full 10Gig connection. Many are offering incremental speed increases over 1 Gig, including 2 Gig, 2.5 Gig, and 5 Gig.

The bigger question is who needs all that bandwidth? For normal residential and work from home use, symmetric Gig Internet is entirely adequate, but we are now in a marketing race to sell faster connections because it sounds "better and faster."

If you have one of those faster fiber connections, you will also have to upgrade the router or switch in your home or business to support those faster speeds. There are now some moderately priced switches that can provide those higher speeds over Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cabling. Where this increased speed really becomes useful is going backups to a local NAS (Network Attached Server) and/or large backups to cloud-based services.

Thirty years ago, a salesman from a major network switch company laughed in my face when I told him that every home would be using high speed Ethernet networks....he left my office and never returned. It's amazing how fast the technology has changed and matured.