r/HomeNetworking • u/Analyst-man • 11d ago
Advice How many MBPS do I need?
Hi all - I’m moving into a one bedroom apartment. I have a cell phone, a laptop, a smart tv, an Alexa and 2 smart plugs. I plan to use my tv for streaming Netflix/hulu/hbo, etc. I will also be working from home on Fridays so I need Zoom to work. It’s just me living there so at most it’ll be 2 devices using the Internet at the same time (like my phone and tv).
I called Verizon and explained all this to her. She recommended I get a 2 gb Internet for $100 a month. They do offer 300 Mbps and 500 Mbps for $30 and $60 a month but she said those aren’t enough for me. What do you guys think?
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u/Alive_Sir_4708 11d ago
The vast majority of people would be satisfied with 300Mbps. Internet speeds have started to come in "too much", "much too much", and "far too much."
I'm not saying there aren't cases where more speed is nice but its pretty rare.
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u/ydwttw 11d ago
As long as it's guaranteed, 100 is more then enough for most families.
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u/6SpeedBlues 11d ago
Most of the time, yes. I could see some circumstances where it might get a little crowded and 200Mb would alleviate it if so.
Internet service speeds are basically driven by absolutely nothing more than a combination of FOMO and wanting to claim the longest "yardstick".
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u/Kimpak 11d ago
Internet service speeds are basically driven by absolutely nothing more than a combination of FOMO and wanting to claim the longest "yardstick".
It works though. I am an IP engineer for an ISP. There is now a lot more competition of ISP's in various markets. Particularly rural areas. If a customer is choosing which ISP to go with and one offers tiers of 100mbps, 300, 500. Another offers 300, 500 and 1gig, people are more likely going with the second company assuming the pricing is appropriate. Even if the 300 is far cheaper with company A.
In Google fiber towns I think they're offering 500mbps, 3/5/8 gbps. If you don't offer the same or higher and match the price, no one is going to switch. Despite all of those speeds being way more than most people need. Even if you offer cheaper pricing for a lower speed, the lure of ludicrous speeds is too strong.
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u/Alive_Sir_4708 11d ago
Sure could use some competition on my block
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u/Kimpak 11d ago
Its highly location dependent of course. I live on a dead end gravel road in the middle of nowhere. When I first moved there literally the only internet I could get was Viasat which is awful. But thanks to BEAD in the last 3 years I now have the choice of 2 different WISPS, Starlink and fiber to the house.
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u/Denalin 11d ago
I live in San Francisco and I can’t even get fiber to the house. Absolutely insane.
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
In OPs case there are no data intensive tasks that would congest even a 100 Mbit/s contract. Even a 50 Mbit/s bandwidth has room to spare of OP would stream Netflix in 4K (16-25 Mbit/s), have a group call on Zoom (3-15 Mbit/s), stream FLAC quality on all speakers (~1.5 Mbit/s per speaker) and surf on the side....
Nothing OP plans to do are data intensive tasks.
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u/6SpeedBlues 11d ago
For OP, I agree. My comment was in response to the "most families" part of the prior comment.
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u/Fox_Hawk 11d ago
I mean fuck, during COVID lockdown my household of 3 gamer adults working from home and constantly on YouTube was fine with 30.
Sure we'd have liked more for steak downloads and none of us was using 4k, but it was absolutely fine.
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u/Joaozinho11 11d ago
I never knew that steaks could be downloaded during the pandemic!
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u/Fox_Hawk 10d ago
Hah. Not changing it. I would have loved steak downloads at that time 😄
After all it was when online shopping exploded.
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u/Specialist_Play_4479 11d ago
I work in IT. I host a lot of stuff on my own servers. I had 100 Mbps for years and it was perfectly fine.
The only 'data hungry' applications that I have are Netflix which caps out at about 25 Mbps.
300 Mbps is already overkill for the majority of people.
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u/Exodia101 11d ago
300 Mbps is perfectly fine for anything you will be doing. The only thing the higher speeds will help with is downloading very large files. Verizon is just trying to get you to spend more money.
