Dong’s incredible wealth of home networking gear on his site Dong Knows Tech has helped me many times figure out the right gear for the right price point. His updated experience guide on 10Gbps internet in the Bay Area reveals a solid point: 10Gbps is marketing, it’s more like 8Gbps and change:

Years ago, upon completing the installation, the Sonic technician did a test at the ONT with his special equipment, which showed around 8Gbps on download and upload speeds. Over the years, the number fluctuated, but the fastest I’ve gotten is in the screenshot below: around 8.5Gbps in both directions.

It’s worth noting that I got the results above when tested directly at the ONT. When tested via my main router with a switch in between, I generally get around 6Gbps at best. Again, more equipment means more overhead.

Here’s the thing, though: I simply stop caring. The truth of the matter is that 2.5Gbps, which is what I get most of the time using my work desktop, is already crazy fast. Anything above that is simply not noticeable.

He’s probably right, the diminishing returns are there (though, being able to download games faster on patch days for triple A titles is a nice bonus).

Fun fact: I once received an ISP letter because I used my “unlimited” bandwidth on my 1Gbps connection to upload and download about 12 terabytes for my backup.