Why very high speed internet?

[exodusing]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

[climber2020]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

[TomatoTomahto]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

I don't know that we "need" it, but Zoom and streaming are visibly affected when our Fios goes down and we rely on our Starlink backup. Starlink is not bad, but download speeds have fallen to 62Mb (and upload is more like 7Mb). So, in real life, I much prefer our Gigabit to a theoretically sufficient 62Mb.

[OpenMinded1]

My service is 20 or 25 Mbs. It works fine for streaming TV, two phones, and two laptops. We don't do any gaming. Seldom upload anything big. Zoom worked fine the few times I used it.

[TheHiker]

If the upload speed is capped or you are on a shared cable with neighbors or you are using WiFi then the high speed they advertise makes little to no difference.
I switch plans every couple years to get a lower rate. I cannot tell the difference.

[rich126]

Almost no one needs it but some think they do. In some cases prices or offers just push the 1GB package. Most of the time something like 200 Mb is plenty. You should be able to stream a 4K show (which most people don't even do) at 25 Mb/sec. So 200 would allow about 8 4K shows to stream at once.

Something like 10 Mb might be too slow if you have multiple people streaming stuff although std HD streams around 5 Mb/sec so 10 Mb/s might give you 2 streams at once.

Now if you are downloading a huge file that something like 10Mb/sec might be a bit painful but even if you have 1 Gb/sec that doesn't mean all of the routes between your computer and the host/server computer will be able to come close to 1Gb/s speed.

[White Coat Investor]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

Podcast interviews. That's our biggest need for the highest possible speed. Plug directly in too. Ever listened to a podcast with a delay between the host and guest? It's just as miserable to record it as listen to it.

[DSInvestor]

I have xfinity internet that used to be 100Mbps down and 6Mbps up. This was fine for most things. The limit on upstream bandwidth was a problem if anyone were to do a big file upload or cloud backup to consume the very limited upstream bandwidth. Xfinity recently upgraded me to 200Mbps down but kept the same the 6Mbps up. I would have preferred a bump in upstream bandwidth.

Some faster plans offer more upstream speed which may useful for some.

[chinchin]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

[quantAndHold]

I have 500, but it isn’t really about the 500. It was the slowest speed that would give me fiber to the home, which, around here, is more reliable and lower latency. It also has 500 up, and no data caps.

And it’s like $5/month more expensive than 300, and $10 more expensive than 100. At the time I signed up for it, I figured I would keep it until the promo they were offering expired, but it turned out to be better in some noticeable ways, the main one being that it just works, with out any lag or fuss.

When I’m on Zoom with someone, I can always tell how good their internet is. When the other side has fast internet, it’s a joy. When they don’t, it isn’t.

[the_wiki]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

My internet went from 100-300-500Mb/s for free. I have 6 people here that are all heavy internet users. I work from home. We didn't notice even a 1% difference day to day.

I have appreciated the speed when downloading large video games or for backing up to cloud storage. But unless you frequently move hundreds of gigabytes, waiting an extra 20 mins for a rare large transfer doesn't really matter.

I like having 500Mb, but I wouldn't pay extra for more than 100Mb.

[Chuckles960]

I agree that almost no one needs it. Stable 25Mb/s service is fine for most people. Web page response is determined by the weakest link, which is usually at the web server end. If you are using wifi, that is also a weak link (limiting factor for speed), especially if not in the same room as the router.

[hoofaman]

The maximum advertised throughput doesn't provide enough information to make a decision. In my experience I've seen advertisements only mention this value applying to "peak" download speeds, while upload speeds are severely throttled. Latency can also be a factor, even for non-gamers

Where I live, I can choose between Fiber and Cable internet. There is no comparison between the two, the Fiber is the better service

[Dottie57]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

I too get the cheapest - 200 mbps. Way more than I need.

[markcoop]

When I look around my house, I have a few things using internet: 2 TVs, 2 Alexa devices, 2 phones and 2 computers. Add to that when my children are home. How many are running simultaneously? No idea. How much do I need? No idea. I have 300.

[mrmass]

If 25 is good 300 must be better.

