So what do I really get and how much does it cost?

Typical download speeds at SoNo West have been measured at between 9 and 90 Mb/s in an end residential unit. In most units, it
tends to typically be about 12 to 40 Mb/s most of the time. The most common value would be about 28 Mb/s. Upload speeds at SoNo are about half this amount. Download speeds at SoNo lower than 7 or higher than 95 are exceedingly rare. Download speeds at Adler, straight out of the wall, tend to be about 25 to 35 Mb/s with upload about 20% faster than download at this site.

SoNo prices are in the mid 20$ range per unit per month. Adler pays in the mid teens. Exact prices for a new building will depend on a building’s location, size,  and infrastructure. Expect users to pay between ~$15 and just below about ~$30 per month for similar services.

It is worth noting that the larger the building, the better the economy of scale. A very large building (exceeding, say, 350 units) will very probably have an end user cost significantly below $18 per month for individual units.

What kinds of speeds are “good”? For an exhaustive list of needs and capabilities see this document.

  • Download speeds of 3 to 4 Mb/s will allow you to stream movies seamlessly.
  • Download speeds of 11 Mb/s will permit streaming of high definition 3-D movies.

Online shopping doesn’t need anything even remotely approaching these values. Nobody but a network center or a major web hosting site needs upload speeds over 1 Mb/s.

Let me tell you a secret: unless you have very fancy equipment indeed or you work from home regularly transporting humongous files around, for residential purposes, anything above 25 Mb/s is “almost infinity”.  Once you get above that line, reliability is the principle concern. A reliable fiber connection from a commercial provider is a huge advantage.