Question Is 20 Mbps enough for remote work from home?

[nisryus]

I know it is near the end of 2019, and almost everyone has 100 Mbps or higher download speed.. I am still on one of TimeWarner (before Spectrum) legacy plans with max download speed of 20 Mbps and max upload of 2 Mbps.

My company is switching my team to work remotely (WFH) in the next few months. Most of the time at work I will be in video conference, while chatting through Slack, plus working on servers through several RDP sessions, crafting emails, and have a game running on the background all at the same time. Now I am thinking if I am working from home would 20 Mbps be enough at all...

 

[mnewsham]

the 20mbps portion isn't really your issue

It's your upload speed.

2mbps wont cut it for video conferencing AND other activities. At least not very well.

That being said, more download speed wouldn't hurt either.

 

[SamirD]

Second that on the upload speed. My wife works from home on occasion as well and used to complain when she's getting less than 100Mbps down and our upload was 30Mbps. Of course, this was over wireless.. I would be using the same connection wired for over 20 rdp sessions while she's in video conferences. Our connection was 300/30 by xfinity.

That being said if your connection is reliable and has a low ping time, then you probably can get by with it, or drop the game and rdp sessions during conferences to have a crisp image sent to the other side.

Otherwise, if you have higher speeds available and the company would pick up the tab (or not), I wouldn't hesitate to move up to the next tier.

I've dealt with slower connections before--10x10, 30x5, 50x10, and once I was able to move up to 500/20, 100/15, 500/50 a lot of productivity problems just disappeared.

 

[VirtualLarry]

FIOS or other symmetrical fiber ISP not available? Most of them offer 50/50 or better, with low ping times.

2mbps wont cut it for video conferencing AND other activities. At least not very well.

Yeah, this.

 

[nisryus]

Oh I see. I didn't thought about download speed for video conference.

My neighbors have ATT (no Verizon or others, we kind of suxk here). Only other one are also cable (Grande) and some other regular DSL companies which have no FIOS.

My neighbors have switched from ATT to Spectrum now because of frequent downtime. Many others around here still complains on ATT on NextDoor. Most reliable one is.. Spectrum.

Guess it is time to upgrade! At least maybe wife can streams her Chinese videos from China, and the kid will be happy he can play Fortnite and stream Youtube, and I can work at the same time without lag. XD

Thanks guys!

 

[SamirD]

Oh I see. I didn't thought about download speed for video conference.

My neighbors have ATT (no Verizon or others, we kind of suxk here). Only other one are also cable (Grande) and some other regular DSL companies which have no FIOS.

My neighbors have switched from ATT to Spectrum now because of frequent downtime. Many others around here still complains on ATT on NextDoor. Most reliable one is.. Spectrum.

Guess it is time to upgrade! At least maybe wife can streams her Chinese videos from China, and the kid will be happy he can play Fortnite and stream Youtube, and I can work at the same time without lag. XD

Thanks guys!

I have 4 accounts from 3 different isps and Spectrum is actually the most reliable on both the business and residential accounts we have. Should be a good choice.