[onourway]

Having a lot of overhead makes a shared network a lot more reliable. Sure, most people don't use even anywhere near 50Mbps sustained, but a typical multi-user household is probably doing a lot of conferencing, gaming activities, etc. that are bandwidth light, but time sensitive. If other users/devices on the network are performing bandwidth heavy, time-insensitive activities (downloading updates, cloud sync, etc) you need one of two things, really good QOS on your router, and/or, a whole bunch of extra headroom. Most people don't have good QOS which is processor intensive and historically difficult to configure. It's much easier just to keep everyone's pipe a bit bigger than they really need in order to ensure a good user experience.

[palaheel]

The thing I noticed most when moving from cable to gigabit fiber was upload speeds. I sometimes make youtube videos, and the upload had to be babysat with cable. With fiber, uploads are so fast that I checked the first few so make sure that they really succeeded. And the monthly charge is roughly the same.

[arf1410]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

Podcast interviews. That's our biggest need for the highest possible speed. Plug directly in too. Ever listened to a podcast with a delay between the host and guest? It's just as miserable to record it as listen to it.

Aren't podcasts audio only? Can someone with more detailed knowledge than I explain this one? I would assume even the highest fidelity audio that exists would work fine on the slowest standard cable internet available. delays and internet speed are unrelated, aren't they?

[onourway]

Aren't podcasts audio only? Can someone with more detailed knowledge than I explain this one? I would assume even the highest fidelity audio that exists would work fine on the slowest standard cable internet available. delays and internet speed are unrelated, aren't they?

In an ideal world where the line is never busy, yes, they are largely unrelated. In the real world where many devices are sharing the medium, with no standardized way of prioritizing traffic, a small pipe can cause delays.

[samsoes]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

[the_wiki]

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed? The most bandwidth I see for typical use is 25Mbs for 4k video, so four simultaneous streams would only need a 100Mbs connection. Web browsing, social media, email, etc. only use a small amount of bandwidth. Gaming seems to require low latency more than bandwidth. I suppose some people regularly move massive files over the internet, but I'd think that would be rare.

Podcast interviews. That's our biggest need for the highest possible speed. Plug directly in too. Ever listened to a podcast with a delay between the host and guest? It's just as miserable to record it as listen to it.

Aren't podcasts audio only? Can someone with more detailed knowledge than I explain this one? I would assume even the highest fidelity audio that exists would work fine on the slowest standard cable internet available. delays and internet speed are unrelated, aren't they?

I assume they are talking about recording podcasts, so you would have multiple streams going in and out at once. And they probably want to record without compression as much as possible for the highest source quality, and 16 bit uncompressed WAV files are about 1.4Mbps and you'd maybe have a few running at once so you can chat.
But, yes you are right. Quality would be more important than excess speed. 50Mbit fiber would be better for this application than 500Mbit cellular hotspot for example.

[02nz]

If the upload speed is capped or you are on a shared cable with neighbors or you are using WiFi then the high speed they advertise makes little to no difference.

(Bolding mine) Wifi is not a bottleneck, or at least it doesn't need to be. Newer wifi standards can support close to 1Gbps or more, as fast as or faster than Ethernet.

[deikel]

As far as I am concerned, it's a scam:

The current push to bring fastest internet to the boonies is a way to subsidize the internet providers in rural areas - it's an absolute scam, a simply good internet would do it just fine - waste of tax payers dollars and no one even questions it.

I talked to my IT a long time ago asking on what awesome speed our company must be on, the answer was that we were on the equivalent of a dial up speed 56k - but the trick was in the management of the bandwidth and the prioritizing of activity - admittingly, that was pre zoom and Teams, times have changed.

Personally, I have a 15/5 plan from my provider. This plan is NOT publicly advertised, you have to tell them that you can not afford internet any other way and they give you this reduced speed (at a discounted rate). I have this since many many years now (they bumped me from 5/3) and it works for a three-person household, including the work from home period of the pandemic just fine.

There are only two occasions when I feel the need for speed - download of 4k videos and/or other very large files (backup data, recover files, game purchase and so on), watching of 4k streaming on large screen AND everyone else is doing other intensive stuff. I am not even sure if the WiFi is the bottleneck in those cases or the actual internet speed.

Other than that, I think people get scammed with high prices for not even needed bandwidth. My plan is 19.99/month. I would encourage anyone to try such a plan just to stop this bandwidth nonsense.

[chinchin]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

?

What are you saying? For reference, you can get up to 6000 Mbps at Xfinity. Maybe climber lives in a first world country that gets good internet.

[investnoob]

I have 1.5 gb/s (or Gb/s or GB/s?) download with 1 gb/s upload. I recently upgraded to this from 1g/b download.
I have a plan that provides unlimited usage.

