"more bandwidth means a faster connection"

lore

networkingISP & telecom

Bandwidth is lane count; latency is trip time. Past a modest threshold, page loads, calls, and games are ruled by latency and bufferbloat - which a bigger plan does not fix.

Jim Gettys' bufferbloat work showed oversized queues wrecking responsiveness on 'fast' lines; modern queue management (fq_codel, CAKE) fixes what upgrades cannot.

Disputed / commonly mistold A popular version of this story is inaccurate - see the note above.

Sources

  • Gettys & Nichols - Bufferbloat: Dark Buffers in the Internet, ACM Queue (2011)
  • bufferbloat.net project documentation

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