upload speed

[MartinIAm]

Ok, this has probably been said many times but, why is having a good upload with W.O.W (Or any other similar ISP) so expensive. Any upload speed above 50mbps, and they make you switch to business fiber. wtf?

[LogicWeasel]

A way to charge premiums for the business or pro-sumer who needs the upload speed tier.  Outside of posting the occasional youtube video, the average home internet user doesn't typically need much upload.  But for streamers or techies who want to host some kind of public-facing server or proxy upload becomes a hot commodity, and the ISP can charge them higher tiers for the privilege without upsetting the majority of their customers.

 

There may be a slight argument by the ISP that more upload is more costly for them since they have to host more infrastructure and bandwidth to handle the upload for each individual customer, as opposed to a large, shared, download pipe that can satisfy peak demand for many users.  Consider that shared resource since we all know when everyone in a square mile uses their cable internet, it gets slower for individuals during peak-use.  Can't really do that as easily with upload so the fiber needs to be dedicated, or the DOCSIS 3.0 cable needs to be set to allow more upload bandwidth per local-loop (until the coax cable hits a fiber node).

[mynameisjuan]

Its due to two major factors:

1. Single pair

2. Full duplex

 

A single pair consist of two wires, this began in the past with T1s and DSL, but also includes Coax (cable) which is also two lines (inner and outer). Full duplex meaning you can send and receive at the same time.

 

A medium can only send so much data before the signal degrades due to interference. This means that if a line can handle 100mbps it can only handle 100mbps total, both download and upload. This has to be shared if they want to send and receive at the same time. 

 

First it began as symmetric, so that would be split into 50/50mbps. Then people realized that download is needed way more than upload, so asymmetric became a standard, like 90/10 in the example. This stuck over the years because DSL and Cable is still a huge majority of all connections.  This even translates over to fiber with GPON when the actual optics on the service provider equipment is asymmetrical, 2.4/1.2gbps. This is due more to the TDM aspect of GPON and frequency used on the ONT end but is still based on similar limitations.

 

It has nothing to do with the backbone bandwidth, not wanting to upgrade equipment or just a simple click of a button fix. Its purely a limitation of a medium being able to send and receive at the same time over a single pair.

 

There is a legit reason why upload is choked and why its expensive to bump it up. AE fiber eliminates this completely but is 100-1000x the cost of GPON to deploy.  This is not just a "fuck the consumer" decision.

[mynameisjuan]

7 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

There may be a slight argument by the ISP that more upload is more costly for them since they have to host more infrastructure and bandwidth to handle the upload for each individual customer

False. The core and distribution in a service providers network is all symmetrical links. 1/1gbps, 10/10gbps, 100/100gbps, etc... The upload of the customers translates the same for the ISP. Single the access platforms themselves have upload limitations this results in the same upstream links in the ISP being underutilized.

 

During peak hours, our 30,000 customers are pulling on average ~50gbps down and anywhere from 500mbps to 1.5gbps up from all out edges. Upload is the last thing to worry about bandwidth wise.

[MartinIAm]

24 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

A single pair consist of two wires, this began in the past with T1s and DSL, but also includes Coax (cable) which is also two lines (inner and outer). Full duplex meaning you can send and receive at the same time.

So basically I can just request for W.O.W to send me two coax cables and then get the same upload and download? Lol (This probably wouldn't really go very well)

[MartinIAm]

27 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

A way to charge premiums for the business or pro-sumer who needs the upload speed tier.  Outside of posting the occasional youtube video, the average home internet user doesn't typically need much upload.  But for streamers or techies who want to host some kind of public-facing server or proxy upload becomes a hot commodity, and the ISP can charge them higher tiers for the privilege without upsetting the majority of their customers.

Yea, I'm hosting two websites plus an occasional live stream with about 10mbps up.

[mynameisjuan]

7 minutes ago, MartinIAm said:

So basically I can just request for W.O.W to send me two coax cables and then get the same upload and download? Lol (This probably wouldn't really go very well)

Not how it works. Coax consist of a single cable split multiple times in the field. That single point on the access platform is the limitation. 

[Donut417]

11 hours ago, MartinIAm said:

Ok, this has probably been said many times but, why is having a good upload with W.O.W (Or any other similar ISP) so expensive. Any upload speed above 50mbps, and they make you switch to business fiber. wtf?

One reason to is the cable system only uses 5Mhz to 42 MHz for upload. This was just how they started with cable internet. At the time they probably didn’t think they would need more. Also while Docsis 3.1 allows more frequencies to be used for upload. Most if not all providers have not started those upgrade. Also low upload rates prevents users from running internet facing servers. Kinda hard to share your 4K Plex videos when you don’t have enough upstream to send it out. 

[MartinIAm]

8 hours ago, Donut417 said:

One reason to is the cable system only uses 5Mhz to 42 MHz for upload. This was just how they started with cable internet. At the time they probably didn’t think they would need more. Also while Docsis 3.1 allows more frequencies to be used for upload. Most if not all providers have not started those upgrade. Also low upload rates prevents users from running internet facing servers. Kinda hard to share your 4K Plex videos when you don’t have enough upstream to send it out. 

Do you think calling W.O.W and asking them if they can do anything to upgrade my upload speed would do anything other than just telling me to upgrade plans?

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, MartinIAm said:

Do you think calling W.O.W and asking them if they can do anything to upgrade my upload speed would do anything other than just telling me to upgrade plans?

No, the plan is the plan. The fact is at least on the Comcast side, they only give you 3 to 4 upsttream channels. That is due to the fact most providers have not upgraded the upstream side of the network. The most upload speed I have seen advertised was 50 Mbps and that was on WOW. Though I dont know what plans they offer that upload on. WOW is not exactly servicing my area. You will have to wait till they start doing the D3.1 upstream upgrades. Who knows when that will happen. They have no real reason to do it at this time. 

[MartinIAm]

On 11/7/2019 at 5:15 PM, Donut417 said:

No, the plan is the plan. The fact is at least on the Comcast side, they only give you 3 to 4 upsttream channels. That is due to the fact most providers have not upgraded the upstream side of the network. The most upload speed I have seen advertised was 50 Mbps and that was on WOW. Though I dont know what plans they offer that upload on. WOW is not exactly servicing my area. You will have to wait till they start doing the D3.1 upstream upgrades. Who knows when that will happen. They have no real reason to do it at this time. 

It really sucks that ISPs don't really care about upload for the people like us. There's only one current possible solution to this currently. Fiber (That I know of)

[mynameisjuan]

4 minutes ago, MartinIAm said:

It really sucks that ISPs don't really care about upload for the people like us. There's only one current possible solution to this currently. Fiber (That I know of)

Its not that they dont care, it just doesnt justify spending millions for, as a whole, handful of customers for more than 50mbps upload