I got it for downloading large files like video games. Video games these days clock in at over 100gb. I can download the whole game in around 10 minutes or less now.

It is really just for convenience.

I use about 500gb - 750gb of data every month. Some months will go over 1,000 gb.

Most of my data usage is for 4k video streaming. I don't really need 1.5gb/s but its nice to have for the times I want to download a large file.

edit: there are probably content creators that would really appreciate the extra speed (bandwidth?) especially if they are uploading large files.

[Triple digit golfer]

I have 200mbps download and 10 mbps download and I work from home. We often use 2 streaming services at a time. It's fine. I save large Excel files regularly at work and sometimes the really big ones take 30 seconds or so to save. No big deal.

[rob]

Vanity and marketing..... It's about latency & hops (and some other things) more than the "speed" sold by providers.

[Luckywon]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

?

What are you saying? For reference, you can get up to 6000 Mbps at Xfinity. Maybe climber lives in a first world country that gets good internet.

Not following this string at all.. could someone explain?

[quantAndHold]

I agree that almost no one needs it. Stable 25Mb/s service is fine for most people. Web page response is determined by the weakest link, which is usually at the web server end. If you are using wifi, that is also a weak link (limiting factor for speed), especially if not in the same room as the router.

Any wifi router purchased in the last decade is rated for at least 600Mbps, and can run laps around 25Mbps. The router that came with my modem could do 2Gbps actual, if I had 2 gigabits to put through the pipe.

[tibbitts]

I don't have a very high speed service, but I can imagine why I'd want much faster upload speed than I have, mostly for backing up data and images.

[onourway]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

?

What are you saying? For reference, you can get up to 6000 Mbps at Xfinity. Maybe climber lives in a first world country that gets good internet.

Not following this string at all.. could someone explain?

Most home Internet service tiers are sold in Megabits per second (300Mb) not MegaBytes per second (8bits in a byte). However most casual users do not realize the difference between the two and may write Mb and MB interchangeably .

[sofarsogood]

We use xfinity cable internet 80mb download/10mb upload. That is more than sufficient for video streaming, zoom, web browser, facetime, and onedrive backups.

[jayjayc]

I have 500 Mb/s internet. I don't need it but I like having it.

My provider gave me free upgraded speeds several times to stay competitive in my area. I'll always accept free upgrades.

[gavinsiu]

One use is off-site backup. If you have like 5 Tb of data, which a person can easily have, it might take a week to back it up over the internet even at fiber speed.

My wife sometimes has to upload large number of data to her work.

[Broken Man 1999]

When the grandsons are spending the night they sometimes are gaming, and other folks in the home are generally streaming a TV show or movie to watch before they fall asleep. Nice to not hear any whining. Truthfully we had no issues when we had Frontier FiOS 100 Mbps service.

We had 400 Mbps until this month, Spectrum upgraded us to Internet Ultra 500 Mbps, keeping the same $49.99 monthly charge.

I have had great internet service for many years, starting with Time Warner Road Runner, then Verizon/Frontier FiOS, and currently Spectrum. No complaints other than pricing with any of them. I'm good with my Spectrum internet rate until October of 2024. No contract but 3 year rate lock. If they attempt to jack up my rate I can easily move back to Frontier FiOS. Frontier has been trying to get me to move back ever since I left, spending for more effort to recapture us than they spent to keep us.

I often see Spectrum slammed, but since October 2021 our service has been fine. OTOH, our electric service has sucked. We have a lot of very short, but long enough to cause everything with a clock in it to need resetting. Easy enough to use a UPS for modem and wireless router to avoid an outage, thankfully.

Broken Man 1999

[FarmWife]

It isn't always for a single activity needing speed (although gamers love it, the more the better for downloading multiple Gig size files), but with the "internet of things" houses can easily have 20-30 devices or more all connecting to the internet at some point. Having 500Meg means they can all freely do what they want without lag time. I have a gig and LOVE it. When the kids move out I will probably drop to 250-300Meg.

[quantAndHold]

The current push to bring fastest internet to the boonies is a way to subsidize the internet providers in rural areas - it's an absolute scam, a simply good internet would do it just fine - waste of tax payers dollars and no one even questions it.

