Do I really need that much speed? Before you buy into the marketing tactic that you need a 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, 400 Mbps, or even 1000 Mbps download speed… take a look at the information I have provided here. You may be surprised! If you don’t believe me, CTRL+SHIFT+ESC and view your network card graph in real time and see for yourself.
Browsing The Web
Conditions: 802.11g (54Mbps) Wifi connection on opposite side of home from Wifi Router, full signal.
Notice that despite the media-rich site browsing activity, the browsing activity did not demand more than 1-2 Mbps, with one initial spike over 11 Mbps and a few ~3 Mbps spikes.
Watching 2 480p Videos Simultaneously
Conditions: 802.11g (54Mbps) Wifi connection on opposite side of home from Wifi Router, full signal.
Aside from spikes, 4-6 Mbps seems to be all these videos would need to run without buffering.
Watching a 1440p (HD) Video
Conditions: 802.11g (54Mbps) Wifi connection on opposite side of home from Wifi Router, full signal.
Notice that the download duty cycle is not 100%. I had no buffering issues. The average download speed demand was about 10 Mbps and was around 20 Mbps during download spikes.
Things to Consider
ISPs that offer residential service can only offer “up to” speeds, not dedicated speeds. This means that when a company advertises 100 Mbps, they really mean “up to” 100 Mbps. More often than not, data caps are also in play. Speeds may slow during peak usage hours due to capacity limitations.
Enterprise business users pay for dedicated connections, which means that their speed is guaranteed 24/7 without limitation.
Some ISPs prioritize certain traffic, such as certain websites and streaming services over others. Throttling (arbitrary speed slow down) also occurs. Seek out an ISP that is content- neutral in these matters.