Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every tech downturn has a silver lining

om.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–66 of 66 posts

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#61

Post by ryukafalz »

EdJiang wrote: post #47
bawolff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit pedantic - the poster would cleary be happy with something that worked 99.9% of the time, and there is no technical reason why our packet switched network can't suppot that in theory

For all the net-neutrality proponents: isn't this an argument against net neutrality? If ISPs could discriminate depending on traffic and apply better QoS priorities to sensitive content like video calls, reprioritizing downloads and p2p applications, we could have video conferencing that works, 99.9% of the time.

No. The FCC's 2015 open internet order had an exemption for "reasonable network management":

>A network management practice is a practice that has a primarily technical network management justification, but does not include other business practices. A network management practice is reasonable if it is primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking into account the particular network architecture and technology of the broadband Internet access service.

Net neutrality has always been about leveling the playing field, not about preventing network operators from improving service for users. So, for example: QoS rules to make real-time communication work better in general? Great! QoS rules to prioritize Zoom over other real-time comms because the ISP has a deal with them? Nope.

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#62

Post by owenwil »

bawolff wrote: post #17

> My bet is always-on broadband. Virtual worlds, digital entertainment, gaming …. None of it would be possible without broadband. Today, we have about 100-250 Mbps in most modern homes. In some places, you can get a gigabit per second. Now imagine what we could do if, in ten years, we all have 10 gigabits per second in our homes, and we have in-home networks that are fast and fat. Hmm. Kind of an interesting take. I…

I think we'll always find ways to use up the available bandwidth, even as it expands to new highs – but the real limiter has been how inconsistent high-speed deployments are, so it's difficult to reliably use them today.

I have a 1.5 Gbps synchronous connection here in Canada, but a few blocks away the max is 100mbps; we're not optimizing/building for fast connections because they're not widely deployed, not because we can't find ways to use them. Being able to play Stadia at ultra-low latency in 4K HDR is magic and shows a connection like this' value.

Making telco networks a public utility would help in this regard, especially if they have an actual goal of connecting everyone equally. In New Zealand, where I grew up, we broke up the telco and made fiber connectivity a public utility (chorus.co.nz) with a mandate to install fiber for free, anywhere in the country, which all ISPs can leverage. It not only increased competition, but it's helping create consistency, and will allow developers/content creators to dream up apps that can consume that type of bandwidth, because there's enough ultra-fast connections to actually make it worth bothering with.

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#63

Post by owenwil »

kortilla wrote: post #39
mikequinlan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"640K ought to be enough for anyone" said by someone, possibly. If we have 10GB networks, applications will be found to make use of it. Possibly (hopefully) applications that we haven't yet even imagined.

But the point is that applications haven’t even found a use for 100mbps to the home. I have 1gbps to mine and about the only time it’s been useful is when a friend wants to play a game I have on steam but not locally.

Anyone who thinks this hasn't had to deal with a 100mbps connection before. It's not about a single user consuming all the capacity – though that's definitely a factor as well – but allowing simultaneous use of multiple demanding applications by more than one person.

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#64

Post by bawolff »

fastball wrote: post #56
bawolff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but latency and bandwidth are different things. Reducing latency by a few orders of magnitudes would open up tons of applications (not sure i agree that video conf is one of them, dont think latency of internet is the main issue there) but i don't think we are likely to see much beyond incremental improvements (light only travels so fast)

More bandwidth == less switching == lower latency. Also light can travel from point A to the diametrically opposite point on the surface of earth in 66ms. Currently it takes 227ms to ping New York from Tokyo[1]. As light travels, those two cities are only 36ms away from each other. Seems like there is plenty of room for improvement, even given the speed of light. [1] https://wondernetwork.com/pings

That's within 1 (base 10) order of magnitude of the theoretical max (which seems like it would be very hatd to get close to). Sure there is room for incremental improvements, but we're not going to be making order of magnitude improvements.

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#65

Post by fastball »

bawolff wrote: post #64
fastball wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More bandwidth == less switching == lower latency. Also light can travel from point A to the diametrically opposite point on the surface of earth in 66ms. Currently it takes 227ms to ping New York from Tokyo[1]. As light travels, those two cities are only 36ms away from each other. Seems like there is plenty of room for improvement, even given the speed of light. [1] https://wondernetwork.com/pings

That's within 1 (base 10) order of magnitude of the theoretical max (which seems like it would be very hatd to get close to). Sure there is room for incremental improvements, but we're not going to be making order of magnitude improvements.

We already have the actual information traveling at the max speed, the delta is purely the cost of indirect routes and switching. It seems very reasonable to assume we could get much closer to the theoretical max.

Also this is obviously only a max speed if we never figure out superluminal communication, which... [fingers crossed]

Re: Every tech downturn has a silver lining

#66

Post by kortilla »

mikequinlan wrote: post #60
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to this is that once you've got enough bandwidth (and low latency) to stream an interactive session with negligible quality issues, you can move anything that requires more bandwidth offsite ('the cloud') and just stream the audio/video output. As things stand though, it's as kortilla says: we don't even have any such bandwidth-intensive applications in the home. 4k video streaming is the most bandwi…

I don't want to belabor this, but you are saying "all applications that I can think of can be implemented using existing bandwidth". I am saying that clever people will invent new applications, ones that no one has thought of yet (or that no one thinks is practical), once the bandwidth is available.

But the bandwidth is available and it’s not being utilized.
Post reply on HN