My cousin’s kid is from a small town in the Midwest, and was a sophomore at a large land-grant university in his home state when COVID hit and everyone got sent home. He, and plenty of other kids from the rural areas, had to rent apartments and stay in the college town even though the school was closed, because the towns they came from didn’t have robust enough internet to do a simple Zoom class.

Maybe they don’t need the “fastest” internet, but the world has gone digital, they need better than they have, and it’s probably cheaper to install the latest tech than something that’s a few years old.

[Silverado]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

?

What are you saying? For reference, you can get up to 6000 Mbps at Xfinity. Maybe climber lives in a first world country that gets good internet.

Not following this string at all.. could someone explain?

bits vs Bytes. Eight to one ratio.

Edited to make case clearer…

[billaster]

Zoom only requires 3.8 Mb/s bandwidth for group video with 1080p high definition. That's really low required bandwidth for high quality. If you are having delay problems, that is a latency issue, not bandwidth. You certainly don't need hundreds of Mbs.

[samsoes]

Nothing.

The cheapest option I have for internet is 300 MB. Nothing I do requires that speed, but it's the slowest one that they offer, so that's what I use.

300 MB/s is 2400 Mb/s, that's amazing.

Come on. You know what climber2020 meant.

?

What are you saying? For reference, you can get up to 6000 Mbps at Xfinity. Maybe climber lives in a first world country that gets good internet.

Not following this string at all.. could someone explain?

Climber inadvertently stated 300MB/s, with a capital B, which signifies bytes. Internet speed is quoted in Mb/s, lower case b, meaning bits. There are 8 bits in a byte, typically. 300Mb/s is more in line with home internet speeds. The original reply to climber's post seemed a bit snarky, multiplying 300x8 to get 2400Mb/s, when 300Mb/s was obviously intended.

[armeliusc]

Putting aside money consideration, most people don't need anything over 300 Mbps (assuming symmetrical up/down bandwidth). But most people don't know that they don't need it. Most would only assume faster / more == better. Most home network is not even capable of gigabit internet. Yet people sign up for it.

Also, most conflate bandwidth with latency. Delay is usually due to mostly latency issue (provided you have enough bandwidth).

An anecdote: a neighbor I have keep switching and upgrading internet provider, going all the way up to fiber with more than 1Gbps and continually complaining about "slow internet" in their home and not getting the advertised speed. During some random conversations we had, I understand that their whole house is served by a single router in the garage. And the internet speed was tested by a cellphone wifi.

Another anecdote: my house is completely wired with Cat6. There's at least a drop in every room. I also have Mesh WiFi with Ethernet backhaul. What I can plug in, I plug into the ethernet. Multiple Nest camera streaming (mostly upload), automatic backup of our NAS to a cloud provider, and multiple Zoom / Teams / Skype / etc video meeting, especially over the pandemic. I have "only" 300 Mpbs, I think it's the lowest speed I can get from the current provider with fiber (coincidentally, the same provider my neighbor keeps complaining about). I never have a "slow internet" problem.

[quantAndHold]

Zoom only requires 3.8 Mb/s bandwidth for group video with 1080p high definition. That's really low required bandwidth for high quality. If you are having delay problems, that is a latency issue, not bandwidth. You certainly don't need hundreds of Mbs.

3.8 is fine if you have nothing else happening on your network. A lot of low bandwidth internet service has really crippled upload speed, often less than 5 Mbps.

[deikel]

The current push to bring fastest internet to the boonies is a way to subsidize the internet providers in rural areas - it's an absolute scam, a simply good internet would do it just fine - waste of tax payers dollars and no one even questions it.

My cousin’s kid is from a small town in the Midwest, and was a sophomore at a large land-grant university in his home state when COVID hit and everyone got sent home. He, and plenty of other kids from the rural areas, had to rent apartments and stay in the college town even though the school was closed, because the towns they came from didn’t have robust enough internet to do a simple Zoom class.

Maybe they don’t need the “fastest” internet, but the world has gone digital, they need better than they have, and it’s probably cheaper to install the latest tech than something that’s a few years old.

Do they have cable TV (fast enough), do they have cell phone coverage (can be fast enough), do they have land line phone (depends) ? If they are really out in the country and have none of these, yes, maybe an issue, otherwise there would have been solutions - not sure what they did during COVID, zoom is not even particularly bad in terms of bandwidth hogging...

[fyrfyter8]

For me it was more for the data usage cap. I had an xfinity plan which capped data at 1.2 TB and bandwidth at 400 MPS; two people working form home using large files and I exceeded the data cap. Just switched to Centurylink gig fiber for less $ and no data cap.

