Is 150 mbps broadband necessary for most people?

Heliocentric

Hello,

I'm with Sky broadband on a very low speed - at around 11mbps - which is perfectly fine for me. I have no issues with it - just the cost of it at around £35 per month.

I'm looking to switch company but I'm now seeing very high numbers in terms of speed, like 150 mbps with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic (I'm in London). I mostly stream data, not download and if I do download, it doesn't take me long at all on my current speed. As for uploading, I very rarely do it. So do I need such a high speed?

When I tell people my current internet speed, it looks like they're about to have a heart attack.

Thanks.

DullGreyGuy

Just costs? We pay £35 for 1Gbps via a 24 month contract with Hyperoptic

What you need will depend on what you are doing with it and how many of you are in the household. Streaming 4k movie you really want 30 Mbps, if you and your wife are watching one film and your two kids are watching something else each then thats 90 Mbps. If your laptop is going to do a 4GB (note B not b) update at the same time etc etc it all adds up. 

Could I have gotten away with 150mbps? Probably but the price difference was £3 per month and for that I want the headroom just in case there is a spike in demand and speeds are halved. 

I've found it funny, with one prior client before Covid I had to frequently upload/download very large files and it was quicker to do from home than in the office. 

victor2

Heliocentric said:

Hello,

I'm with Sky broadband on a very low speed - at around 11mbps - which is perfectly fine for me. I have no issues with it - just the cost of it at around £35 per month.

I'm looking to switch company but I'm now seeing very high numbers in terms of speed, like 150 mbps with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic (I'm in London). I mostly stream data, not download and if I do download, it doesn't take me long at all on my current speed. As for uploading, I very rarely do it. So do I need such a high speed?

When I tell people my current internet speed, it looks like they're about to have a heart attack.

Thanks.

Upload speeds were what decided me to go for a faster download, so I have 250Mbps down and 25 up. I backup to the cloud on a daily basis, and it could be irritating if the overnight scheduled job has failed, resulting in me having to run it over a relatively slow connection when I'm also using the computer.

DullGreyGuy

victor2 said:

Heliocentric said:

Hello,

I'm with Sky broadband on a very low speed - at around 11mbps - which is perfectly fine for me. I have no issues with it - just the cost of it at around £35 per month.

I'm looking to switch company but I'm now seeing very high numbers in terms of speed, like 150 mbps with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic (I'm in London). I mostly stream data, not download and if I do download, it doesn't take me long at all on my current speed. As for uploading, I very rarely do it. So do I need such a high speed?

When I tell people my current internet speed, it looks like they're about to have a heart attack.

Thanks.

Upload speeds were what decided me to go for a faster download, so I have 250Mbps down and 25 up. I backup to the cloud on a daily basis, and it could be irritating if the overnight scheduled job has failed, resulting in me having to run it over a relatively slow connection when I'm also using the computer.

Thats more of a question of symmetrical or asymmetrical speeds.... our upload/download are the same (in principle) irrespective if you go for 50mbps, 150 mbps or 1gbps

QrizB

We've got ~60Mb/sec FTTC but most of the time it doesn't give us anything that we didn't already have with 11Mb/sec ADSL. I only upgraded to FTTC as it was a cheaper deal than ADSL at the time.

Heliocentric

DullGreyGuy said:

Just costs? We pay £35 for 1Gbps via a 24 month contract with Hyperoptic

What you need will depend on what you are doing with it and how many of you are in the household. Streaming 4k movie you really want 30 Mbps, if you and your wife are watching one film and your two kids are watching something else each then thats 90 Mbps. If your laptop is going to do a 4GB (note B not b) update at the same time etc etc it all adds up. 

Could I have gotten away with 150mbps? Probably but the price difference was £3 per month and for that I want the headroom just in case there is a spike in demand and speeds are halved. 

I've found it funny, with one prior client before Covid I had to frequently upload/download very large files and it was quicker to do from home than in the office. 

It's just me in the house, no one else, so what I have feels like enough. Good to know about 4k streaming, though. I think the minimum mbps offered is 50mb with hyperoptic, so that should cover it.

Heliocentric

victor2 said:

Heliocentric said:

Hello,

I'm with Sky broadband on a very low speed - at around 11mbps - which is perfectly fine for me. I have no issues with it - just the cost of it at around £35 per month.

