UK 1Gbps broadband incoming – want to see how fast it is?

With BT currently testing a 1Gbps broadband connection in the UK – over current fibre cabling – our geek sense is tingling. A few upgraded exchanges and routers could be enough to have you downloading 10 times faster then the quickest current connection – 83 times faster than the 12Mbps UK average. So we cracked out our eighties Stuff calculator (solar powered, obviously) and crunched the numbers on what that actually means for speeds of the past and future. Okay, so we might have used Wolfram a little…

MP3 at 3MB

56Kbps      54 seconds

12Mbps      0.25 seconds

1Gbps        0.0023 seconds

HD film at 1.4GB

56Kbps      426 hours (17 days)

12Mbps     2 minutes

1Gbps       1.4 seconds

1TB hard drive transfer

56Kbps     320,000 hours (36 years)

12Mbps     1.4 hours

1Gbps       17 minutes

Of course all these figures are based on an ideal connection. With contention ratios (oh, look it up) and external bandwidth factors they’re never quite as fast – but with a 1Gbps line there won’t be much that can slow you down. Just in time for 8K streamed TV then.

[via Telegraph]

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