Poll: Your Internet Speed (Mbps down)?

[easysurfer]

I used to have the slowest speed like 3 Mbps. Now at 30 Mbps feels like the internet is flying . Fine for my needs.

 

[Midpack]

Sometimes bandwidth and speed are equivalent, sometimes not. Many people use the terms interchangeably, sometimes correct, sometimes not.

Difference Between Bandwidth and Speed | Difference Between

 

[braumeister]

Another consideration is that your wifi network is a separate system. Regardless of your internet speed, your wifi network will only give you the best speed available to your least capable device that is connected to it.

 

[target2019]

How does this work? If you are fine with 50, does going to 200 change anything that you will notice? I guess I’m trying to better understand the difference between speed and bandwidth. Don’t I get more bandwidth with more speed? I’ve streamed some 4K videos with my 30 service and it seemed to work fine.

If you are fine, then ok. Like you, I have 80? Not even sure what the basic speed is at this time.

If you have multiple you's, and you're getting interruptions, choppiness, etc., then you would pay for higher level package.

Bandwidth is provided by your devices internal to home network.

 

[RunningBum]

Just a few days ago I upgraded from 25Mbps to 100, and the price dropped from $79 to $44. Impossible? Well, it's amazing what competition will do. The electric co-op is running fiber, and will offer 100Mbps at $44, and 1G at $79. The cable company was set to offer 100 at over $100/month, but suddenly they found they could drop the price. They've done it preemptively before the fiber is available, I'm sure hoping people won't switch. I'll probably try the fiber and pick the better. My cable really isn't a little over 100Mbps so far, except over the holiday weekend when the resort was crowded and everyone was streaming movies and stuff in the evening, and it dropped to about 30. In ski season I'll bet it's worse, though they claimed they'll be adding more lines or whatever it takes to improve the capacity.

I went to an info session for the fiber. People asked about 100M vs 1G, and they said most wouldn't need 1G. A home business or a heavy gamer might want 1G. I could see the use for 1G if I was still telecommuting in my tech job.

11 years ago I was still on dial up here. I was thrilled when I could get 1.5 Mbps DSL. That was the real game changer for me. Higher speed is certainly nice, but the difference isn't as important.

 

[REWahoo]

I have 75 Mbps. It was 50, but when I started investigating my options I discovered they had raised the speed for the same price but had neglected to inform me. You have to stay on top of those [-]bastards[/-] fellows!

Anyway, 50 was more than I needed for surfing and streaming 1080p video, but since I could get the upgrade for no additional charge I did it.

Ditto here on the 50 that was upgraded to 75 at no additional charge ($62/mo with tax).

After living with miserably slow internet for 20+ years (less than 3 Mbps except between 2 and 4 AM during alternating full moons when the dew point was less than 40 degrees F), we finally got fiber the end of March. I could get a higher speed package but see no benefit other than added cost.

 

[RunningBum]

Another consideration is that your wifi network is a separate system. Regardless of your internet speed, your wifi network will only give you the best speed available to your least capable device that is connected to it.

What does that mean? I understand that wifi speed can degrade with distance and through walls. But why is it limited to my "least capable device that is connected to it"? If I have some old Roku box that isn't very fast, how would that affect my laptop?

I did find it worthwhile to upgrade my wifi. I got a combined Netgear Nighthawk cable modem/wifi router and I get the same 100Mbps on all 3 floors, with maybe 1-2% loss in places. I have one bathroom in a corner that only gets about 60. Maybe a combination of the distance, walls, and a full mirror.

 

[REWahoo]

The electric co-op is running fiber, and will offer 100Mbps at $44, and 1G at $79. T

Much better pricing than our co-op charges: 75 Mbps = $60, 150 = $80, 300 = $126, 1G = $150.

 

[braumeister]

What does that mean? I understand that wifi speed can degrade with distance and through walls. But why is it limited to my "least capable device that is connected to it"? If I have some old Roku box that isn't very fast, how would that affect my laptop?

It means what I said. Your wifi network will only put out the speed/throughput that your least capable device can handle.

If you have a brand new laptop that handles the current standard (802.11ac (but recently renamed to WiFi 5), that's all well and good.

But if you also have connected an older device that may have been built in 2010 or so, that can only handle 802.11n (now called WiFi 4), that is what your network will provide. Your newer device will be handicapped, in other words.

Disconnect that older device and your newer laptop will be served with the best it can handle.

 

[pb4uski]

^^^ Yes... when we went from 15 mbps DSL to 100 mbps cable internet last year, I had to upgrade my aged wi-fi router in order to get the 100 mbps speed.

It was obviously the wi-fi router because if I plugged into the modem with a LAN wire I got 100 mbps but could not get anywhere near that using wi-fi... got a new wi-fi router and all is 100 mbps or better.

 

[griffithee]

We have had AT&T 1G fiber for three years. I have yet to see 1000 download speed but very rarely see less than 600MB. I imagine if I used the ethernet connection I could see faster speeds but we are good with wifi clocking in for 600MB. This includes a macbook, two ipads, streaming tv, and two iphones pretty much downloading the preponderance of the day. We pay $95/mo and have had the same rate for the three years.

 

[mistermike40]

200 Mbps. Over the past few years we've gone from 50 to 75 to 100 to 150 to 200 with virtually no price increase.

When all the kids come home, sometimes there are six people tapping into the bandwidth. Plus, I telecommuted my last year at Megacorp... the speed and reliability were almost required.

 

[RunningBum]

It means what I said. Your wifi network will only put out the speed/throughput that your least capable device can handle.

If you have a brand new laptop that handles the current standard (802.11ac (but recently renamed to WiFi 5), that's all well and good.

