As we enter 2025 we thought it may be fun to take a look at “The evolution of internet bandwidth and typical end user computing technology” over the past quarter of a century.
Please bear in mind that different industries and sizes of organisations will have different use cases so this is simply a generalisation.
We remember home users disconnecting bell wires from phone sockets to get an extra few Kbs of usable bandwidth and schools and businesses adopting 10Mbps ethernet leased lines after the 21CN rollout and wondering if they would ever need so much bandwidth…. How things have progressed.
The better tech becomes, the more we find to be able to utilise the connectivity we have. And things are changing at an exponential rate.
Lockdown also played a part in businesses and consumers adopting virtual meeting applications such as Teams, Webex, and Zoom which caused many home broadband connections to creak as the entire world tried to work remotely, and businesses had to rethink their digital strategies to be able to route calls and workload to people.
That said, hybrid working is here to stay and if we want things to work properly moving forward consideration should be given to connectivity at work and at home.
Let’s dive in…
Turn of the Century
(2000)
- Typical PC: Pentium III 800MHz, 256MB RAM, 20GB HDD
- Typical Mac: PowerPC G4 450MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD
- Internet: 56kbps to 128kbps dial-up
- Mobile: 2G networks with speeds up to 64kbps
2005
- Typical PC: Pentium 4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD
- Typical Mac: PowerPC G5 2GHz, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD
- Internet: ADSL speeds up to 8Mbps
- Mobile: 3G networks with speeds up to 2Mbps
- SMEs: 2Mbps or very expensive 34Mb / 155Mb / 622Mb leased lines
2010
- Typical PC: Intel Core i7 2.93GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD
- Typical Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD
- Internet: UK average 5.2Mbps
- Mobile: 4G networks emerging, theoretical speeds up to 100Mbps
- SMEs: 21CN means more cost effective Ethernet Access Direct DIA 10Mbps, 100Mbps
2015
- Typical PC: Intel Core i7-4790K 4GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
- Typical Mac: Intel Core i5 3.3GHz, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD
- Internet: FTTC offering 40Mbps or 80Mbps
- Mobile: 4G LTE with real-world speeds 5-100Mbps, latency 30-50ms
- SMEs: 100Mbps – 500Mb port speeds on 1Gb Ethernet DIA pretty standard
- Enterprise and guest WiFi also driving need for more bandwidth
2020
- Typical PC: Intel Core i9-10900K 3.7GHz, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD
- Typical Mac: Apple M1 chip, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
- Internet: UK median 50.4Mbps, mean 79.1Mbps
- Mobile: 5G rollout begins, speeds 50Mbps-2Gbps, latency as low as 1ms
- SMEs: 1Gbps Ethernet DIA relatively standard for medium-sized organisations
2025 (Present)
- Typical PC: Intel Core i9-14900K 3.2GHz, 64GB DDR5 RAM, 2TB NVMe SSD
- Typical Mac: Apple M4 chip, 32GB unified memory, 1TB SSD
- Internet: Gigabit broadband widely available
- Mobile: 5G peak speeds up to 20Gbps, real-world 100Mbps-3Gbps
- SMEs: 1-10Gbps connections available for data-intensive operations
5G Impact and Future Outlook
- 5G offers significant speeds, low latency, and big capacity
- Real-world 5G speeds vary from 50Mbps to over 3Gbps for downloads
- 5G enables new applications like AR/VR, IoT, and autonomous vehicles
- Hybrid work models becoming the norm, driving need for robust connectivity
- Businesses adapt to leverage big fibre and 5G capabilities and prepare for increased bandwidth demands
Are you ready for what’s coming? Single service or resilient options. Contended vs un contended. Internet vs private network, SDWAN vs MPLS… there is a lot to think about.
Has your business had a connectivity review lately? Want to know what update or upgrade options you can take advantage of?
Arrange a free chat with HM Network to discuss how you can future-proof your business for the evolving digital landscape – whatever type of connectivity you may need