Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

So a friend has had fibre to the premises cabling installed to the flats where he lived and he asked me if it was worth upgrading from his current FTTC as he's not clued up on these things. Advised him he will get no real benefit as he just browses websites and watches a few youtube video on a laptop. Even if he got Netflix later, his current 40mb connection is more than enough.

It got me wondering, how many people actually NEED a 100mbit or faster connection at home?

I can see it being useful in say a family of 4 or 5+ where each person might want to stream videos at the same time + gaming + downloading but even then, 100mbit and a router with QoS that prioritises gaming/video should be more than enough. With newer video codecs like HEVC, the actual bandwidth needed for videos has gone down.

Obviously with 8k video and future technologies its nice to have infrastructure ready for when we need it. People working with video editing and large datasets working at home are a few genuine reasons to have faster internet.

I Just think that most people don't actually need very fast broadband at home. Yeah its nice to download an ISO in a few seconds but does waiting another 60 seconds really much of an issue?

Marketing and wanting to have the fastest because we like shiny and fast things because we can seems to be the main reason for getting the faster speeds I reckon.

Thoughts?

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

I need the upload more than I need the download 50meg both ways would be better for me than having to have 200down to get 20up

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

We have just moved into a new-build house with FTTP. BT wanted to sell us 900Mbps but even with 5 of us (inc. 3 teenagers) we just don’t need that. We do however frequently stream to half a dozen devices simultaneously and I still have to Zoom from home from time to time so their 300/50 product seemed to fit the bill.

To be honest I can’t conceive of any circumstances that would need more than that - video streaming is getting more efficient even as picture quality improves. I guess near-gigabit speed is nice to have ready for when someone invents a web-based product that actually needs it, but I think my kids will all have grown up and left well before that happens.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

I run a Plex server (free to users of course) alongside the normal needs of a family of four adults, with streaming, gaming, downloading going on at the same time. I have a symmetrical 900Mb with Vodafone/City Fibre. I dedicate a maximum of 600Mb upstream to my server. On quite a few occasions a full 500Mb has been used when a lot of clients are streaming at between 11MB and 25Mb each. So for me, high speed is essential if only to obtain the 900Mb upstream.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

We got bumped up to 500Mbs from 100 but all our kit is only 100T so apart from the better upload its all wasted. Certainly no need to upgrade the home network at the moment.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

Was more than happy with 50mbs and what ever came before it !!!

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

Same here, I want the higher upload, and the only way to get it is to have (much) higher download.

Even the FTTP options seem to be like 9/1, so to get 100 Up, I need to have 900+ down. Its nonsense, I thought the point of fibre was you could have the same (or similar) speeds in both directions. I'd love something like 500 down, 250 up.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

If you're a gamer, a fast connection is highly desirable, but not just for gameplay. Our twins bought new games on disk, installed them, and were then unable to play until HUGE patches were downloaded and installed. These patches can often be several Gb each!

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

VM said 10mb was enought to steam HD TV. Once mine got above 20 MB saw little improvement in general use.

It's just headline numbers that look good in ads. Appeals to the Top Gear types who must have something bigger and better than their neighbours ! The terminology 'Volt' etc is also marketing branding crap aimed to get as much money put of the gullible as possible.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

You need a lot less than that these days, because video compression has improved.

I only have a 14Mbps down / 5Mbps up connection, but it never stops me doing anything. It just means some things take longer than I would like.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

But you also want a consistent connection, free of jitter.

FTTP delivers this, Cable doesn't.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

Low pings/latency and jitter can be got on a slower connection but that is a valid point on game patches.

I may be wrong but from what I have seen, most say console updates and patches don't actually use up all the bandwidth users have because the source servers are not so fast. Not sure if this is just when new patches come out so its busier or if that is how it always is.

If a new 20GB update came out, I guess thats 30 minutes on a standard 40mbit FTTC connection but potentially 5 minutes on a 350 or mbit. So a convenience of not waiting.

With things like say a Sky movie, they buffer enough in seconds to be able to start a movie and keep downloading the rest in the background so no real difference in that scenario.

Seems weird that people wanted more upload 20 years ago and its still what people want because they are not getting enough.

Is DOCSIS still limiting what upload virgin can give or is that obstacle not an issue with later DOCSIS revisions now? I remember there being technical reasons as to why it wasn't given. Not sure what FTTP/Openreachs excuse is.

Do they have to pay for backhaul or upload over some peering leaks which doesn't apply to download or something similar?

I would think we are past the days of ISPs now wanting us to run servers and limiting bandwidth to persuade us not too.

Other than Virgin and Openreach/LLU suppliers, it seems most fibre to the premises providers here and abroad offer the same upload and download speed, be it 500mbit or 1gb both ways.

If TV does go all over IP eventually, we can still only watch and record so many streams or channels at once so even then I don't think speeds will need to increase.

Something could come along that suddenly needs a lot of bandwidth but it does seem we are ahead of where we actually need to be at the moment in time, bar the few in the outbacks who still have issues but even those are coming up with some fast solutions and with 5G and Starlink, less of an issue.

---------- Post added at 23:26 ---------- Previous post was at 23:13 ----------

Its funny but I remember my pings and latency going by to modem, ISDN and the first 1Mbit cable days and I preferred them over my VM connection later.

96 Ping on an internal modem to quake servers on modem with minimal jitter.

10 to 12 Ping on Blueyonder 1Mbit to quakeworld servers with a jitter of 1 or 2

VM was around 28 to 34 ping and ok at first but then started to get jitter of 30+ all the time with worse spikes here and there. Finally got to the point it was unusable to bad packet loss and after months of that they would fix it only for it to start again months later.

Its why I switched ISP's and pretty much stuck with my current one ever since as there is never any jitter and the connection is rock solid. Said back then I would rather have a slower connection with minimal jitter than a superfast connection with crazy jitter. I would consider changing to one of the newer FTTP providers to try them out if I did decide I wanted really fast speeds.

I don't really game online anymore so small jitter wouldn't be an issue but I was damaged enough by their bad connections and support to never want to use them again.

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

I was happy with my little US Robotics 56k modem. :D

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

56k?

Luxury!

Re: Do you actually need very fast broadband speeds?
 

It wasn't always a luxury, there were a few other modems before it, and 2 tin cans and a piece of string before them. Still a luxury to those who had to rely on smoke rings!