I'd rather sacrifice some download performance and join the queue waiting for synchronous DSL at domestic prices.

As proof of this I yesterday trialled an online backup service in addition to the four level backup I already take.

Performing a pro-rata calculation on the 19 hours it took to backup 2.5GB of data (for much of the time the tool was using the maximum percentage of available 448kbps upload bandwidth that it is designed to do), my photo collection (and only photos, none of the video) would take 119 days of continuous crunching to backup. The videos would take over a year.

Makes a bit of a mockery of the "unlimited storage" that the service offers!

BTW - off on a tangent - one nice part of the backup is that I have access to the files on my HTC Desire; I can download them without affecting backup integrity. Nice not to have to remember to copy documents first that I want to browse during "dead" time on my travels.

It's useless to the average person. Currently, 40 Mbps is only useful for downloads of massive files (such as pirated movies or software, which can run into gigabytes of data). DVD-quality video requires about 6 Mbps; Blu-ray-quality video requires about 36 Mbps. But in fact, most streaming video on the Web is streamed at speeds ten times slower, around 300-600 Mbps.

The lack of a need for such high speeds is not the only issue. The other is actually getting this speed in practice. The advertised 40 Mbps is typically only the speed from the nearest telephone central office or cable center to you—but to get any use out of this speed, it has to be guaranteed for the entire path between you and whichever other computer you're communicating with. Most Web sites that offer streaming content or downloads are configured to throttle the download/streaming speeds to some level that prevents a few high-speed users from overloading the network or servers. You'd be hard pressed to find any site that actually allows downloads at 40 Mbps, and even harder pressed to get a path to that site that provides 40 Mbps of throughput from start to finish.

So, at least for now, 40 Mbps is a waste of money. Software and content tend to bloat to use any capacity available, though, so once everyone has 40 Mbps, it will probably become nearly mandatory in order to do anything on the Net. But that is still some years away at the earliest.

If you operate a server, things are different—but then your problem is getting 40 Mbps or other high speeds for upload, and not just download. Synchronous connections that allow high upload speeds are no more expensive for the telco than asynchronous plans that provide fast download and slow upload, but providers know that anyone who wants high upload speeds is running a server, and so they gouge such users in pricing in consequence. A guaranteed 2 Mbps in both directions will usually cost you many times more than a 40 Mbps down and .25 Mbps up connection.

I have a nominal 8 Mbps ADSL connection (1 Mbps up). I easily get this speed in transfers between my PC and telco test servers or speed-measurement sites, so the bandwidth really is there most of the time. But most of the useful sites to which I connect (YouTube, sites with heavy download content, etc.) are either throttled to prevent me from getting that full speed, or are separated from me by intermediate nodes that will not pass a full 8 Mbps with any regularity. It's nice when I get it, but I don't often get it. A speed of 40 Mbps would of course be even less likely to ever run at full speed in real-world situations.

Once Upon A Time, according to a guy I knew who ran part of LINX, two ISPs could be connected at an interchange by a 10M link deliberately so as to throttle traffic between the two to what was agreed in their contract. I imagine that more sophisticated methods are used these days!

Errrr......no.

Smallest port on the LINX these days is 100Mb, although there's obviously nothing stopping ISPs implementing rate limiting or packet shaping on their own kit.

Hmmm.... let's see....for a start, anything on the Akamai network shouldn't be a problem.... :ok:

I'd be surprised if even they allow 40 Mbps per connection. There aren't too many applications that require it. And bandwidth providers are notoriously stingy; they don't give bandwidth away. Someone who needs 40 Mbps per connection will have to pay dearly for it, even though it may cost almost nothing to the provider.

In London alone, Akamai have near enough 200Gbps of peering interconnect capacity. Add private peering and large ISP mirrors onto that, and you'll see what I'm getting at. Similar figures in Amsterdam and Frankfurt. North America figures are probably at least double that. They are one of the best connected networks in the world.

Apple are an Akamai customer. Find a nice big patch to download from their site and see what you get. In all likelyhood, any contention or restrictions in download speed will be to do with your direct upstream or their transit connections rather than Akamai restricting you.

On a test server that's rate-limited to 100Mbps, I have no problem achieving 100Mb downloads from Akamai any time day or night.

I have fairly recently moved from a 256k/512k (up/down) connection to a 448k/8192k connection (real downlink speed about 6000k) and cannot see much difference - except on file downloads and only then from some servers. General web operation is little different.

I would move to the next speed up ("20mbits/sec") but only to get the ~1000k UPlink speed - useful if you are running a web server on ADSL ;)

Against that, the old 256k/512k connection was uncapped, the 448k/8192k is capped at 20GB/month, and so is the faster one.

Hmmm....can you offer me cheap COLO? :8

Suspect it was tongue in cheek, but seeing as I've gone as far as reading your post, it doesn't take long to reply.....

There is space yes. But I suspect the question would be how much space, what for and how cheap. Might always be able to point you in the right direction.

PM if you like.... don't want to annoy the mods with business-like discussions in public.

Either you or the other end of the connection is paying for that. Akamai isn't giving anything away.

Akamai are a Content Distribution Network. It's their job to give stuff away.

The operation of their network is funded by their clients. Their pricing structure is NDA, however I suspect you'll find it isn't too dissimilar to other CDNs where they charge their clients by data volume (i.e per GB) whilst they aim to only connect their network to the outside world via largely settlement-free peering, thereby providing them with a healthy profit margin.

Although I've outlined Akamai's position above, obviously I (or anyone else) needs visibility to their network in order to be able to download. However if those people are connected via settlement-free peering or even paid peering at a public exchange then not much is being paid for access to that data.

How little I pay is beyond the scope of this forum.... :E