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Nate Klauer hops online at his townhome near Beaverton. He's got one of the fastest home Internet connections in the area, but for now it's only a novelty: "Why do you sell cars that will go above 70 miles per hour in America? We don't have an autobahn. What are you really going to do with it?"

(Mike Rogoway/The Oregonian)

Nate Klauer doesn't need a gigabit.

He doesn't need those two old Linux PCs in his garage, either, or his 1986 Mac Plus. Or the old iBook in the stereo cabinet. Or his high-tech Nest home thermostat. Klauer doesn't even watch the flat-screen TV in the living room of the townhome near Beaverton he shares with a pair of basset hounds.

But Klauer, a 37-year-old web developer, tinkerer and – evidently – a collector of technology, has a faster home Internet connection than almost anyone. And that's the point.

"It's a novelty right now," he said. "Not that many people have it."

That's about to change.

CenturyLink is rolling out fiber-optic service in Portland neighborhoods, Frontier Communications has begun offering hyperfast gigabit Internet service in parts of Beaverton and Google Fiber is contemplating its own service in parts of the Portland area.

So Klauer's experience, using a home network built by a small company called Fibersphere Communications, offers a sneak peek at what changes when you've got the fastest Internet on the block.

The answer: Very little, at least for the time being.

"It's hard to use that much bandwidth," Klauer said. "As a single user, it's really difficult."

Gigabit speeds are 100 times faster than typical home broadband connections today. Until faster connections are broadly available companies have no incentive to develop services (immersive video games? "lifestreaming"?) to use those speedy connections. And until those services exist, there's little incentive to build those faster networks.

That doesn't mean the new fiber optics, and corresponding increases in web speeds and connection quality, won't change the way we use the web. But it does suggest those changes won't happen quickly.

"It's a chicken-and-the egg syndrome," Klauer said. "Maybe if there was enough gigabit fiber we would have 3-D video walls."

Video walls are one piece of technology that Klauer's home doesn't have. Here's what he can do with his gig:

Stream Netflix. Run his high-tech Nest home thermostat. Work remotely by connecting online to the Vancouver online retailer where he works.

Of course, none of that requires a gigabit connection.

And in fact, Klauer's computers rarely approach speeds that fast. His home wireless connection tops out around 100 megabits per second, 10 times faster than a typical home Internet connection but just 10 percent of a gig.

Nate Klauer can achieve considerable speed when he's using a hard-wired connection and downloading several files simultaneously. But usually, his speeds run around 100 megabits per second.

Speeds are limited by the wireless hardware he uses, among other factors. When Klauer really tests his connection, using a wired line and downloading material from several sites simultaneously, he can hit 700 to 800 megabits per second. That's about all his hard drive can handle.

Klauer is among the first in the Portland area with a gigabit connection at home by virtue of his position as secretary, and de-facto tech manager, for his homeowners association.

Developers wired Klauer's neighborhood with fiber when they built it a decade ago, and the neighborhood recently struck a deal with Fibersphere to use the old underground conduit for a modern network. Most residents were offered 100 mbps service, but Klauer negotiated a gig for himself.

As the neighborhood's network manager, Klauer can see how much bandwidth he and the homes around him are collectively using. Usage tops out around 10 p.m. – prime Netflix time – at roughly 350 megabits. (See correction below.)

So at its peak, the entire neighborhood, all 296 homes, uses just one-third of the bandwidth allocated for Klauer's townhome by itself.

If all 296 homes don't come close to maxing out a gigabit connection, obviously no one household would. Not yet.

But Klauer said he anticipates the Portland area's looming fiber wars will affect the region in other ways: "I think the competition is wonderful."

Competition could bring down prices, or at least create more options. Fibersphere charges residents in Klauer's homeowners association $25 a month for a 100 mbps connection, less than many Internet service providers charge for connections just 5 percent as fast.

Fibersphere offers lower rates – typically between $25 and $40 a month for fiber connections – because it signs up whole neighborhoods and apartment buildings, offering bulk pricing once it hits a critical mass of customers. Providers that serve more customers charge more for super-fast service, but they're also offering cheaper options at slower speeds.

Google, for example, would charge $70 a month for gigabit service. For those on a budget, though, it offers several years of free, 5 mbps service in exchange for a $300, one-time installation fee.

At the moment, gigabit demand is sparse. Fibersphere has just a few dozen gigabit customers out of its 5,500 residential subscribers.

Most homes don't even have the networking hardware to handle the top-end speeds, according to Sam Sanders, Fibersphere's community technical liaison.

"For most people, unless they really want a gig I try to steer them toward 100" mbps, Sanders said.

With Internet providers ramping up speeds, though, and new services such as Netflix's ultra-HD streaming option emerging, Sanders said the time is coming when homes will have a use for faster speeds – and companies like his will have the capacity to deliver it.

"When you create a playground for people to play on, which is what this is, they'll respond creatively," Sanders said. "I think the future will be pretty cool."

Correction: A prior version of this article incorrectly referred to 350 megabytes of capacity in Klauer's neighborhood. It should have been 350 megabits. Megabytes are a measure of storage; megabits measure speed.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699