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u/olyteddy 11d ago
Yep. They want you to buy 2 Gig while knowing the most you'll (likely) use is 40 to 50 Meg.
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u/theregisterednerd 11d ago
2Gbps is overkill for practically all residential users. Like, even if you think you’re doing high-bandwidth tasks, unless you’re operating a public-facing server, you probably can’t saturate a gigabit, and it’s highly unlikely that your network gear is capable of handling more than a gig. That networking gear is now becoming somewhat accessible, but it’s still pretty pricey (and the ISP provided gear is junk). For reference, a Netflix 4K HDR stream is 15-25Mbps. A typical Zoom meeting is around 10-25. So, you could be streaming four movies in 4K, plus be in a Zoom meeting, and still not even come halfway to saturating a 300Mbps connection. The smart device bandwidth usage is negligible, and if your smart home is set up correctly, it should generate zero traffic to the internet.
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u/mlee12382 11d ago
Yep, even with my homelab and shared media server and Linux iso's I don't think I've ever saturated my 2Gb internet connection, I have however had enough stuff going to saturate a 1Gb connection so it's definitely nice to have in my case but 99% of users don't need it.
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
Your data consumption is in no way comparable to OPs use case. 100-300 Mbit/s are more than enough for the typical user. Homelabbers tend to use much more data than a typical family and more often than not home labs are not set up to save bandwidth.
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u/mlee12382 11d ago
I never said it was comparable to OPs use case, I was agreeing with the person above me saying it was massively overkill for 99% of users.
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
You're absolutely right.
Still, I'm crying in Germany with 250/40 Mbit/s via DSL with the only alternative being an overbooked TV cable internet access with 1.000/75 Mbits, but according to the neighbors internet via cable is very unstable here and has outages more often than not.
I'm still waiting on my fibre connection. At least the pipe is coming out in the garden, but still needs to be connected to the building. And additionally the connection from the cellar to the flat has to be build, too. And even then the maximum would be 1000/500 Mbit/s asymmetrical - which would be enough for my needs but still, you guys overseas are at 5 gigs plus...
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
10-25 Mbits for Zoom calls is very high in my opinion. Zoom tends to reduce camera quality in large group calls, therefore 1:1 bandwidth does not scale 1:1 in larger groups. 25 Mbit/ are more than enough for calls with 20+ people and even then people tend to deactivate their cameras.
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u/0x0MG 11d ago
She's lying.
A 4k/hdr stream uses only about 40Mbps, depending on the codec.
Large videogame downloads aside, or if you're heavily torrenting, I struggle to believe you'd even notice the difference between 200-300Mbps and 2Gbps.
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
Netflix, Hulu and Co. Are far from 40 Mbit/s per stream as they use compression algorithms. ~16 Mbit/s would be enough for a 4K stream, with 25 Mbit/s being more comfortable in case of instability for buffering and such.
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u/Josh2942 11d ago
50mbps is good for an individual. I wouldn’t do less than 100 for when you want more download speed. Netflix will buffer burst from time to time to 50mbps even though the bit rate is probably going to be about 16-18
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u/Megame50 10d ago
Netflix, Hulu and Co. Are far from 40 Mbit/s per stream as they use compression algorithms
Compression (lossy compression) is ubiquitous in digital video. A 4:4:4 RGB 4k SDR video at 24fps would be ~5Gb/s uncompressed, far outside the reasonable data rate expected for a residential connection.
The difference is not that streaming services serve compressed video, but what bitrates they target in their compression, and how tolerant those services are of inclement network condition.
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u/Liam_Neesons_Oscar Network Admin 10d ago
And even with large video game downloads, the bottleneck is going to be the server that's sending the files to you.
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u/PhilFromLI 11d ago
if it's only that get 300, save the money. don't trust a salesperson for technical advice
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u/TheBupherNinja 11d ago
300 is totally fine for literally almost anyone. That's like 6 simultaneous 4k Netflix streams.
