I’m getting ready to drop Comcast, because they are shit. I am currently using them for cable, internet and phone. I will be dropping them for everything. My question is, what internet speed do I need to watch something like PlayStation Vue on 2 tvs and surf the web on 2 laptops?
Thanks
You mean you’re doing those four activities simultaneously? Video streaming bandwidth depends on the source of the video and the quality of the stream. For example, Netflix uses about 1 GB/hour for SD video, 3 GB/hour for HD, and 7 GB/hour for UHD. Surfing the web depends on what kind of pages you’re looking at. If they’re mostly text with some images, it will use very little compared to video streaming. If the pages have embedded video, then they might use a comparable amount to video streaming.
To calculate the bandwidth you need, add up the bandwidth of each simultaneous activity, and multiply by 2.2 to convert GB/hour to megabits per second. For example, if you want two HD streams, that’s 3+3 = 6 GB/hour = 13 mbps. Add maybe another 1 mbps for a couple of browser sessions. You’ll probably find that the lowest tier of most internet providers is much more than this, so you shouldn’t have any bandwidth issue even at the lowest tier.
If anyone needs faster than 24-25mbps, I haven’t seen a good case for it. Higher speeds seem to be entirely for bragging rights and Comcast’s bottom line.
We have four to five heavy users with multiple video streaming and high end gaming. Never see buffering or slowdowns.
The coming exception might be multi-user 4K streaming, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
How fast is available in your area is the most important question?
I have Comcast (50/50mbps down and up) and I have never maxed it out but that is still considered to be a fairly fast connection. They are offering me 150/150mbps now and I honestly don’t know if I need it even though I use the internet to run just about everything in my house including the phones, multiple computers, tablets and more.
Those speeds aren’t available in all areas however. More is always better in this case but 20 - 50mbps should be enough to run a whole house in the present state. You probably don’t need to pay a premium for anything over 50mbps even if it is offered unless you are running multiple 4K TV’s or want to download whole DVD quality movies in just a few minutes.
I can tell you from lots of experience that 50mbps is more than enough to stream Netflix on 4 devices at the same time and talk on the phone.
There are two different things folks can mean by “internet speed”. Latency (the time for a signal to get from one end to the other and back, also called lag) is critical for most online gaming, but is nearly irrelevant for movies. On the other hand, bandwidth (the rate at which you can get data) is essential for movies, but usually not a big deal for most games. And different services can have very different results: For instance, satellite internet can get you plenty of bandwidth (if you pay for it), but always has lousy latency.
I’ve wondered this myself. Thank you Markn+ for the very clear explanation.
You didn’t ask, but phone == Vonage. Not the cheapest, but very reasonable rates for excellent features and service.
Vonage is good but I have an older Obi interface that works great as well. I bought it years ago for something like $35 dollars and I literally haven’t paid for phone service since even for long distance domestic service. I have it hooked up to a standard cordless phone system so it has whole house coverage just like any phones and they work the same way. It just connects through a Google Voice account and sounds the same as any other landline (and much better than a cellphone).
That was a mind-blower for a child of the 80’s like me when phones were a significant expense and you had to pre-plan long distance calls because they cost real money. My phone payments in the last 7 years have been $0. Dial away to anyone in the country for as long as you want. I never call outside of North America outside of free conference calls but I hear that is insanely cheap too.
Depends on what you mean by “need”, as a home user is there something you can do with 100 mbps that you really can’t do with 25 mbps, probably not.
Will you notice the difference and wish you had 100 mbps(or more) when you’re downloading your latest 50GB+ purchase from Steam? Oh yes 
Well, saving that 60 minutes once a month certainly makes another $30/mo worth it. :rolleyes:
Nobody asked, but I have been very happy with Ooma. It’s 5-10/month. I don’t know if they’re all like this, but one of the factors for me is that I have the Oooma hardware wired right into the phone lines where they used to enter the house and so all jacks act like regular phone jacks.
And I am also blown away, as someone who got yelled at for a 13 minute call to CA when I was around 15.
More like 3 hours actually, but if it is worth it or not depends on the cost and speed differences involved.
At the current exchange rate $30/mo is roughly what I pay total for 100 mbps, so you’ll have to excuse me for not realizing how expensive bandwidth is on your side of the pond.
That’s pretty much how all VOIP/internet phone providers work - there’s a box that has a net jack on one side and phone jacks on the other. You can use it in a small local loop, or jack it into your existing wiring.
Ooma and the infamous MagicJack sell you the box for about $100 and give you “free” calls - except that now you have to pay a small amount in taxes and fees for things like e911 - and Vonage and Broadcom give you the box free and charge very moderate rates for full-service phonage. The latter model seems more feature-rich, stable and reliable. Vonage’s list of features (including voicemail-to-email with speech-to-text transcription) is very impressive.
I pay $12 or so base for a 400-minute outgoing plan. Three lines cost just under $50/month with all taxes, fees etc. No complaints in four years, and they have great add-ons for international calling and the like.
It varies considerably, but the base economic decision here holds. I don’t see it as worth paying a premium for relatively infrequent bandwidth needs; have the patience to DL your new game overnight and it won’t really matter what your net speed is. Whether it’s $5 or $50, it’s a bit wasteful to pay for a bus that has only one passenger 99% of the time.
You might not see it, but for some of us that extra bit of convenience is worth paying a small premium for.
Yes, yes, it’s your money and you are allowed to throw it away because Comcast’s Boost! ads are so compelling. 
There are certainly valid reasons to get a high bandwidth plan. Video streaming is not one of them. But I regularly need to download large source trees for work. Being able to download a new source tree and get working on it in 1.5 hours instead of 6 hours is worth the few bucks a month it cost me to upgrade from a 25 mbps plan to a 100 mbps plan. I would have paid many times what it actually costs to get back all those hours per month of waiting for downloads.
Other side of the pond remember, no Comcast here.
And the premium in my case is about $7 to go from 10 to 100 mbps, if I was dealing with whatever Comcast offers I might make a different choice.
Of course there are. I could sometimes use 50+ myself, as I move large video and graphics files around… but a little planning, such as doing the file moves overnight or while I eat lunch, gets the job done too.
Anyone who really moves data around as a part of their income-producing activities is one thing. Getting 100-200mbps net for gaming and streaming, so you can occasionally blast down a new game file, is to have had a whole pitcher of the kool-aid. Do the math on what those blasts cost you - which may be infinite, if you never use the excess speed - and figure what else you could spend the money on.
Income is finite.
Thanks for the help guys.