[onourway]

Do they have cable TV (fast enough), do they have cell phone coverage (can be fast enough), do they have land line phone (depends) ? If they are really out in the country and have none of these, yes, maybe an issue, otherwise there would have been solutions - not sure what they did during COVID, zoom is not even particularly bad in terms of bandwidth hogging...

Within two hours drive of the most populous regions in North America millions of people still do not have reliable home internet today. No, they do not have cable, may barely have 1 bar of cell coverage if lucky, and land line DSL is often <10/1Mbps, and unreliable. Most (like 90%+) of the cost of providing home internet is in the installation costs of running the wire. No company in their right mind is installing anything but fiber for new installations today because the cost of the cable is essentially a rounding error. Once you have the fiber run, there is no reason not to offer 300Mb+.

[iceport]

If the upload speed is capped or you are on a shared cable with neighbors or you are using WiFi then the high speed they advertise makes little to no difference.

(Bolding mine) Wifi is not a bottleneck, or at least it doesn't need to be. Newer wifi standards can support close to 1Gbps or more, as fast as or faster than Ethernet.

Interesting. My experience has been different, in that the two-unit brand-new Eero Pro 6 mesh wifi in my house limits my 1 Gbs fiber service to 300-330 Mbs.

I recently went from ~0.8 Mbs DSL to 1 Gbs fiber, and was disappointed when I measured the service to find I was achieving only 300-330 Mbs. (The Eero Pro 6 system measures the speed to the gateway unit at ~ 945 Mbs download and upload.)

I first upgraded the cables between the ONT, router and Eero Pro 6. Then I re-positioned the Eero Pro 6s. No change. When I wired the connection to my PC, I get the full 1 Gbs (well, 945 Gbs) for both down- and uploads. Maybe there is a setting somewhere in the Eero Pro 6 that limits the connection speed, but I don't know of it.

So now I have the PC, TV and Roku Ultra all hard wired. And I accept that anything connected wirelessly will experience slower speeds than my wired PC connection.

Unfortunately, even the Roku Ultra unit cannot use the speed available. When I check the (wired) connection on the Roku system, it always comes up the same: 93 Mbs. So my guess is that even the brand-new Roku Ultra wired connection is limited to <100 Mbs.

For those who have high speed internet, such as 500Mbs or gigabyte, what do you do that requires such speed?

I don't really have a need, but I'm really enjoying the piece of mind. Living with 0.8 Mbs was becoming ornery. I'd always have my network monitor up on the PC and laptop, trying to track down where I might be leaking bandwidth. I'd have to shut down everything, even the phone, just to get an intermittently stable connection for video. Now I can keep everything running, and even download huge files without the slightest hiccup anywhere.

The best part? The 1 Gbs fiber service costs me less than the 0.8 Mbs DSL service for the first 3 years. After that, it goes up to around $10/month more than the miserably obsolete DSL connection.

[Luckywon]

Not following this string at all.. could someone explain?

Climber inadvertently stated 300MB/s, with a capital B, which signifies bytes. Internet speed is quoted in Mb/s, lower case b, meaning bits. There are 8 bits in a byte, typically. 300Mb/s is more in line with home internet speeds. The original reply to climber's post seemed a bit snarky, multiplying 300x8 to get 2400Mb/s, when 300Mb/s was obviously intended.

bits vs Bytes. Eight to one ratio.
Edited to make case clearer…

Most home Internet service tiers are sold in Megabits per second (300Mb) not MegaBytes per second (8bits in a byte). However most casual users do not realize the difference between the two and may write Mb and MB interchangeably .

Appreciate the clarification, and that is interesting about the different speed units.

[dtscript]

Some digital videogames these days can run up to 100 GB or larger in size. At 100Mbps, 100GB takes over 2 hours to download. If you've got a subscription service like Xbox Gamepass and are downloading many games, the high speed may be worth it.

[rockstar]

By me you have to pay for 1Gbps down to get 35Mbps up. You have to pay for more down to get above 10Mbps up. It’s the upload speed that I can’t get without upgrading to faster down than I need.

My down use case is roughly 60Mbps down. Now, huge game updates benefit from faster down speeds. For example, the patch for Witcher III was 50GB. But for streaming on multiple devices, I don’t need more than 60Mbps.