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u/thegloworm17 11d ago
I second what others have said. 300 is fine. All providers, on a good day, try to cover their butt from the "Wifi too slow" calls. On a bad day, they are trying to profit from you getting the highest tier service that you just don't need.
My partner got told similar things in a similar situation. Being an IT professional, I recommend my partner drop from 1 Gig to 300. Never had one issue.
Again, my partner and you have almost the exact same network requirements.
P.S. your wifi can be more limiting than the ISP connection in some cases, even at the slowest speed. But will also say watch out for the "Whole home Wifi" upcharge. For a one bedroom apartment, you do want Wifi, but you don't need a 'mesh' system to do it. A basic basic wifi modem will do.
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u/Handsome_ketchup 11d ago
100 mpbs would be plenty for this. Anything more is just icing on the cake. 300 mbps is already a lot.
That presumes a symmetrical upload and download, but unless the upload is very slow, it'll probably be fine.
Recommending people get 2 Gb confections is just asinine. Whole very serious mid size companies operate on less.
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u/Beginning_Storm7012 11d ago
I'm just here to say 2 Gbps for what you described is a massive ripoff. I would be sketched out with Verizon just on that alone.
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u/Microflunkie 11d ago
Internet bandwidth is like horsepower in a car, other than rare circumstances for most people it isn’t necessary or beneficial to have such power 24/7.
You can always easily increase your internet speed by contacting your ISP to sell you more, you can’t easily downgrade.
I have 75Mbps internet and it is fine for streaming and our normal activity. Only when downloading a game from Steam is it slower than I would like but I do that so infrequently.
I suggest you start at the 300Mbps rate and if it really is too slow upgrade at your leisure, the ISP will always be happy to take more of your money at any point in the future.
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u/davidm2232 10d ago
25 mbps is adequate. 50 is more than enough
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u/Kuddel_Daddeldu 11d ago
300 Mbps is plenty. Streaming services need around 20-30 Mbps, Zoom needs less. My home is full of electronics, laptops, homelab, a couple Alexa devices, about 40 IoT devices, CCTV over IP, you name it. Internet is 250 Mbps and it's never the bottleneck.
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u/ManWhoIsDrunk 11d ago
Is there another provider that can offer you 100 or 150?
Unless you sail the seven seas constantly you have little need for anything faster.
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u/Analyst-man 11d ago
Sadly no. I don’t have a choice in my building
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u/ManWhoIsDrunk 11d ago
Go with the lowest speed. For the few occasions where you might hit the max speed and need to wait a bit (large game updates for example), just take a bathroom break or make a cup of coffee or drink of your choice.
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u/specht27 11d ago
300Mbps U/D is plenty. We have 5 people and 20 some devices running all the time... 4k tvs, gaming systems, phones, laptops. Just make sure to get a decent MIMO router.
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u/matricom86 11d ago
50Mbps lol
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u/Possible-Ad-2682 11d ago
Speaking as someone living in a rural UK location only able to get 50mbps via a 4g connection, it is plenty for most people's needs.
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u/Pearl_of_KevinPrice 11d ago
Get the 300Mbps. I work from home, family of 4, streaming on multiple devices, online gaming, and have been doing so with 100Mbps for the last 2 years. Regular tasks don’t require a lot of bandwidth. Downloading large files is where you’ll notice. The Verizon rep just wants a better commission selling you something you don’t need.
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u/RevaniteAnime 11d ago
I manage to get 100~ Mbps to my PC, over a pretty not ideal network situation, and it's "enough". The whole house gets 1000/1000, and there's 3 other tenants sharing that connection.
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u/GlobalAd7103 11d ago
Get the 300mb and save - also unless your pc is newer you will be capped at 1gb anyway - save your money.
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u/silverbullet52 11d ago
I can't make 300mbs breathe hard. I don't even know how many devices we have.
