Internet Speeds

I went to a lunch meeting Thursday where Greg Armstrong spoke about plans to have businesses pitch in to maintain the new landscaping that we hope to have in the medians of US 19 in the not too distant future.

Greg pointed out that neither Verizon or Brighthouse had done much along US 19 during the past several years of construction.  One of the things that Greg would like to see is high speed Internet all along the US 19 corridor and downtown as well.

Greg mentioned me as someone who knows a thing or two about high speed Internet connections.  One fellow said he could get up to 150 meg service where he was on Congress and that he didn’t understand the problem.

Let me put this into perspective:

When New Port Richey first got dialup Internet service, it was with 28k modems.  Typical speeds were in the 0.024 meg range.  With the advent of 56k modems, that went all the way up to 0.050 meg.

Early DSL speeds were a whopping 0.768 meg down and 0.128 meg up.  Given the price, this compared favorably with the 1.5 meg T1 lines for which businesses were paying thousands of dollars a month.

My company’s current 75 / 5 meg Brighthouse service costs about $175 a month (plus tax).  (note:  corrected price)

Faster speeds are available at considerably higher prices.  500 meg service, where available from Verizon, is $365 a month.

If we had TRULY fast Gigabit service like that which Google is rolling out in a number of cities around the country, we’d have 1,000 meg service for $70 – $100 a month.  .

Why does Greg care?  Why do I care?  What would it mean for my company to have Internet service that was good for 13 times the download speed and 200 times the upload speed?    The answer is simple:  Affordable ultra high speed Internet service opens up a whole raft of opportunities for businesses.

Many of the business networks I see are limited to 100 meg and the fast ones to 1,000 meg.  Having 1,000 meg service would mean that multiple offices could be easily connected together with VPN (virtual private network) connections and employees could connect from home and the performance would be exactly the same as if they were sitting in the office.

If businesses along US 19 are stuck in the DSL slow lane that tops out at 3 meg, they are at a severe disadvantage.  Getting fiber to those businesses is critical.

In an era where most of the US has Internet speeds of less than 10 meg, this would be a huge advantage for our area.  Will it happen anytime soon?  With both Brighthouse and Verizon potentially being bought out, it is hard to say.

What could your company do with Gigabit Internet speeds?

 

Rob Marlowe, Mayor