I think things like this are great because they will finally start to create pressure to commodify >1gbps networking in the home. The industry has some work to do here.<p>I've been on Sonic 10G for almost a year now and LOVE it, but it's definitely been a sore spot to get things set up to expect those kinds of speeds - prosumer 10G switches are vastly more expensive per-port, wired consumer devices don't typically support 10GbaseT/SFP+, 2.5G/5G switches aren't broadly available and commodified (e.g. UniFi has limited offerings here) and WiFi6E is still mid-rollout (almost no client devices currently in market yet) meaning that clients can't reasonably expect >1gbps of goodput, even with a good link from a modern device to a modern AP. Then there's flakiness: when things get hot in my garage, my 10G switch just stops working. My Thunderbolt-to-10GbaseT adapter for my MacBook runs very hot. Lots of sharp edges here.<p>The more consumers are buying 10G equipment for their 10G home links, the faster prices will come down and reliability will come up - not just for 10G but also for 2.5G/5G equipment. Hats off to EPB for paving the way for 25G and keeping vendors diligent in mapping out the next generation of their equipment.
No wonder Comcast has been very active in lobbying to prevent other utilities from providing Internet[1].<p>1 - <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcast-fcc-high-speed-internet-gigabit" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...</a>
I live in another TN city rolling out municipal fiber. I live in a middle class area of town. I've been asking for 1G for years, but ATT keeps telling me "there's not enough need in that area of town". That changes as soon you move to the higher-end neighborhoods though. I guess people who live in the expensive zip codes are the only ones who need 1G. EPB will offer internet to ALL residents, not just the rich of the cities.<p>Since the city has started the fiber rollout, all of a sudden it's now feasible for ATT to offer fiber. Go municipal internet!!!!!!<p><a href="https://www.kub.org/about/about-kub/kub-service-areas/century-ii/meter-modernization/broadband-services-public-forum" rel="nofollow">https://www.kub.org/about/about-kub/kub-service-areas/centur...</a>
Wow this reads like an announcement from a different timeline (like the one that was promised when fiber was promoted in the early 2000s). 25Gb/s symmetric? In the middle of Tennessee?<p>Meanwhile I have traffic-shaped Comcast and no fiber in sight in Silicon Valley.
I recently upgraded to 1.5gbps and realized a few things.<p>The downsides: the Cat5e cables inside my condo walls can't handle more than 1.0gbps; my desktop's network port also maxes out at 1.0gbps; the wifi router in my home can't do more than 600mbps even if standing right next to it.<p>But also, nothing I do needs this much bandwidth. I can download any steam game in the blink of an eye. I can watch streaming video at resolutions higher than my eyes can distinguish. Outside of a few high bandwidth edge cases, there's very little I need more than 100mbps for.<p>If you offered me 25gbps internet right now I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and what I have!<p>Someone tell me: what will I need that much bandwidth for?
When we bought a house, the best one ended up being literally a couple miles outside of EPB's service area and I had to switch to Comcast. I see their billboard every time I drive home, just to rub salt in the wound.
Cool, but try to get 25Gbps on your mac. It's tough. We have our own 10 gig symmetrical fiber backbone connection and wanted 25Gbps on a mac in our film production facility. Thunderbolt maxes out at 40Gbps so you're already close to the max data transfer rate for a peripheral. We had to use ATTO's hardware which is bulky, a pain to configure on a macbook (you need to bond two interfaces) and honestly most of the time it's just easier to stay on Wifi and deal with 400Mbps throughput.<p>Not sure about windows, but USB-C maxes out at 10 Gbps IIRC, so I'd love to hear what folks in that realm are doing.
Chattanooga Tennessee, for those curious but not curious enough to read the article.<p>I'm intrigued by the city's push for this community co-op high speed internet - does anyone here have any experience with how the city has changed before/after the "gig-city" push? And did pandemic work from home change/accelerate things at all?
Meanwhile I'm in the heart of a city and stuck with unreliable, overpriced, and low speed cable/dsl from Spectrum because I'm pretty sure my landlord is taking part of their payola scheme. I used to live in Chattanooga which makes me extra bitter about it.
Meanwhile here in my large California city the best service I can get at my apartment is 100/10. That's because it's negotiated by the landlord with some kind of corporate rate (it's not shared, we still have our own modem). It actually drops to something like 80 down at peak hours.
I've been shopping around for alternatives to Texas, and Chattanooga, TN just jumped to the top of my list.<p>I definitely couldn't take direct advantage of 25 gigabit/s service myself. But, I do enjoy the idea of it attracting certain types of businesses & people to an area and creating opportunities that might not be possible elsewhere.<p>Also, the fact that this sort of internet service is <i>possible</i> in an area gives me hope for the leadership.
I’ve had EPB for about 3 years now (since I moved to Chattanooga).<p>It’s fantastic. Every once in a while someone will post in the local Facebook group asking which ISP they should go with. It turns into pages and pages of EPB!, EPB!, EPB!<p>Mixed with comments about how much better it is than Comcast. Not only is the service better and cheaper, customer service is much much better.