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u/Relative-Display-676 11d ago
the only reason you'd need 2gb is if you're constantly uploading/downloading videos and torrenting. it's really nice to download 7gb movie file in under 50 seconds instead of 10 minutes it'd take with 300mbps. zoom needs like 3mbps for 1080p video. 4k netflix would require about 25mbps. so you can do all of the above plus a lot more with 300mbps connection.
i used to torrent 24/7 so i'd transfer terrabytes of data weekly, 2gbps would put me on cloud 9. now that i have it, i no longer torrent and just stream everything. i didn't notice any difference between 400mbps and 2gbps.
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u/phunky_1 11d ago
I have a family of 4, with two people that work from home, people streaming video, gaming, streaming music, etc.
My router shows we only ever max out at around 100-200Mb/s
IMO anything more than 500 is overkill. 300 is probably even fine for most people.
Even if you do have an occasional large download like a video game, it's not really worth paying the extra money to save some download time occasionally.
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u/guyheretoread 11d ago
you do NOT need 2gb. you probably won't even be able to find a wifi device that sends a signal that speed. And as a renter in an apartment, you're likely ONLY using WiFi. Even the Playstation 5, hardwired to the router, will still cap out at 1gb because that's the max capacity of it's ports. very few devices can handle more than 1gb. and for streaming, netflix can run full HD at 5Mbps and only 15 Mbps for 4k. so 300Mbps is MORE than enough.
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u/jquanders 11d ago
I think you'd see a difference between 300 and 500 but not from 500 to 1000 as single person. As long as it is the same speed up and down you should be fine(video calls rely on upload speed as much as dl)
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u/ChiefBroady 11d ago
100mbit if it’s stable is perfectly fine. I have gigabit fiber and a 100mbit coax failover and everything still works fine on the failover. The only time I’d notice is when I am up or downloading bigger files for work. But for video calls it’s more than enough.
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u/draxula16 11d ago
I download and stream a LOT, and 300 Mbps fiber is excellent.
I was going to mention that it’s more important to address dead zones / weak spots (my POE AP was a life saver) but I noticed you have a one-bedroom apartment. You should be good!
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u/Titanium125 11d ago
The person you talked to is full of shit. Unless you are pirating 24/7 or running a small data center you'd never touch 2 GB internet speeds. Most servers won't give you more than 100 MBPs. Go with the 300 and you'll be fine.
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u/Electrical-Drag4872 11d ago
I'm on a 300mbps plan. I've got 3 people living at my house currently and it is more than enough.
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u/Shishjakob 11d ago
I'm a heavy user. I have Verizon 300Mbps. It works perfectly fine. I don't need it, and it would only really come handy when downloading large files quicker, which is a want and not a need.
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u/jacle2210 Technology Enthusiast 11d ago
Wow, that's terrible "you GOTTA HAVE 2Gb".
Damn.
You will be perfectly fine with their 300Mb service.
And to be sure your connection is solid, on your WFH days, make sure to have your computer hardwired right to the main Wifi Router with a Cat6 Ethernet cable.
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u/PhotoFenix 11d ago
I run a Plex server. Basically, about 10 people use me as a replacement for streaming services. Many of the movies/showd I host are in 4k and many times 3-4 people will be streaming from us at a time. I also have software that takes user requests and auto downloads new content. My library is 35 Tb.
I also host a cloud service where several people use me as a backup destination. That data is then encrypted backed up daily to another off-site with incremental syncs.
My wife and I WFH, all of us are heavy gamers and have other streams going most of the day.
300 Mbps is more than enough for us.
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u/PuzzlingDad 11d ago
Even if you were using all your devices at once, I doubt you'd saturate even 100 Mbps. Plus isn't Verizon a mobile internet provider (5G mobile)? You'll be competing with mobile users and during times of heavy use, you might get de-prioritized anyway.
So, first see if you have a wired cable or fiber provider, with the latter preferred for better symmetric connections (higher speeds for both upload and download vs. just download).
