"T o d d P a t t i s t" wrote in message
...
1) It wasn't clear to me whether 15 Mbps was the speed each
individual user would get, with a bigger pipe for the shared
main connection to the Internet or if that was the size of
the main connection.

Nor to me. No clarification has been offered, in spite of both of us
pointing out the ambiguity. However, based on the statement, which appeared
to link the bandwidth to the fiber optic cable used to provide the
connection, I think the more likely answer is that it's total bandwidth.

If each user is guaranteed 15Mbps symmetric, then the rates are a bargain.
No question about that. Somehow, I suspect that's not the case though. If
it were, surely the clarification would have been offered by now.

2) When I'm away from home, upload speed is much more
important to me.

When I'm away from home, I backup my data to portable media. It's cheap,
convenient, and reusable (whether a hard drive, rewritable DVD, flash-based
USB drive, or whatever). And I don't have to worry about connectivity
problems.

One of the most important away-from-home
functions is to send photos to home as my backup and/or to
family/friends so they'll envy my great vacation

Well, in this respect I am in Jay's camp. While I can think of reasons I
might like to have Internet access while on vacation, putting together photo
albums for my friends and family to see my pictures hot off the presses
isn't one of them. Even spending 15-30 minutes on such a project would be
time spent away from my vacation. They can wait until I get home.

But beyond that, unless the user is getting a dedicated 15Mbps upload speed,
it is likely that all users are going to get a fraction of that, since they
are all sharing. Their upload speed is likely to be similar to that
available on a cable modem or low-end DSL. Hardly something to be overjoyed
about.

Yes, I'd rather get 150Kbps upload than 15Kbps, but neither speed is fast
enough to make it practical to use for backup of large amounts of data.

[...] A second reason upload speed
is important to me is I may be in an awkward spot to leave
my computer/PDA attached, or I may have to run on battery
power. The faster it gets out, the better.

No disagreement there. More upload speed is always better. But at the
speeds we're likely to be talking about, it seems to me it's a difference
between "pretty slow" and "really slow".

Pete