How much internet bandwidth/speed should I get?

[DavidM22]

Hello all!

I'm moving into my own place soon, and I'm checking out what kind of internet plans I can get.

It would just be me, and I mostly use internet for casual web browsing like streaming music, videos and web surfing. I never stream things like movies or do anything that is bandwith heavy (gaming, Folding@Home,

streaming 4k, etc.), I do however download large files (~5 GB) from time to time, so that might be the only exception.

I own two devices, my PC and my phone. I'm on my PC majority of the time, while my phone is used very lightly and the things I do on it is mostly listen music on YouTube and play games.

I don't own any smart devices like smart thermostat, speaker, lock, Echo, Alexa, Google, etc.

I'm very conservative in how I use apps that are connected on the net (that is, I always turn off apps as soon as I'm done with them, so no unnecessary bandwith usage in the background).

I was thinking of getting something like 20 or 25 Mbps speed, but I'm not sure if this is too low.

I'm happy to hear any suggestions.

Thanks in forward.

 

[Red Squirrel]

20 is going to be fine for most usage even torrents and large downloads. I think stability, and no data cap, is more important than speed. When fibre came to town I was so excited to get 50/30 after being on 8/1 DSL, which was more like 6/0.5. I recently downgraded to the 20/15 package to save money and I honestly don't even feel a difference in my day to day usage. What really cripples DSL is the slow upload and instability I find, so a solid connection will usually be fine even if it's not the fastest.

For things like torrents speed hardly matters anyway since you can just let stuff go overnight. The main thing speed may play a factor in more is streaming if you do that, but I think 20 is fine to stream 720p maybe even hd.

 

[SKORPI0]

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[pcslookout]

25 Mbps minimum.

 

[sdifox]

Depends on what is available where you are going to live really.

 

[Scarpozzi]

The real problem is that most companies don't guarantee bandwidth because they can't control peak usage. In the past few years, they've had to add a lot more pipe to handle streaming....that being said, even if they sell you on some large throughput, you probably only actually need 10Mbps. That being said, I would see where the sweet spot is without being throttled too much. That's the risk of going with a budget plan where you know they'll cap your service....you'll be too far down the QoS list when others are streaming and downloading big stuff.

 

[BurnItDwn]

At my grandmothers house in WI, there is about 1mbit of total connectivity.
If nobody else is doing anything, its enough for streaming netflix in SD.
if 2 people try to use the network at the same time, there is not enough bandwidth, and both people's stuff runs slow/gets stuck buffering.

With 1mbit, a 5GB file will take about 11 or 12 hours to download.

If you really are as consevative as you say, and if you dont have friends over who want to play on facebook or show off youtube ... then you probably would be OK with as low as 3 or 4 mbit ... however, if you can get 20+mbit without paying a lot extra for it, it might be nice just for your 5GB downloads to take under an hour.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If it's capped don't even consider it, and move to something that is not. Thankfully where I live the phone company has never capped internet. DSL used to be sorta capped but it was never enforced. They did not have the equipment to monitor it and start billing extra. Now with fibre they just don't cap at all. Cell service is another story, the caps are very low and make it hardly worth it having an expensive data plan. I have the lowest tier I could get, that gets me enough data to load a web page or two per month if I'm in a pinch, and allows me to send/receive pictures via text and that's it.

That's one thing I really hope with starlink, that it will be uncapped or at least have an uncapped option even if it's slower.

 

[nakedfrog]

20-25 sounds fine.

 

[Sonikku]

I stick with 20 mpbs for $15 because going up a single notch in speed increases my by internet bill to $60 for 12 months and $70 after. Insane.
I find it to be mostly enough. I can stream in 4k, but not 4k 60fps. If I want 60fps video, I need to settle for 1440p.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Depends on what is available where you are going to live really.

THIS!

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you can get Comcast at that location, check out www.internetessentials.com . It's a special version of Comcast internet for low-income/disabled/elderly, etc.

But if you can qualify, it's 25/3 (really, 28-30/3.5) internet for $9.95 / mo. Hard to beat that package.

If you can get FIOS, you can get 200/200 (really 300/300) for $39.99 with auto-pay + paperless billing discount ($10 off).

 

[mindless1]

Streaming videos at high traffic sites like youtube is where you'll likely have the most issues with 25Mb, end up having buffering during busier times of day. It's not that the video has anywhere near 25Mb bitrate but rather there are hiccups in delivery, insufficient amount of buffering.

Ironically when I used to have an ISP that speed, I'd get less buffering dragging youtube links into a media player (MPC-BE) or get the entire video as a file faster as DDL with an app, compared to viewing in a browser. And no ads.

Gaming is not bandwidth intensive, just latency sensitive.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Without knowing your options it is pointless to talk about. Prices and speeds can vary greatly.