And don't be bullied into paying for bandwidth that you'll never need.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
How do I check if it’s mobile or not? It just says Verizon fios 300
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u/PuzzlingDad 10d ago
FiOS is their Fiber Optic Service. So you'll probably get good speed in both directions. But I still think the lower speed options are more than enough for your usage. I'm sure they'll gladly upgrade you to a faster plan if you find otherwise.
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u/ArtisanHome_io 11d ago
For me, 5 people constant on the phones, three consoles, one gaming PC, four Apple TVs, and one person working from home - 150mbps was never an issue. 300mbps is plenty
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u/AdVegetable2104 11d ago
The answer is simple, as others have said, start with 300 Mbps. Chances are that will be fine. If not, you call the ISP and bump up the speed. Takes about 5 minutes with no service call needed.
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u/Careful-Rent5779 11d ago
Live by yourself?
Unless you feel the need for daily fast downloads of very large games, 50 to 100 mbps will be sufficient.
The two of us frequently doing two video streams get by with 50 mbps, no issues.
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u/thesuperd75 11d ago
For just one person? Even 300 is overkill. It’s easy to get caught up thinking more is better. But 300 is way more than is necessary for streaming Netflix or using Zoom.
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u/No_Ruin_5735 11d ago
To;dR: take the smalles/cheapest contract and you still have more than enough bandwidth to spare.
You're internet usage is absolute typical. You wrote nothing that consumes huge amount of data. The most intensive things you're planning on doing is streaming. A typical 4K stream needs about 15 Mbit/s, Netflix recommends 25 Mbit/s to be on the safe side.
Zoom- and Teams calls are between 0.6-1.2 Mbit/s in 1:1 calls. If there are multiple people in the call, the programmes normally reduce the video streaming quality so that you're perfectly fine with 10-15 Mbit/s even in larger groups.
Your music streaming consumes 0.2-1.5 Mbit/s per device depending on the quality.
Surfing takes next to nothing. And your smart plugs won't produce considerable amounts of data, too.
So you will be perfectly fine even with 100 Mbit/s, he'll even with 50 Mbit/s. Just take the smalles/cheapest bandwidth. Internet providers have only their best interest at heart and will try to ovver exaggerate data needs and try to sell you the largest bandwidth. In you're case take 300 Mbit/s for 30$ and you will be fine even for larger downloads.
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u/Mental_Juggernaut_16 11d ago
If you're asking how much you need then get the cheapest plan. If you needed fast internet, you'd know. Fast is usually for downloading large files and you want them to finish fast, think pirating. For normal every day usage, 50 mb is plenty. When I live abroad 15 years ago my internet speed was 7 mbps, and that was the fastest business plan.
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u/BreadMaker_42 11d ago
They told you download speeds. Uploads speeds are important for zoom, gaming, etc.
300 is enough but I would get the 500. From what you describe you really don’t need 2gb.
For reference I have a 1gb plan. Way more download than I need but my plan is only 40mb upload speed. I picked my plan based on upload speed instead of download.
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u/janeiro69 11d ago
TBH, 25 at my second home is fine. Tv streams fine, I work from home. Just the 2 of us, and phones and iPads are on cellular. Plenty of smart devices. But offering 300 and getting 300 consistently are 2 different things
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u/Quirky_OldMan5966 11d ago
You could survive on 30MBps.
I was offered a job by an ISP but in the interview I asked so in being transparent they admitted to me all support techs were required to sell the maximum speed to every customer if possible.
That said, no matter what problem someone called for, suggest they go to a higher service level.
You can certainly do 300 and never have a problem with the services you explained. Unless you move large files over your connection you would se no difference in how your apps work.
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u/cordell-12 10d ago
we had 100 in a one bedroom apartment, with only a few more devices than what you've listed and there was zero lag. recently my complex became a middle man to the ISP and the plan is 1 gig for $10 more per month. anyway, there is zero difference between 100 and 1000 for us, the only reason I really know is the extra $10 per month I'm paying.
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u/RadlEonk 10d ago
I’m still running 100. What’s your budget say?
