One of the Internet service provider close to me,
Videotron, will now offer download speed of
30 Mbps(
Ultimate Speed 30) and
50 Mbps(
Ultimate Speed 50) . I won't have access to it until full deployment in the province of Quebec. That, I figured it out right away. But my first reaction was how much GB per month would a user be allowed? More on that later.
The speed
A
2GB(2048Mb) file could be downloaded in about
9 minutes 6 seconds using their calculation using the
30 Mbps. The same file would take about 5 minutes 41 seconds with the
50 Mbps.
Downloading a
30Mb file would take
8 seconds(
30 Mbps)
and 5 seconds(
30 Mbps). I would expect that a
mp3 files would take
1-2 seconds because of the time to write the file on the hard drive.
In all cases, you will need to have access to a server or p2p that can keep up with that speed.
I was disappointed that the
upload was only of
1 Mbps. This is the maximum at this moment with their
20 Mbps too. So, business wanting to do online backups will still need to wait the same time as before.
The Limits
That's where it's not that great for streaming/downloading movie lovers. The
Ultimate Speed 30 is limited to
30 GB/month and the
Ultimate Speed 50 to
50 GB/month. Both are
combined limits(upload and download). If you would get standard definition movies, that's okay but for a HD movies of 5 GB then you will have to check your monthly quota. For comparison, a HD movies(
Blu-Ray or
HD-DVD) on disk may take 20 GB or more.
The business package of
10 Mbps(no 20 available) is unlimited. Both(
Ultimate Speed 30, Ultimate Speed 50) are limited to
100 GB. I would had expected the
Ultimate Speed 50 to be at least
150-200 GB.
The Price
The prices are in Canadian dollars. US and Canadian dollars are +/- 1 cent difference.
I used the contract because it's lower.
Consumer:
$64.95/month for the
Ultimate Speed 30
$79.95/month for the
Ultimate Speed 30
$1.50 per extra gigabyte used with no billing limits so your bill may cost much more. On lower packages, you would also pay $1.50 per extra gigabyte used but with a maximum price for the month even if you had taken 500 GB extras for example. The danger is for an old client that may not be clearly aware of that fact thinking
Videotron is billing the same way.
It's on a 12-month subscription.
Business:
$64.95/month for the
Ultimate Speed 30
$149.95/month for the
Ultimate Speed 50
The extra gigabyte is like a consumer.
It's on a 36-month subscription but I did not read installation cost. Usually, it's $0-$200 depending on the length of the contract.
Conclusion
How much speed do you really need and how much bandwidth per month will you take? Those are the questions. Those that wanted to bypass the
HD format war because they wanted to go with downloading or streaming can see what the future hold for them with monthly limits. It does not even include the price of the online rental or extra GB.
Yes,
Videotron is one company but they(ISP) all buy bandwidth in bulk and resell them to me and you. At least, the speed is increasing. :D
Keywords: High definition, Internet