Minimum internet speed you'd want?
Discussion
Maybe crossover thread with the Homes section as it relates to a house purchase, but I'm posting here for maybe more technical discussion.
We currently have Virgin fibre, I believe it's 500mbps. There were some odd teething issues a while ago but I have to say it's generally faultless, I WFM through Covid and still do 2-3 days per week, I game online, we stream several devices at a time including 4K and never have any drops.
But we're looking at moving and the majority of the potential locations have <75mbps available. I'm wondering in real terms how much worse this will be..
Are there any accurate ways of calculating how much bandwidth is used under load, for example if person A is gaming online, person B is streaming 4K Netflix and person C watching YouTube..?
I can't imagine we ever really use all of our supposed 500mbps but I think knowing that sufficient bandwidth is available helps and it certainly seems to cope with our level of use..
We're seeing some great houses but they only seem to have basic (although still labelled as 'superfast') sub-75mbps, which I believe is BT but contracts can be bought through other providers?
Some of the properties also offer ~150mbps via Three, which I assume is mobile broadband? The higher speed is promising but my gut says it may have latency issues?
We currently have Virgin fibre, I believe it's 500mbps. There were some odd teething issues a while ago but I have to say it's generally faultless, I WFM through Covid and still do 2-3 days per week, I game online, we stream several devices at a time including 4K and never have any drops.
But we're looking at moving and the majority of the potential locations have <75mbps available. I'm wondering in real terms how much worse this will be..
Are there any accurate ways of calculating how much bandwidth is used under load, for example if person A is gaming online, person B is streaming 4K Netflix and person C watching YouTube..?
I can't imagine we ever really use all of our supposed 500mbps but I think knowing that sufficient bandwidth is available helps and it certainly seems to cope with our level of use..
We're seeing some great houses but they only seem to have basic (although still labelled as 'superfast') sub-75mbps, which I believe is BT but contracts can be bought through other providers?
Some of the properties also offer ~150mbps via Three, which I assume is mobile broadband? The higher speed is promising but my gut says it may have latency issues?
When I lived in London, I had Virgin Broadband which gave me 200mb download and 12mb upload speeds. It was fast but dear Lord it was unreliable, although that was in a large Victorian with many rooms but I had so many drop outs despite the router being about 10 feet from my room.
I now live in a small village just outside of Durham and I am now with EE and I always seem to get about 73mb download and 23-25 upload speed and I have noticed no difference in the download speeds. I've had no issues with EE at all so far.
For me, 73mb is more than enough but then again, I have downgraded to a one bed flat.
I now live in a small village just outside of Durham and I am now with EE and I always seem to get about 73mb download and 23-25 upload speed and I have noticed no difference in the download speeds. I've had no issues with EE at all so far.
For me, 73mb is more than enough but then again, I have downgraded to a one bed flat.
Motorman74 said:
Gaming, you need low latency rather than massive bandwidth (although downloading games/updates, especially on XBox seems to max out my gigafast connection which is handy)
Netflix doesn't use a HUGE amount of bandwidth for 4K - roughly 25Mbps, Youtube probably less.
That seems to be compromise, mobile seems to offer higher download speeds but the high latency I think could be an issue for games..Netflix doesn't use a HUGE amount of bandwidth for 4K - roughly 25Mbps, Youtube probably less.
And yeah the updates can be ridiculous... I keep a pretty large library of games on PC and even minor updates when you open up Steam can be hundreds of MBs, even the launchers / clients themselves seem to update every other week...
I suppose it does come down to reliability / consistency too... When we first had Virgin it was supposed to be about 300mbps but constantly dropped out and their WiFi was useless... Now it's very consistent (touch wood).
Maybe ~75 would be enough but it would need to be reliable, bearing in mind they tend to state 'average' download speeds, meaning it could drop significantly during busy times depending on the local setup / demand...
My O/H works form home. I browse the internet a lot during the day.
We have 6M up and 46M down.
Apart from those big downloads (and occasional big uploads) this is more than adequate, including streaming in HD.
You really don't need as much bandwidth as some broadband providers would have you believe...
This is a bandwidth stat for my switch which is connected to my router, while the O/H is currently on a teams call.
And then last night while watching HD content on iPlayer.
We have 6M up and 46M down.
Apart from those big downloads (and occasional big uploads) this is more than adequate, including streaming in HD.
You really don't need as much bandwidth as some broadband providers would have you believe...
This is a bandwidth stat for my switch which is connected to my router, while the O/H is currently on a teams call.
And then last night while watching HD content on iPlayer.
Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 1st August 11:56
TonyRPH said:
You really don't need as much bandwidth as some broadband providers would have you believe...
