It's all about if the bandwidth is there to use. I'm sure every youtube caching server has a connection which exceeds 4Mb/s. How does a faster connection help? It allows the video to fill the buffer faster. Allowing for smoother playback on less bandwidth consistent circuits. Do you need it really if your video source is under 4Mb/s? In a perfect scenario, No. Now, That's youtube. Using Netflix as an example. I can start streaming a movie. And it'll pull 50-60Mb/s for about 20 seconds, And it's playing HD quality almost immediately. Where on a slower connection it may not switch to HD until its filled its buffer more. Nick Olsen Network Operations (855) FLSPEED x106 ---------------------------------------- From: "Glen Kent" <glen.kent@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, November 19, 2012 10:04 AM To: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: 25Mbps vs 4 Mbps Hi, The service provider(s) pipe that takes all web traffic from my laptop to the central servers (assume youtube) remain same whether i take a 4Mbps or a 25Mbps connection from my service provider. This means that the internet connection that i take from my service provider only affects the last mile -- from my home network to my service providers first access router. Given this, would one really see a 6 times improvement in a 25Mbps connection over a 4Mbps connection? I assume that the service providers rate limit the traffic much more aggressively in a 4Mbps connection. But this would only matter if the traffic from my youtube server is greater than 4Mbps, which i suspect would be the case. The question then is that how does going for a higher BW connection from the service provider help? Glen