What speed for internet service?

What you got is good enough for most households without kids. If you have kids (or adults) who are into online gaming, then you may feel the bottleneck at anything below 100Mbps. Check the price they are offering on lower speed plans, but I really don't think it's going to be much of savings. You can always haggle with the provider to give you a better price. This works almost always if you threaten them to switch the provider unless they continue the promo rated service. BTW, for high-speed internet service, ~$70/mo is about average. If it is bundled with TV and Phone, then it can be lower, but by itself, I am currently paying $75/mo for a similar speed as you are but no cap on data. Except for occasional bandwidth issues, our cable modem with a WiFi router connects 10+ devices to the internet all day long without much problem.

 

Agreed about 100mbs. You could be fine with 25 or 50 depending on quality of your service. In the event you do have a lot of people accessing the internet or you run into bottle necks you are totally annoyed. Even if it only happens infrequently.


2017 Prius V Five

 

I have a family member in the Roseburg area in lower central Oregon. I had reason to evaluate the data speeds available via the cable, DSL and cellular providers. We got the best deal using Spectrum, but even though they advertise 100mbps she only gets 33Mbps throughput.

Interestingly, at one point (10 years ago) we got the same throughput on our cell phones as we did using DSL or cable. Our assumption at the time was that all the local ISPs were buying access from a common provider who capped the throughput.

Dan

 

anything faster than mine

 

I see a potential self-contradiction here between "She does not use the internet much" and 'favorite TV programming'. Though it ought to take a lot of TV to run up against the 400 GB data cap. Something to keep an eye on to make sure lots of data doesn't get wasted.

 

Good points so far.
Taken at face value, 100 MBPS is way overkill.

What really uses up the bandwidth (speed) is video streaming.
We are quite happy with 40 Mbps but we do almost NO streaming and it actually tests out at 40.

Note: Your router likely has hardwired Ethernet ports and a device connected to it that way might get a bit better performance.
But they would need to be fairly close together so the cable wouldn't be too long.

 

Start with the cheapest service that is available.
Upgrade (if possible) ONLY when you NEED to and if you are able to.
Most people only have one or two viable choices, and usually they're fairly close in price due to competition and advertising.

I have 12Mbps at work and at home and my CFO and I surf and stream at will....often both at the same time.
However (comma!) latency is not a concern for us and we're 'far' from power users even though I video conference at least once a week.

I have the ability to, and am considering "upgrading" to 400Mbps for $49.00 (plus junk fees) NOT because of the improved throughput but because of my IOT tinkering and certain limitations that my beloved company places in their access points.
It's NOT "really" going to be 400Mbps.....but everybody already knows that.

Here's the thing.
If you know what bandwidth and latency are, then you probably already think you know enough to pick your level of service.
Most people do this poorly and simply just look at the number to the left of "Mbps" and think that "bigger is better"....and mostly it is.
Bandwidth vs. Latency: What is the Difference? | HighSpeedInternet.com

99.44 percent of most home internet users experience trouble not because of how big their pipe is but because of things like access point or "router" issues. In the Year of our Lord 2021, more and more people are using the internet FOR work....instead of what I do, which is using the internet WHILE at work.
The internet is filled chock full of sites that offer lots and lots and lots of data about improving your "internet speed".
REMEMBER....."data" and "facts" are not the same thing!!!

AVIOD sites or people directly linked with people that SELL service or hardware.
That's like taking your car to a dealer and asking THEM if you need to upgrade.

In this example (for example)......there are 10 tips for improving your home internet.
IIRC?
"Getting faster service" is #10.....
Increase Wifi Speed In 15 Minutes Without Spending Any Money


Real World mileage WILL vary.

 

Before the pandemic, my household was getting along just fine on a DSL line that couldn't go faster than 4.5 Mbps (though advertised as 'up to 10 Mbps'). While certain large update packages (windoze, garmin) were very slow, the infrequent streaming had no problem. Over many years, I had never detected or noticed a connection loss.

But at some point during the pandemic, the provider throttled the pipe to just over 3 Mbps, allowed many daily signal interruptions to develop, and could no longer run more than a few seconds of video clips without burping. And was pushing many advertisements to upgrade to gigabit fiber. With DSL known to be sunsetting almost everywhere, I finally bit the offer and scheduled the upgrade -- only to have them first postpone the install, then inform me that fiber isn't actually available on my street. They didn't actually have any upgrade path whatsoever available to my house.

With no other land-based alternatives available, that overcame my cable refusenik status. Now we are on a 30 Mbps cable starter package, the price goes up after 12 months to a standard price that is still a bit cheaper than the much slower DSL had been. Videos now stream seamlessly again, and we've noticed only a couple signal losses in a whole month, fewer than DSL had each day, and reconnects were quicker.

And since DSL was the main reason we still had the copper landline phone bundled with it, we got rid of that landline too. Transferred its number to a mobile, on a less expensive 12-month prepaid plan with unlimited talk and text, just limited data -- for a phone number that needs no data or even text.

 

Consumer Reports says that for streaming 4k content, you need at least 18 Mbps. Netflix says 25 Mbps. Standard HD (1080p) needs about 8 Mbps. With two of you in the house, 50 Mbps speed should be more than enough. (Make sure you check the data caps on the slower speeds as well.)

 

What's a data cap?