One key driver is competition amongst sellers. Buyers always need the maximum rates. Other drivers are more traffic on the net in streaming video and other significant data use due to the increase. In wireless mobile video looks like the primary driver along with a want to increase subscriber capacity. This is as it keeps the business prosperous and active. And do’t forget: You cannot be too rich or too lean, and you can never have an excessive amount of speed or memory capacity.

What I frequently wonder is, how quickly can we really go? What’s the practical upper limit? If not, where are we now? What are the variables that restrict our ability to consistently create rate increases? Also, how quickly do we actually have to go?

Products and systems are in development to make 400 and 200 Gb/s. And 1 Terahertz is easily attained, but at a high cost. Even higher internet throughput is possible by paralleling 1 THz fibers. Do we want it? Significant web users and big data centres say yes.

Lower speeds are not more than useless. Google Fiber offers as does Verizon, 1 Gb/s to houses in some cities. Time Warner s in some places.

As for copper cable systems, 100 Gb/s is potential over quite short distances. In data centers, as copper wiring is nearly always more economical than fiber. For shorter ranges, copper is favored. The new G.fast systems may also provide up to 1 Gb/s in some places covered by DSL.

Radio is another report. The most recent Wifi standards get us nicely into the gigabit range. That’s quick, but the range is quite small (10 m).

Mobile data rates are so slow. Despite the most recent LTE upgrades, real data rates come nowhere near the one gigabyte number. The maximum possibility with LTE Advanced is 1 Gb/s under perfect states that virtually never happen. Data rates fluctuate extensively range, with local states, weather, sound, terrain, amount of users, and so forth. Single digit Mb/s speeds are not unusual. Significant video users always need more, although this is excellent for most mobile users. 1 Gb/s speeds that are actual wo’t be realized until 5G comes along in 2020 and beyond.

How much speed do we actually want? That depends on what you’re doing. For general email and web browsing, a few Mb/s is likely sufficient. You actually see a difference if you’re downloading or uploading large megabit or gigabit picture files. And you really can see the buffering on videos. I see 25 Mb/s consistently although I’ve never seen that speed. And I haven’t had a buffering issue with Netflix films.

With wireless service, the present speeds are likely not unsatisfactory to all but those crazies who desire to see video selfies and pictures on a 4-in. Display. Video and more pictures looks like the tendency yet, so higher data rates are needed. Higher data rates are needed to meet those millennials who need their immediate-gratification videos.

High data rates are more difficult to reach in wireless spectrum is rare and pricey and as tons of bandwidth is needed. You are going to continue to find steady data rate increases. I doubt that we want 100 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s speeds for our cell phones. And it’s also absurd to envision 1Tb/s, particularly in the short term.