Is 150 mbps broadband necessary for most people?

tghe-retford

I use Linux, stream 4K video and play games on Steam. Downloads and regular updates can easily use all the bandwidth of a 900mbps connection. And for less than what I was paying for 48Mbps (it used to be 63Mbps when I first got VDSL2 (FTTC) and the old ISP wanted double the price for an even lower speed of 40Mbps at the end of the contract). It's also a synchronous connection because that's what the current ISP offers on all of its packages.

Now I am on a network that is already built for 10Gbps XGS-PON. The problem is, in the past the bottleneck was with the Internet connection which up to VDSL2 would be slower than the internal network. Now it's the devices and the Wi-Fi, even with Wi-Fi 6, you'll only realistically get to gigabit speeds at best from my experience. Something Virgin, EE and the other above gigabit package providers customer service representatives are going to find out the hard way when customers do speedtests on their gigabit capable device, only get 1Gbps throughput on a 2Gbps package and ring up to complain. Until 10GbE ports become standard, devices become powerful enough to cope with a 10Gbps throughput, Wi-Fi 7 becomes commonplace and everyone uses at least Cat 6A cable, anything above 1Gbps unless its marketed for multiple heavy users in large family homes is going to be pointless.

daveyjp

If you aren't uploading or downloading large files lower speeds are quite accetable.  I've rented cottages in remote locations with 20-50meg service and never had an issue streaming on mutlple devices simultaneously.

However as soon as you go to FTTP minimum speeds are at least 250 (500 in my area), so no choice.  At the of the day it comes down to cost and my monthly cost is now little more than it was over 20 years ago when I first had a Virgin FTTC service, which started at about 2 meg, but compared to ADSL was lightning quick.

iniltous

There is no obligation with BT ( as an example of an ISP on Openreach FTTP ) to take faster speeds just because its FTTP delivering the service , 40Mb , 55Mb and 80Mb speeds can be ordered on OR FTTP , if that’s what the customer wants , obviously the option to go higher , 300,500,1000,2000 is what FTTP enables, although the individual ISPs may not offer every Openreach speed if they don’t want to, but there certainly isn’t an obligation to take only the faster speeds,  if the customer doesn’t want the faster speeds , because faster usually costs more than slower .

Heliocentric

Veteransaver said:

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.

I have no understanding of broadband so I have no idea what I have. I am with Sky (open reach) so I have their essential broadband but I don't know what their broadband 'type' is. I just use it.

I was also looking to get rid of my landline. So I need to keep it for fibre?

iniltous

You are conflating landline and telephone service, as you have Sky , it’s possible that you either have your phone service delivered by the traditional wall mounted phone  socket or by plugging a phone into the sky router , generally many ISP ( broadband suppliers ) you can have broadband with out a phone service but you cannot have broadband without a ‘line’ to deliver the broadband ‘signal’ , but they just call it broadband, not broadband and line rental .

It’s understandable why  people think a ‘landline’ is the ‘telephone’ service and think if you don’t need a ‘landline’ with  broadband why are the6 paying for it , its sort of true , but needs explanation.

Although you are not with BT , the way they provide one or both services is helpful in describing what’s being supplied, if you want broadband and phone from BT , it’s ( for example ) £30 , if you don’t want telephony so just broadband it’s £25 ( £5 cheaper ) the cost of a landline is not relevant, but even they call ‘telephony’  a ‘landline’ , so the adverts say , ‘don’t need a landline , save £5’ , if
there are still some people that think ‘line rental’ is £20 on its own so if broadband and landline are £35 then broadband should only be £15 , they are misinformed, the line suppling broadband needs to be paid for , it’s just a single charge called broadband.

Unfortunately for Sky customers with ‘internet calls’  , they provide this type of internet telephone service for ‘free’ so asking for it to be removed doesn’t actually save you any money , so with Sky , if you don’t want their internet phone service, don’t plug a phone into the router but it doesn’t affect the price you pay, AFAIK you have to take regular telephony with Sky , so not plugged into the router , you cannot remove the ‘landline’ .

Chickereeeee

Exodi said:

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.

I think for WofW, and gaming generally, it more a case of getting lower ping times than download speeds. Fibre tends to have lower ping times (read as 'allows quicker responses to avoid getting shot') than does xDSL.

Rob5342

If you find 11mbps ok then 150mbps is well in excess of what you'd need, but given that it may be cheaper you might as well have it. Fibrehop on CityFibre offer 150mbps for £26 a month for example. Phone calls are cheaper with mobile plans than with home phone plans, we have three mobiles each with unlimited calls so we don't bother having a home phone.

JSmithy45AD

Rob5342 said:

If you find 11mbps ok then 150mbps is well in excess of what you'd need, but given that it may be cheaper you might as well have it. Fibrehop on CityFibre offer 150mbps for £26 a month for example. Phone calls are cheaper with mobile plans than with home phone plans, we have three mobiles each with unlimited calls so we don't bother having a home phone.

Yep, they're best off getting whatever is cheapest regardless of speeds or landline included or not by the sounds of it and don't get hung up on speeds if 11Mbps is sufficient.

wild666

Later this year I'm hoping a provider will have installed their service in my area and the basic speed will be 150Mb. It's going to be after July and I held off re-contracting with my present provider that would have saved me 50p per month, the new provider would be £25.99 a month, if it increases 7.7% then it would be £27.99  which would still be cheaper than what I would be paying after April, about £34.

Heliocentric

JSmithy45AD said:

Rob5342 said:

If you find 11mbps ok then 150mbps is well in excess of what you'd need, but given that it may be cheaper you might as well have it. Fibrehop on CityFibre offer 150mbps for £26 a month for example. Phone calls are cheaper with mobile plans than with home phone plans, we have three mobiles each with unlimited calls so we don't bother having a home phone.

Yep, they're best off getting whatever is cheapest regardless of speeds or landline included or not by the sounds of it and don't get hung up on speeds if 11Mbps is sufficient.

Is 11mbps with ADSL the same as 11mbps with fibre?