I'm looking to switch company but I'm now seeing very high numbers in terms of speed, like 150 mbps with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic (I'm in London). I mostly stream data, not download and if I do download, it doesn't take me long at all on my current speed. As for uploading, I very rarely do it. So do I need such a high speed?

When I tell people my current internet speed, it looks like they're about to have a heart attack.

Thanks.

Upload speeds were what decided me to go for a faster download, so I have 250Mbps down and 25 up. I backup to the cloud on a daily basis, and it could be irritating if the overnight scheduled job has failed, resulting in me having to run it over a relatively slow connection when I'm also using the computer.

Now I'm wondering if I should be backing anything up to the cloud. What do you back up, though? Is it just documents or is it videos you make? I don't want to commit to something only to realise I need more but then again, I've had the internet since 2020 and I've been fine with the current speed.

Heliocentric

QrizB said:

We've got ~60Mb/sec FTTC but most of the time it doesn't give us anything that we didn't already have with 11Mb/sec ADSL. I only upgraded to FTTC as it was a cheaper deal than ADSL at the time.

I'm so out of the loop. Is FTTC meant to be better but you're finding ADSL is surprisingly just as good?

victor2

Heliocentric said:

victor2 said:

Heliocentric said:

Hello,

I'm with Sky broadband on a very low speed - at around 11mbps - which is perfectly fine for me. I have no issues with it - just the cost of it at around £35 per month.

I'm looking to switch company but I'm now seeing very high numbers in terms of speed, like 150 mbps with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic (I'm in London). I mostly stream data, not download and if I do download, it doesn't take me long at all on my current speed. As for uploading, I very rarely do it. So do I need such a high speed?

When I tell people my current internet speed, it looks like they're about to have a heart attack.

Thanks.

Upload speeds were what decided me to go for a faster download, so I have 250Mbps down and 25 up. I backup to the cloud on a daily basis, and it could be irritating if the overnight scheduled job has failed, resulting in me having to run it over a relatively slow connection when I'm also using the computer.

Now I'm wondering if I should be backing anything up to the cloud. What do you back up, though? Is it just documents or is it videos you make? I don't want to commit to something only to realise I need more but then again, I've had the internet since 2020 and I've been fine with the current speed.

I use Google Photos to backup to Google Drive from my phone (only over WiFi), which means I can also view them on my PC. Important documents backup from my PC to iDrive (encrypted) and all data backs up to a local NAS drive. The latter two run as scheduled tasks although clearly only the cloud one requires an internet connection.

Veteransaver

I'm surprised you still get ADSL, can you not get fibre (fibre to the cabinet , it still comes down the phone line). I didn't think it was any more expensive than old style ADSL.
We use to get over 20mbps over ADSL, sonfinre wasn't a massive upgrade for us, though the upload speeds are much better

Upload speeds are far better on fibre to the premises though, as they are usually the same up as they are down.

Exodi

I feel like broadband speed is one of those things people always vastly overestimate or overcompensate for how much they need.

My sisters house has 1Gbps internet - the justification? Her partner plays World of Warcraft. From a brief google search this uses approx 10Kbps, which by my napkin maths is 0.001%. I mean even if he is also using audio software like Discord it's not even going to come close. My sisters only device is a mobile phone, and the TV is usually playing Cocomelon or the like for her two babies.

By comparison, my wife and I have a nest video doorbell, 3 nest outdoor cameras, 2 smart displays that cycle our photo galleries,  3 chromecasts that also cycle our photo galleries when on and a plethora of smart home appliances (e.g. thermostats, motion sensors, door sensors, bulbs, plugs, alarms, etc). We stream quite regularly and my wife downloads TV shows series quite often as she works in France several days per week, though nothing in 4k. Looking at our nest WiFi we have 25 active devices and our background usage is less than 1Mbs download and upload.

We have 67Mbps internet (around 20Mbps upload) and have no issues with speed. I suspect when we have kids and they all have tablets and phones this will still be sufficient. I think unless you are planning to stream in 4K on multiple devices in a house at the same time, normal high speed broadband will be suitable for the vast majority of people.

I think it's similar to all the people who have been successfully sold phone contracts with 30gb+ of monthly data - I think people are just bad at knowing their data usage.