Maybe that's where you live, but on the other half of the developed world we're starting to see 100/200mbit FTTH connections being pretty common in large and medium cities, with such affordable prices that "normal people" have them at home. So that's definitely a big change from the 10mbit DSL lines we had 5 years ago.
And the 50mbit domestic connections wasn't at all common 20 years ago (heck, we did have 33.6kbps dial-up and it cost a fortune). In fact, if you say that there haven't been large, fast changes in bandwidth terms then I'd invite you to revisit the following facts:
- Smartphones in every pocket, with people consuming 1-2 GB a month. This was unthinkable 7 years ago — and I vividly recall spending a ton of money because I used 1 GB of mobile internet.
- 4G in every corner — just a few years ago the top was the 384kbps UMTS
- FTTH and DOCSIS 3.0 ubiquitous, mainly to lowered costs for fiber equipment, GPON lowers the cost and tougher fiber cables that can easily be installed in houses
- Ten-fold growth in internet provides bandwidth… or more. For example, <10 years ago, OVH's network (one of the largest dedicated server providers in the world) was one of the largest at 300Gbps (I remember the party when they reached out that capacity!). Now they are at +3Tbps and growing.
- 1080p and 4K increasingly common — and then a decade ago we were still buying CRT televisions, a far cry from the FHD and higher bitrate contents
I could keep going with the list… But the fact is: everywhere you look bandwidth is getting cheaper AND faster, same goes for consumer devices that profit said bandwidth (TVs, smartphones…) and that comes in hand with more, richer content.
And your post shows clearly why net neutrality is so important. All of what you describe is possible ONLY BECAUSE of competition that forces fair play, no data caps and sane prices.
Yes, peasant in Romania is able to get 1Gbit FTTH for 20 Euro in rural nowhere while at the same time hipster in downtown NY will be happy to get 30Mbit bundled with shitty cable at $150.
DOCSIS was standardized to operate at up to 38/9 Mbps in 1997. That's not quite 50Mbit 20 years ago, but it does show that almost all of the perceived advancement in broadband isn't from technological progress, just wider deployment of existing capabilities.
Current cable modems can negotiate with the CMTS to determine which of several channels to use for communication, even when channel bonding is not in use. This means different customers can be communicating on different channels if the CMTS has sufficient resources. Are you saying that this was not possible with DOCSIS 1.0? Obviously it is more common for channels to be shared than for each customer to get dedicated channels, but I don't think that is a technological limitation.
No, 38/9Mbps PER CHANNEL. Multiple customers may be on a single channel yes, but there is a fairly large number of available channels on modern QAM-based cable networks, and has been for some time. 3-5 DOCSIS channels would normally be sufficient back in 97 for the number of customers attached to each head-end.
And the 50mbit domestic connections wasn't at all common 20 years ago (heck, we did have 33.6kbps dial-up and it cost a fortune). In fact, if you say that there haven't been large, fast changes in bandwidth terms then I'd invite you to revisit the following facts:
- Smartphones in every pocket, with people consuming 1-2 GB a month. This was unthinkable 7 years ago — and I vividly recall spending a ton of money because I used 1 GB of mobile internet. - 4G in every corner — just a few years ago the top was the 384kbps UMTS - FTTH and DOCSIS 3.0 ubiquitous, mainly to lowered costs for fiber equipment, GPON lowers the cost and tougher fiber cables that can easily be installed in houses - Ten-fold growth in internet provides bandwidth… or more. For example, <10 years ago, OVH's network (one of the largest dedicated server providers in the world) was one of the largest at 300Gbps (I remember the party when they reached out that capacity!). Now they are at +3Tbps and growing. - 1080p and 4K increasingly common — and then a decade ago we were still buying CRT televisions, a far cry from the FHD and higher bitrate contents
I could keep going with the list… But the fact is: everywhere you look bandwidth is getting cheaper AND faster, same goes for consumer devices that profit said bandwidth (TVs, smartphones…) and that comes in hand with more, richer content.