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Comment by speleding | Hacker News Reader

QoS in your router is only interesting if bandwidth is constrained in your last mile, otherwise it just adds complexity. I would think that QoS in home routers is only a transitional technology for the next few years while not everyone has a large enough pipe yet.

Can you imagine your electricity or water outlet at home being constrained like bandwidth is? Those issues were solved a century ago, they'll get fixed for bandwidth too within our lifetime.

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I doubt water usage per capita has changed drastically in the last 20 years. Sure, there were drops from low flow toilets, low flow shower heads, and HE washing machines, and I'm sure there's some variability to usage based on seasonal variance from year to year, but the average US household uses about 350 gallons a day. I don't have access to historical data, but I'd wager that it hasn't changed more than 25% in the last decade or two.

Power has remained relatively constant at about 1.3MWh per capita. In the last thirty years, it has grown only 300KWh.

Internet bandwidth, on the other hand, went from 9.6-14.4kbit/s modems in fax machines in the 80s to 28.8-56.6kbit/s modems in the 90s to the megabit/s range in the 00s to the 15-100Mbps you can get in a residence today.

If the bandwidth issue is to get solved, the growth in consumption will need to peak.

Of course you have access to historical data; you're on the Internet!

And you're right - it's estimated to have dropped 13-15% in the past 30 years.

http://www.awwa.org/files/Resources/Waterwiser/JAW0211rockaw...

Your comparing the last few decades of internet use with the last few decades of water use, a fairer comparison would be the first few decades of water use with the the first few decades of internet use.

More relevant to the point though, would be to compare it with the growth in internet usage a decade or two from now: as technologies mature it would would seem reasonable to expect that the growth tails off and QoS on the internet last mile will become just as useful as QoS on water pipes.

I can imagine, since my electricity outlet at home is constrained like bandwidth. We pay a fixed monthly fee that is proportional to the load capacity, so choosing a lower value and watching what I use saves me money.

In any case, I'm not sure if we'll ever have a large enough pipe for everyone; our current pipes are more than enough for our needs five years ago, but our needs grew, and will in the future.

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