# How fast is your home Internet connection
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 28, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031 "2010-05-28T03:44:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/1 "2010-05-28T03:44:26Z")
I’m curious what the breakdown of Internet connection speeds here is. I assume this has been done before, but I couldn’t find it, and I’m sure it changes over time anyway. I’m sure posters here aren’t representative of the Internet as a whole, but they’re probably closer than my geeky co-workers and friends.
It’s amazing how our expectations change over time. I clearly remember the day I upgraded from 2400 bps to 14.4 kbps. I was so excited! These days, speeds below 1 mbps seem like torture. On the other hand, my most recent upgrade (moving up 1 tier of cable modem service) was noticeable but far from life changing. Which upgrades were most significant to you?
A few clarifications:
[ul]
[li]I’m looking for the speed of your HOME internet connection.[/li][li]I’m talking about downstream (“download”) speed, not upstream.[/li][li]Choose the speed your ISP sells the service as, not the actual speed you get. The actual speeds are just too variable to make that meaningful.[/li][li]I know some speeds land on the border of options – I didn’t feel like doing “1-4.9999” instead of “1-5.” Use your judgement if yours falls right on the border.[/li][/ul]
Also, sorry if this is in the wrong place – it seems more like an MPSIMS, but it appears that I can’t post a poll there.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/2 "2010-05-28T03:51:07Z")
I don’t know. It’s fast enough for my use, however.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/3 "2010-05-28T03:56:21Z")
My plan is sold as 8mbps, but the last time I did a speed test it came up as over 10 mbps, go figure.
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### Author:  [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/4 "2010-05-28T03:59:20Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#):
>
> My plan is sold as 8mbps, but the last time I did a speed test it came up as over 10 mbps, go figure.
Mine is actually similar – it’s sold as 16 mbps, but I can get around 20 (and the upstream is supposed to be 2 mbps, but I can get about 4). I’m not complaining. It’s rare you actually get **more** than I’m paying for from the cable company…
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/5 "2010-05-28T04:26:08Z")
Mine has crap upload, only 128 kbps which is killing my Xbox Live joy. I’m going to have to upgrade to the 1000 kbps option and hopefully that’ll be better.
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### Author:  [@kenner116](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenner116)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/6 "2010-05-28T04:30:23Z")
3.36 mbps is the actual down speed. No idea about the advertised bandwidth.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/7 "2010-05-28T04:30:40Z")
I think ours is 2mbps. We only upgraded from dial-up a few months ago.
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### Author:  [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/8 "2010-05-28T04:59:58Z")
Interesting, I guess I should have made a category for “I don’t know.” Every ISP I’ve used has made a big deal about the speed, so it was hard not to know. I suppose maybe that’s less common now, or at the base tiers.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/9 "2010-05-28T05:07:44Z")
All I do is browse message boards, news sites, and Youtube. D/L, U/L isn’t a thing with me.
Now, get off my lawn!
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### Author:  [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/10 "2010-05-28T05:15:49Z")
We have an advertised 24Mbps connection for the house, shared by 4 people. Realistically, I think we get about 10Mbps overall, which is plenty, even when multiple people are streaming HD video, as happens quite often.
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### Author:  [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/11 "2010-05-28T06:20:55Z")
It’s advertised as 8mb, but since we live in a very rural area which only got adsl four years ago, we do not even get 1mb, it’s more like 700kb or something.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/12 "2010-05-28T06:45:15Z")
I upgraded from 2 to 10 mb a few weeks ago, actually. They just did some infrastructure improvements in my neighborhood, and offered the upgrade for a negligable sum.
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### Author:  [@lemac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lemac)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/13 "2010-05-28T06:55:16Z")
30Mbps, but it’s capped at 50GB/month
I first started using the internet (at my parents’) in 1998, that was a 10Mbps connection
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### Author:  [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/14 "2010-05-28T07:49:03Z")
Mine is advertised as 8mb but over the last week or so it’s increased to 11mb. Upload speed is about 0.7 mb.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/15 "2010-05-28T08:46:05Z")
Generally across Australia, all ISPs sell their broadband as ADSL2+ which is 24mbps, but I didn’t click the “over 20” option, because it’s a pipe dream number; I accept it as more like 18mbps.
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### Author:  [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/16 "2010-05-28T09:14:11Z")
We can get up to 50mbps on a good day. Usually closer to 30-40 I think.
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### Author:  [@VanillaGorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VanillaGorilla)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/17 "2010-05-28T10:57:08Z")
My connection is advertised as 100Mb/s, though I “only” get about 85Mb/s or so.
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### Author:  [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/18 "2010-05-28T11:36:28Z")
Advertised as 20mbps but I’ve done several tests and never gotten above 8.
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### Author:  [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/19 "2010-05-28T13:53:29Z")
10 mps and I’m bitter about it!
We upgraded about 3 months ago to the new extreme 50mps service and loved it except for one annoying little trait - the only device they have for that service lost connectivity about 4x a day. Every day. Since we run our families email server behind it and the about half the time the router needed to be rebooted to reconnect the service outages were unacceptable but I do truly miss the speed.
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### Author:  [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-is-your-home-internet-connection/541031/20 "2010-05-28T13:59:43Z")
Is there a way to test it? Mine is lightning fast but I have the mid tiered one with boost?
How can you tell?
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