How Much Speed On Your Home Internet Do You Really Need?

[i'vegotwinners]

the question refers to today, not someday in the future when you might or might not get all your cable channels via IP, which is a whole nother discussion?


i realize that i'm an old fart who doesn't have Netflix etc, and i don't download anything. (not post the original Napster, and that computer is long gone).

that said, i do watch a lot of You Tube, and occasionally watch streaming video on one of the network sites.

but 3 meg seems to be more than enough to handle that with no problem, and 6 meg is easily more than enough.

if someone's a gamer, i understand the need for speed there.

but if not a gamer, how much speed does one really need?

for the Netflix, Hulu, etc, guys, how much speed do you really need for that? (do you stream or download)?


i see ridiculous speeds being offered by the providers. (and mine continually tries to force me into way higher speeds than i ever need.

other than gamers, do most people have any need what so ever for those kinds of speeds?

 

[RU848789]

Is this a serious post? You do know the #1 use for the internet, don't you?

 

[RUinCANADA]

25mb line is acceptable for a 4 person household.

However, if you have "cut the cord", I wouldn't want anything less than 50 and would prefer 100mb+. We use 250mb just because we have auto downloads with Kodi for shows though.

 

[PSU_Nut]

I would say 25+ is good. What is becoming more of a bottleneck in many homes is a poor wireless router. Don't rely on a built in junk wireless gateway that internet companies provide you. Invest in a good top of the line router.

 

[Knight Shift]

At our vacation house in Arizona, there is no fiber optics. Cable company is horrible. We use a 3 Mb/s DSL line. We stream our TV from NJ and use Amazon Fire and Roku without any issues. I stream radio stations while my kids watch youtube videos without any issues. If you are an old fart as you say and only have 1 or 2 people using the internet, you may be able to get by with the lowest available bandwidth or DSL if that is even offered any more.

 

[Upstream]

If you are satisfied with the speed of your internet, it is fast enough. If you often find yourself wishing you had faster internet, or you are often frustrated by waiting for stuff to stream, upload, or download, then you probably need faster internet.

 

[iReC89]

Start at the smallest rate available. If you have problems streaming video, you can usually bump it up with a phone call. The data pipe they are installing is already big enough to serve a neighborhood, and they can electronically change how much of that capacity(bandwidth) you have access to. They call it speed, but that is only indirectly accurate. What they are really selling is bandwidth. Youtube can be watched at a variety of quality levels. if you are just watching a small box on your pc you are fine with less. If you are watching youtube on a big TV and want the best available quality, you might want at least 6. Look for bundles. With Comcast for example, for $10 more then the cost of 3, you can get 25 and a bundled phone service.

DSL is getting a little long of tooth, if only because you can get more for less with bundled phone/date service from a cable provider. But, it you are committed to a copper phone line, and DSL is available at high speeds on your specific lines, then yes, DSL can save you money and reliably get the job done. The wonky thing about it is that the bandwidth available depends on the quality of your specific copper path between you and the local central office, so they can't commit to anything until they install it and see what it does.