That's simply wrong - at least for folks who do any work related stuff at home.
Consider: I've just edited a large sales presentation - say a PPT deck with some embedded video, totaling maybe 250MB (2gbit) - and I want to upload that to the company server. And let's say I want to do that 5 times during 12 >hour day (it's crunch time, we're doing lots of edits).
BUSINESS CLASS SERVICE - You can get it but you have to pay for it. Also, not the average user's case. I know this. My support line does not ring with many (hardly any) people complaining about upload speed. Get over it, it is a provable fact. Is any service provider on here seeing this?
On average, we're talking 20gbit/12 hours, or a shade under 500kbps, if we're talking averages. On the other hand, if I try to push a 2gbit file through a 500kbps pipe, it's going to take 4000 seconds (67 minutes) -- that's rather painful, and inserts a LOT of delay in the process of getting reviews, comments, and doing the next round of edits.
On the other hand, at 50mbps it takes only 40 seconds - annoying, but acceptable, and at a gig, it only takes 2 seconds.
Peak, average, whatever. Your local loop does not care. It does not have a "burst speed", it has a maximum transfer rate limited by the physics and electronics attached to it. You might want it to go faster and as a service provider I wish it would go faster because I would love to have lots of free bandwidth to sell you. If you want 50 mbps or 1 gbps on your ADSL circuit I can't help you at all. In fact, no one can because IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TODAY. If you want gig Ethernet service at home break out your checkbook (and a shovel).
So, tell me, with a straight face, that "what matters is average transfer rate to the user experience."
Miles Fidelman
Straight face on- The user cares if his average data rate meets his needs more than he cares if he has a high upload speed the once a month he needs that. If your bottom line argument is that you need more bandwidth for less cost, then welcome to everyone else's world. Steven Naslund Chicago IL