Minimum internet speed recommended

[Jerry1]

I’m moving so I need to select a new internet provider. My choices are xfinity and wow. The best price is from wow on a 300mbps plan. Looking for opinions on whether 300 is enough. It’s just me and DW. We both are light users but at any time during the day, we could be surfing/browsing on our computers. I think our highest use would be if we’re watching a movie (streaming) and surfing at the same time, or one is watching a movie and the other is watching a YouTube video on their computer. Once in awhile, the family will be over and the grand kids could all be on their phones.

I’m currently with Spectrum and pay for 600mbps and everything works fine but I wouldn’t mind saving some money if 300mbps is plenty. I wouldn’t want it to just be barely enough but if it will work, I’ll go with the cheaper plan.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I do a lot of downloading of movies and TV series and I find 250mbps more than adequate, why pay more. It is actually around 300mbps in practice although the rating is a little lower. I used to pay for 500, 800 and even 1gbps, but not anymore. We only have 15 devices connected (TV, Phones, Tablets, AVR, Roku, TV Box, laptops etc.) although they are not active all at the same time as there are only 2 of us in the home. No sense paying for more. BUT we have found that Fiber is way more efficient than cable. It we ever have cable again we will probably try their 250mbps service first.

 

[Aerides]

I would personally go with anything that is not xfinity. We have a gig, but DH the technie says 300mbps is perfectly fine for anyone.

 

[RunningBum]

I have 100mbps. It's just me but I'm often streaming TV or a movie while browsing on my laptop which may include a YouTube clip. My other option was 1000mbps and I tried that for awhile and didn't notice a difference so I dropped back to 100.

So I'd think 300 would be fine for you. When the family is over aren't most of the adults doing one thing rather than a combination of streaming and browsing? Does wow have a reasonable price if you decide to go higher? It's usually very simple to upgrade within a provider. Switching providers is a little more complicated but doable.

Also look at service and reliability of both in your new area.

 

[Jerry1]

I would personally go with anything that is not xfinity. We have a gig, but DH the technie says 300mbps is perfectly fine for anyone.

I’m thinking I’ll go with wow because they have the best price and it can even be locked in for life (xfinity lock in is only 5 years). Unfortunately, internet is one of those things that nobody has a good opinion of so I figure going with the cheapest first is a reasonable plan. I can always change if it’s terrible.

 

[Car-Guy]

300 meg.

I've got 15meg (bonded ADSL) and I'm happy to get that. Everything works. We can even stream two movies at once without bufferring.

 

[braumeister]

I would personally go with anything that is not xfinity. We have a gig, but DH the technie says 300mbps is perfectly fine for anyone.

I agree, and you're not alone.

My Xfinity Nightmare!

 

[jrgators]

I’m moving so I need to select a new internet provider. My choices are xfinity and wow. The best price is from wow on a 300mbps plan. Looking for opinions on whether 300 is enough. It’s just me and DW. We both are light users but at any time during the day, we could be surfing/browsing on our computers. I think our highest use would be if we’re watching a movie (streaming) and surfing at the same time, or one is watching a movie and the other is watching a YouTube video on their computer. Once in awhile, the family will be over and the grand kids could all be on their phones.

I’m currently with Spectrum and pay for 600mbps and everything works fine but I wouldn’t mind saving some money if 300mbps is plenty. I wouldn’t want it to just be barely enough but if it will work, I’ll go with the cheaper plan.

3000mbps is more than enough

 

[flyingaway]

The cheapest (100mgps) is enough. I have a full-time gamer at home. The official speed is not what you always get.

 

[Jerry1]

The cheapest (100mgps) is enough. I have a full-time gamer at home. The official speed is not what you always get.

This is one of my concerns. In a wired connection, I get the same or better as what my official speed is (600 currently). But, it degrades quickly over WiFi. I get about 360 on my iPad. So, I guess if 300 becomes 100, I’d still be good.

 

[groesbeck]

I'm laughing in 6 Mbps right now (DSL)

 

[FD1000]

300 should be OK for most users. I used to have 1000 but the deal ended. I have used 300 to 500 and I don't notice any change. To get a good reception in our big house with 3 floors, I installed a network, which is a must. All 4 TVs are streaming using Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K.

 

[imjustawarrior]

100 Mbps would be plenty for two people.

I have 1Gbps up/down from the municipal fiber. It is overkill most of the time. It is nice when downloading or uploading a lot of data.

 

[camfused]

@Jerry1, if available in your area, also consider home internet from TMobile or Verizon. Might be cheaper than your other options, and should be plenty fast for you.

 

[Jerry1]

@Jerry1, if available in your area, also consider home internet from TMobile or Verizon. Might be cheaper than your other options, and should be plenty fast for you.

My best price is with WOW - 300mbps is $30/mo and I’m thinking about going with the $10 add on to lock the rate for life at $40.

