No doubt feeling the heat from Verizon’s FiOs, Comcast announced that it’s rolling out 50mbps Internet service in select markets. If you’re in Boston, Philadephia, New Jersey, Minneapolis or St. Paul, congratulations. You can now download a standard-definition movie in 5 minutes, according to Comcast. Now if they’d just add the NFL Network to the Digital Classic package…
None of this is likely to render your current wireless network obsolete, as even an old-school 802.11a router supports downloading at 54mbps. If you haven’t gone wireless yet, check out How to Set up a Wireless Network to get the lowdown.
All that extra downloading could fill your hard drive pretty quickly, and you might not be able to take full advantage if your computer is chugging to keep up. Check out Do You Need a Memory Upgrade? to troubleshoot those speed issues.
On the plus side, grabbing your favorite music (legally, of course, through iTunes or sources like WFMU’s Beware of the Blog) will make it easier than ever to fill up your MP3 player. Prices have come down again, making this a great small luxury gift for a challenging economic climate. If there’s an MP3 player on your holiday list, check out How to Choose an MP3 Player before you buy. A Digital Voice Recorder makes a practical gift for the business set that also won’t break your holiday budget.
Along with all this extra Internet speed comes a sound caution; if you’re involved in Web site building, either professionally or for yourself, don’t clog up the page with oversized images and embedded videos, especially if they’re hosted on third-party services. Yes, all this newfound download speed theoretically means that the Web supports larger files, but in practice you’ve got to consider the demands that Web traffic puts on a server.
Extra speed is great if you’re the only person downloading a file. It doesn’t help when 1,000 people show up to get it. Comcast’s 5-minute movie download claim may hold true in the lab, but I’d expect the actual speeds to be a lot lower unless you’re downloading at 4 AM.
Tags: internet
