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

Most buildings can expect to pay less than $30 per unit per month. Marlborough, for example, pays about $21 per unit per month. Wired upload and download speeds will primarily depend on how fat a pipeline a building buys and how many residents are logged in at once. With a symmetric upload/download connection at 250 MBPS and about 100 units, end users could expect top speeds just over 100 MBPS. Notice, it’s pretty HARD to actually USE 100. It’s nice when the speedtest gives you that result, but even streaming a couple movies at once and 2 online shopping sessions and a game on the side should keep you below 50.

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.