People may not realize just how many barriers are put in the way of this kind of thing happening and at every level of government you have skilled and experienced actors trying to make sure it doesn't happen.<p>The obvious one is states pass laws to forbid municipal broadband. This should be illegal. I actually wonder if the Federal government could override this since this sort of thing usually falls within the purview of the FCC but I'm no lawyer. Comcat, AT&T and Verizon all lobby hard to make municipal broadband illegal, even when they won't connect homes they have a legal obligation to connect.<p>But imagine it is legal and you've started an ISP. Your problems have just begun.<p>How are you going to run cables (fiber or otherwise) to people's homes? Are you going to dig trenches? Well you need permits for that. You might dig up someone else's cables so existing providers get to delay that process.<p>Or are you going to string those cables up on poles? Well, who owns the poles? It might be an existing ISP. There might be laws that allows you to string cables on those poles. Maybe there isn't. Maybe you have to pay an exorbitant amount for the privilege. Maybe Comcast is the only one legally allowed to do cable work and they'll charge you a fortune for it and take forever (and probably screw it up).<p>Even if the utility poles are owned by the city or the county but that doesn't necessarily solve your problem either. You need permits to string up cables. You might have to file a permit application for <i>each pole individually</i>. Even when you get a permit, existing users may have to move their cables to make room. They may have 90 days to move it. If several need to move cables then may well take the maximum time in turn.<p>Either through trenches or poles you eventually have cables. Where do you run them to? As in, are you running short cables to substations and then trunk lines back to an exchange? Or are you running long cables back to an exchange directly? Each has its problems.<p>The long cables may make too thick bundles for poles or require more expensive trenching. The shorter cables may require a substation that the locals view as an eyesore. You'll need to acquire land for that and may face NIMBYist opposition.<p>What I learned through exposure to this was that building an ISP is hyperlocal and the incumbents are way better at it. For example, there may be a lot of limestone in the soil that may make trenching slow, difficult and expensive. You may want to use poles instead but that might not be an option so you're stuck with disposing of a lot of limestone.<p>Dicalimer: Xoogler and I worked on Google Fiber for a time.
This is just getting stupid. It's more marketing than anything else. It feels like the megahertz wars of the 90s. Your connection is SO MUCH more than just your local PHY rate. Let's start raising the bar. Show me you've optimized to reduce bufferbloat. Show me you care about RTT and not simply the cheapest pipe.<p>I'm also not sure they have the capacity to deliver true 25Gb to for many folks simultaneously.<p><a href="https://www.peeringdb.com/net/7007" rel="nofollow">https://www.peeringdb.com/net/7007</a>
<a href="https://bgp.he.net/AS26827#_asinfo" rel="nofollow">https://bgp.he.net/AS26827#_asinfo</a>
To the people saying 1G+ is overkill:<p>Latency improves too! For me that was the biggest change I noticed. I’m sitting at 3ms! My friend send me a screenshot of 0.9ms.
Do economical home routers exist that support these speeds?<p>Seems silly to offer someone 25 Gbps fiber service if it doesn’t also include a >= 25 Gbps home router.
Considering that 10G fiber gear is not very expensive at all (ie 28 port fiber switch - $1000) I’ve wondered what the hold-up is on 10Gbps SFP+ becoming a standard.<p>In Australia we’re shamefully paying $1150 per month for our business symmetrical 10G SFP+ (shaped to 1/1G), but a 1G 1000/40 connection is only $100/mo.
This is incredible, I'm full remote and tired of paying high rent in austin (even after leaving NYC) which makes me want to consider TN a bit more. However, what kind of networking (ideally prosumer) hardware do you need to truly leverage this kind of a connection. Switches are cheap, I already have a few 10G fiber switches, however routers are another story, especially ones that are actually capable of keeping up with a 10G or 25G connection.<p>2G Google Fiber has been an absolute game changer - from experience I can also say it's better than 2x bonded Verizon Fios fiber connections. By far, the coolest feature of G Fiber is the online portal to request a static IP. Really hope static IP capability is also an option with this 10G service!
I don't think I have enough aggregate online disk bandwidth at home to store things are that speed, much less do I have it networked to do so. Wow.
Ohh I'm so jealous of this. I'm stuck with 15Mbps for ~$200/mo because of the monopoly here. Really hope I'll be able to get something better in the future. Hopefully this will put some pressure on other ISPs to get their stuff together :(
I used to have EPB some 6 years or so ago. They were by far the best ISP I have ever used. I was also privy to an organization that had access to their 10Gb connection.<p>A public internet service has been on their radar for about a decade now, and I proud to see they managed to get it working.
I don't really see the point - impressed that they offered it, but how many people truly need it?<p>I have 1G symmetric FTTH internet, the bottleneck is still the services I want to access at the other end - really makes no difference how much faster the pipe is, if the service you are using can't keep up.<p>Will some people benefit?? sure - a handful of power users doing massive uploads and downloads for commercial purposes... but the typical Netflix watcher or telecommuter really isn't going to benefit at all from from anything faster than about 100MBs up/down right now.<p>Like I said, I have 1G fiber connection, you know how long it takes me to watch a two hour Netflix movie at 1G speed? Two hours. You know how long that would take me on a 50Mbs connection? 2 hours. You know how long that would take me on a 25Gb connection? 2 hours.<p>That said, if I could buy a 25 Gb connection at a reasonable price I would.
So weird hearing about how amazing this speed is for a <i>convention center</i> when I have 25Gbps at home and mainly just use it to download movies and anime from Usenet.