 

[Chuckanut]

I have 100 mps up and down. I get that whenever I test my speed and my devices all connect to the modem using WIFI. The cost is about $50 a month. The speed is more than enough for me. Note: I am not a gamer.

 

[skyking1]

chiming in with the "300 is plenty" crowd.

 

[AudiDudi]

300 meg.

I've got 15meg (bonded ADSL) and I'm happy to get that. Everything works. We can even stream two movies at once without bufferring.

^^This^^! 15mb at a cost of $55/mo. No cell phone signal within about 10 miles so no option there. No OTA. No issues with 2 of us streaming HD (not 4k) at the same time.

 

[GenXguy]

I've got 75 Mbps through Comcast Xfinity. It tests regularly about 80 Mbps. It's the lowest teir I can get. Very reliable and more than fast enough for me. I only stream to one TV at any one time, and 1080p streamed fine even when I had 25 Mbps, for that matter. Now, I can download on the computer and use streaming at the same time with no problem. It's really enough if I used 4K also. One note is that I have a monthly data cap of 1.2 TB, but I've never used more than 600 GB in a month.

Edit: While checking my Comcast Xfinity account just now, I see that they upgraded me to 150 Mbps. Looks like upload is supposed to be at least twice as fast also. I restarted my cable modem, that supports over 600 Mbps, but I'm still getting the same 80 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up when testing. Computer is connected at 1 Gbps. Router isn't a bottleneck at those mild speeds. I'm using a cable modem that's not on Comcast's Xfinity supported modem list (CM500), but I have used it for 5 years and have read of someone using the same model on 200 Mbps. They probably won't provision the upgraded speed because I'm using what is now an unsupported modem (previously supported). I'll still try to see if Comcast will roll out the provisioning to me, but I don't want to buy a new modem for $100 to $200 when my current setup is plenty fast enough.

 

[RunningBum]

This is one of my concerns. In a wired connection, I get the same or better as what my official speed is (600 currently). But, it degrades quickly over WiFi. I get about 360 on my iPad. So, I guess if 300 becomes 100, I’d still be good.

Is this due to different levels of the house, or a long distance on the same level? Look into a mesh router system. I got the eero Pro 6E two years ago and I see very little drop off anywhere in the house. I don't know what's best now.

 

[Qs Laptop]

300Mps should be enough but it depends if you have 4K TVs or not. If you have two 4K TVs and you think you might stream 4K movies simultaneously while surfing the web it might get laggy.

You don't say if WOW is a cable company (I assume it is) and cable delivered internet can slow down if there are several modems (households) on the same connection. I know you just moved into a new condo, so you probably have several households on the same connection spur.

Personally, I would not play "is it fast enough roulette". I'd opt for the higher speed. What is the difference in cost? $10 a month? $15? Probably not going to break you, LOL, plus you wouldn't want the speed to be inadequate when the whole family is over.

You know that 600 is fast enough for everybody, so I would not mess around and just buy 600 again.

 

[Jerry1]

300Mps should be enough but it depends if you have 4K TVs or not. If you have two 4K TVs and you think you might stream 4K movies simultaneously while surfing the web it might get laggy.

You don't say if WOW is a cable company (I assume it is) and cable delivered internet can slow down if there are several modems (households) on the same connection. I know you just moved into a new condo, so you probably have several households on the same connection spur.

Personally, I would not play "is it fast enough roulette". I'd opt for the higher speed. What is the difference in cost? $10 a month? $15? Probably not going to break you, LOL, plus you wouldn't want the speed to be inadequate when the whole family is over.

You know that 600 is fast enough for everybody, so I would not mess around and just buy 600 again.

Yes, wow is a cable company. Normally, I wouldn't play the "is it fast enough roulette", but I think this is one of those times where if I don't notice the difference, why spend the extra money? Sure, it's only $15 more but my frugal gene is kicking in and that's $180 per year for essentially nothing if 300 works fine. When I was working and working from home, I wouldn't have thought twice about the faster number. And, If they ever run fiber here, I'll probably jump on that, even though it's probably overkill to the extreme. But in this case, I think I'm going to start off in the new condo with the slower speed and see what happens. Especially given the responses above - Thanks everyone!

 

[jim584672]

If you could get 100/100 consistently that would be fine. I'm at 300/300 fiber because that is the lowest tier in my area.

 

[dixonge]

We have a *theoretical* 100mb plan, but it depends on which room you're in. Right now I'm getting 29mb down, 67mb up in the guest bedroom. On many occasions my wife is doing a Spanish lesson on her tablet (via Zoom) in the living room while I play an online multiplayer game in the guest br. Our connection is sufficient.

 

[camfused]

^^^ I would say this is nothing to do with your internet provider all to do with your wifi set up.