Agree. Until recently we were getting 30mb download which was absolutely fine for streaming 4k and 2 teenage sons gaming. The only drawback was some days it seemed to drop to lower speeds.Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 1st August 11:56
Recently upgraded to fibre only because it costs the same as the old slower broadband. We now get 150mb down and annoyingly my family hardly noticed the change other than when a new xbox game came out and it downloaded 5 times faster.
I'm really impressed when I speedtest the new line it's always 150mb.
Out in the damp corner of Devon, we're usually getting anything between 8 and 30Mb/s, according to Fast.com.
When it rains a lot and the tourists overload the system, it can go lower still.
We don't notice 'internet problems' until it drops below 7 or 8 Mb/s, Iplayer and all those things work fine.
I'm sure a lot of households might want 8 or more Mb/s 'per person'.
I'm also pretty sure the Fast.com score is not the whole story, some people get much higher scores but more trouble with their telly buffering.
Also I changed phone recently and got a few SIMs to try out the different networks.
I can get 12Mb/s on EE 4G and I've got a few G of it to use in the next week or two.
When it rains a lot and the tourists overload the system, it can go lower still.
We don't notice 'internet problems' until it drops below 7 or 8 Mb/s, Iplayer and all those things work fine.
I'm sure a lot of households might want 8 or more Mb/s 'per person'.
I'm also pretty sure the Fast.com score is not the whole story, some people get much higher scores but more trouble with their telly buffering.
Also I changed phone recently and got a few SIMs to try out the different networks.
I can get 12Mb/s on EE 4G and I've got a few G of it to use in the next week or two.
2 adults - 24Mb down, 3 up, me gaming in the evenings , her watching TV (rarely 4k, but sometimes) or browsing. Me watching YT vids, her browsing.
Only time we ever have to change our behaviour is if watching iPlayer 4k stream - I can't watch YT or the TV gets the spinning wheel. I cna' still work fine though.
Only time we ever have to change our behaviour is if watching iPlayer 4k stream - I can't watch YT or the TV gets the spinning wheel. I cna' still work fine though.
36 Mbps down, 9 up here.
No issue, with loads of WFH, high resolution streaming and 'high quality' Spotify for a family of 2 adults and 1 teenager (who uses Xbox and is not complaining about speeds except when downloading updates/new games, which you can really do during the night imho).
Also, a lot of our data (e.g. pictures etc) is in the cloud
While I consider myself a geek, I can't see the need for anything more at this point in time.
No issue, with loads of WFH, high resolution streaming and 'high quality' Spotify for a family of 2 adults and 1 teenager (who uses Xbox and is not complaining about speeds except when downloading updates/new games, which you can really do during the night imho).
Also, a lot of our data (e.g. pictures etc) is in the cloud
While I consider myself a geek, I can't see the need for anything more at this point in time.
Edited by Church of Noise on Wednesday 2nd August 06:38
I always think back to the day I went from a 56k modem at circa 25-30kbps to an adsl connection of .5Mbps (I think those speeds are correct).
Using Napster I could download an average song in 30 seconds, it was incredible!
I’ve always been grateful ever since, currently on BT Infinity2 (65Mbps) or whatever they call it now and it’s enough for 4 of us gaming, Netflix 4k, Spotify etc.
Using Napster I could download an average song in 30 seconds, it was incredible!
I’ve always been grateful ever since, currently on BT Infinity2 (65Mbps) or whatever they call it now and it’s enough for 4 of us gaming, Netflix 4k, Spotify etc.
I dropped my FTTP service from 900mb to the 120mb service and it’s normally around 130mb on wifi and 160mb cabled and it works great for teams and also the HD and 4K video conferencing that we use with AGT for certain clients plus with concurrent streaming / downloads / online gaming / security camera streams etc.
We had 2 people working from home using a 12mbps/1mbps ADSL connection for a bit. It wasn't always great, but it worked.
Used 4G broadband for a while longer. That was typically 80/10.
Now have FTTP giving 600/600.
The latter is overkill really, but the low latency is useful, and we have plenty of bandwidth head room.
Kept the 4G connection as a backup (if you work from home regularly, definitely consider backup options).
The numbers you're talking about should be OK, and not a reason not to buy a great house IMO.
Used 4G broadband for a while longer. That was typically 80/10.
Now have FTTP giving 600/600.
The latter is overkill really, but the low latency is useful, and we have plenty of bandwidth head room.
Kept the 4G connection as a backup (if you work from home regularly, definitely consider backup options).
The numbers you're talking about should be OK, and not a reason not to buy a great house IMO.
I moved to a village from a city where we have gigabit fibre, I was really worried that the 60Mb in the village would be crap, it isn't. I WFH, game have disney/netflix/prime/sky 5 computers, a couple of laptops and no problems at all.
Constantly downloading 20GB ISOs for work and no issues.
Constantly downloading 20GB ISOs for work and no issues.
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