We’re moving to Washington state and have to sign up with the dreaded Comcruddy. My husband will do the talking on the phone, but I’ve been charged with figuring out what we “need” in terms of internet speed.
We will also be getting digital cable, if that makes any difference.
Usage: three people. Everyone is on the internet multiple hours a day. My husband and I both run businesses from home, though it’s at the “surfing websites and writing emails” level, not at the “video conferencing” level. We do not game or have any gaming systems. We have a four year old who likes to watch videos on YouTube. We will also have Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming, of which we will probably turn on about 20 hours a week (the kid likes to have shows on while she plays).
So do we want to the 25mb or the 50mb package or what? Help.
25Mb should be fine. 25 megabits is a little over 3 megabytes a second, which is plenty sufficient to stream 1080p video.
However note the fine print that inserts the words “up to” before the listed speed, as in “You are not guaranteed 25Mb.” But again, you should be fine, and you can always upgrade later if you find that to not be meeting your needs.
According to netflix, 25mb should give you ultra HD.
Video streaming is the one that you need a decent speed for, if you can get 25mb then everything else will be fine.
My internet connection at home is 6mb on a good day (rural area, stuck with 3G signal) and it’s fine with everything I need it for, including youtube videos at HD.
The other thing to look at is usage caps - are the packages unlimited? 20 hours a week of video streaming will chew through quite a bit of data.