WTF?! Do you think gigabit internet just isn't fast enough? How about 10 Gbps speeds, or even Google Fiber's 20 Gig? For those who want bragging rights for what is presumably the fastest residential internet in the US, one ISP is offering a 50 Gbps service. All it costs is $900 per month plus over $3,000 in equipment and installation charges.
The ridiculously fast and expensive 50 Gbps option comes from the Pacific Northwest-based ISP Ziply. Around one million people in the company's service areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana are eligible to receive the 50 Gig tier, writes PCMag.
In addition to paying $900 every month for the 50 Gbps internet, customers will need to supply their own router. But even higher-end products aren't going to cut it in this instance. Ziply recommends the MikroTik Cloud Core CCR2216-1G-12XS-2XQ router, which features 16 GB of RAM and costs $2,409 on Amazon. There's also a $600 installation fee to consider.
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– Ziply Fiber (@ZiplyFiber) November 1, 2023
There are a few caveats here, of course. Ziply itself warns that observable speeds will vary and they're not guaranteed. It's also noted that the speeds are shown for wired connections, and even those will likely struggle to hit the peak without extra equipment. However, the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 standard promises a maximum throughput of 46 Gbps.
Ziply's residential service is a whole lot faster than the 5 Gbps offered by AT&T and Frontier, Xfinity's 10 Gbps, and Google Fiber's recent trials of 20 Gig internet with Wi-Fi 7 routers. But few consumers need 50 Gig internet. Ziply's response is that the speed tier is a nod to the future, helping ensure the infrastructure can service communities for decades to come.
Ziply added that all its speed tiers are built on the company's 100 percent fiber, multi-hundred Gig network, managed around the clock to ensure no peak time slowdowns, lag, or buffering that can occur on other providers' networks.
If you live in Ziply's fiber area and would like the chance to win 50 Gbps internet without paying the monthly fee, the company has launched America's Fastest Home Internet Sweepstakes in which the winner will receive the service free for one year.