But if you also have connected an older device that may have been built in 2010 or so, that can only handle 802.11n (now called WiFi 4), that is what your network will provide. Your newer device will be handicapped, in other words.

Disconnect that older device and your newer laptop will be served with the best it can handle.

That doesn't sound right, and it doesn't appear to be very true, though it's not totally false.

https://www.howtogeek.com/210062/ho...r-wi-fi-network-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Regarding whether an 802.11b device will drag everything else down:

Imagine all your Wi-Fi devices taking turns. When it’s the 802.11b device’s turn, it communicates slowly and every other device has to wait longer for it to finish talking to the router. But, when it’s a faster device’s turn to communicate with the router, it can still communicate just as quickly. There’s just a slowdown while the new devices twiddle their thumbs, waiting longer than normal for the 802.11b device to communicate with the router. In other words, this doesn’t mean the newer devices are slowed down to 802.11b speeds.

...


The solution is switching to 5 GHz Wi-Fi. You can get a modern 802.11ac router that uses 5 GHz Wi-Fi for 802.11ac and still offers 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi your older 802.11b/g/n devices can connect to. ... Those old 802.11b devices can’t connect to 5 GHz networks — only 2.4 GHz networks. That means all 5 GHz Wi-Fi will be unsullied by all those 802.11b devices.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Just did a speed test now. 15.72 DL With 3-5 devices connected. We stream everything and rarely have a problem.

 

[JDARNELL]

We are using a sprint hotspot. I have been using it for a year now in anticipation of being partial year nomads. Here is my speed test today. 74.8 MBS download and 26.5 MBS upload.

I have 10 devices connected.

 

[KenZ71]

Had Xfinity Gigabit for about 6 weeks. It tested at 900Mbps + on Fast.com & Speedtest.net

But no one in the house said anything like holy cow internet is flying. So I cut it back to 300Mbps & saved about $15 / month. Still no comments from wife or kids.

All our TV is from Amazon, kids on YouTube, xbox, etc.

 

[audreyh1]

Amazingly we are 50mbps now! And it's cheaper.

 

[RonBoyd]

I am paying for 50 mbps but scans vary from 33 to 52 (over several years). In any event, I am very broadband intensive (some times recording as many as 10 HD videos -- mostly TV shows -- at the same time. Not to mention the five computers in use all the time. I have never had a buffering problem. (My service is DSL -- CenturyLink --but I doubt that makes a difference.)

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I am stuck with AT&T 3Mbps service (usually measures ~2.5) as the best option.
Still, I can stream the major on-demand services like Netflix, Prime, Hulu and Acorn without much problem. Though Curiosity Stream buffers quite a bit.
There is a fiber optic line about a half mile down the road, so close yet so far away.

 

[bw5972]

Sometimes bandwidth and speed are equivalent, sometimes not. Many people use the terms interchangeably, sometimes correct, sometimes not.

Difference Between Bandwidth and Speed | Difference Between

I think in terms of a highways.

A two lane in each direction highway with a safe travel limit of 90 mph offers the same speed as a six lanes in each direction route. The second has 3x more bandwidth.

 

[RunningBum]

Question, if you were offered fiber at the same price or $5 more than cable at the same speed, would you switch? Or would you consider them pretty much the same and stay with what you have, if it seems reliable? Just wondering whether fiber is considered superior over cable, and why.

 

[Sunset]

Question, if you were offered fiber at the same price or $5 more than cable at the same speed, would you switch? Or would you consider them pretty much the same and stay with what you have, if it seems reliable? Just wondering whether fiber is considered superior over cable, and why.

Fiber is only considered better because it can support much faster speeds by changing the wavelength of light. It is no better if the speed is the same.

I'd go for the cheaper one at the same speed.

 

[REWahoo]

Question, if you were offered fiber at the same price or $5 more than cable at the same speed, would you switch? Or would you consider them pretty much the same and stay with what you have, if it seems reliable? Just wondering whether fiber is considered superior over cable, and why.

I don't have a clue as to the difference between the two, all I can speak to is my own experience. We got fiber two months ago and I have been amazed at the consistency and reliability of the service. Absolutely no degradation in download speed at any time, night or day, which is a dramatic improvement over any other service we've ever had.

 

[steelyman]

I don't have a clue as to the difference between the two, all I can speak to is my own experience. We got fiber two months ago and I have been amazed at the consistency and reliability of the service. Absolutely no degradation in download speed at any time, night or day, which is a dramatic improvement over any other service we've ever had.

That’s fantastic. And you get used to it REAL fast!

 

[Cobra9777]

Question, if you were offered fiber at the same price or $5 more than cable at the same speed, would you switch? Or would you consider them pretty much the same and stay with what you have, if it seems reliable? Just wondering whether fiber is considered superior over cable, and why.

I've had DSL, cable, and fiber. Obviously, the answer will vary based on individual ISPs in your area. But in my experience, fiber is by far the best, not even close. We get very low latency... 3-5ms pings on speedtest.net. The bandwidth performance is extremely stable... no variation in performance during peak usage times like in the evening. It's very reliable... in our town, cable is overhead on telephone poles whereas fiber is buried... thus less likely to be affected by weather and other events. We've only had 2 or 3 outages in 13 years. Fiber is usually "symmetrical"... upload bandwidth is same as download.

IMHO, if you have fiber available in your area (not many do), you should get it, even if it costs a bit more.

BTW, I'm referring to true FTTH (fiber-to-the-home). Not fiber-to-the-neighborhood or fiber-to-the-curb, etc. I'm only familiar with Verizon/Frontier FiOS, which is FTTH.