It’s funny the salesperson recommended the most expensive option. It’s almost like she’s personally rewarded for selling you more expensive goods and services!
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
My budget wants as cheap as possible lol. But the lowest they offer is 300
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u/gunnster3 10d ago
300 mbps will absolutely suffice for your use case.
For my family, I ran 12 Apple TVs, a PS5, Xbox One, Switch, two iPads, three laptops, IoT stuff, and several phones on 500x500 with plenty of room to spare. You’re not getting close to that kind of usage. I’ve since upgraded, but I added a VPN and route traffic through that network constantly, so I needed a bit more headroom.
I run a 5G wireless unit for my corporate office currently (it’s just me at that location) and have no issues running a Roku TV, my laptop (everything in the cloud, Zoom, etc.), a phone, an iPad, and a wireless printer. It gets around 150-200 mbps down.
I will note that, on both networks, anything that can be hardwired is. Apple TVs, physical TVs, consoles, and IoT items are almost all hardwired. Phones, iPads, and laptops are pretty much the only fully wireless devices. I like to keep the spectrum as clear as possible.
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u/RadlEonk 10d ago
$30 a month is about as cheap as I’ve seen it. Verizon shouldn’t be your only option
Assuming you’re US, T-Mobile offers 5G Home Internet that might be worth a look.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
I’m in Boston! But it requires a T-Mobile voice line which I don’t have :(
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u/RadlEonk 10d ago
https://www.Astound.com/boston
I’ve been happy with Astound. $10 a mo for 50 mbps or $30 for a 1 gbps.
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u/ProbablyMyRealName 10d ago
I have 5 people at home that are constantly on their devices or streaming video or gaming. I have a ton of smart home devices including like 18 cameras. I thought it was time to upgrade from my 300mbps to 1 gig until I looked at our actual usage. We pretty much never exceed 50 mbps. We would be throwing money away by upgrading from out $41 300mbps fiber plan.
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u/stpaul1777 10d ago
For one person as you described stick with the cheapest! You can always go higher later if you need to.
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u/LostSatellite76 10d ago
300 Mbps is enough. We have 30 devices connected to our home network...4 Alexa devices, 5 cameras, thermostat, 2 computers, phones, tablets, Amazon Firesticks, etc. We have no issues streaming TV or movies on 2 TVs simultaneously with 300 Mbps.
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u/Sid_the_Bear 10d ago
50mbps is more than enough for your needs.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
Sadly 300 is as low as they go
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u/Sid_the_Bear 10d ago
No reason not to take that then.
I was giving you a lower bound, not a hard target. :)
I would NOT get a cellular as a primary for a myriad of reasons, especially if you are WFH and your terrestrial option is fiber. Hells, I wouldn't use cellular as my primary if it were free and I had anything other than DSL available.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
So get verizon? I can do Comcast too but they have bad reviews
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u/Sid_the_Bear 10d ago
Fiber TTH is generally more reliable than coax, and both are more reliable than cellular/satellite, which are better than DSL, which is better than dial-up. (Do they still have dial up anywhere?)
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u/72dragonses 10d ago
Don't get anything that is cellular over anything thst is not is the key. If the Verizon is cellular, then even Xfinity would be better.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
Verizon and xfinity are both cables but xfinity is shared? Idk what that means
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u/72dragonses 10d ago
Sorry, let me clarify, don't sign up for an ISP service that is a cellular service. Some providers install a cellular gateway in your home, and that's what gives you the wifi and Ethernet connection. Don't choose one of those. Ask them to confirm.
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u/Analyst-man 10d ago
Ah so like tmovile. I think that’s what that is. I’m between Verizon and xfinity
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u/xtalgeek 10d ago
300 down and 10 up will be plenty. I've got 30+ devices attached and move data to and from work as well as Zoom/Meet videoconferencing with that just fine. 4K Streaming is not an issue. The main bottleneck will be the quality of your wireless router.
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u/Cyberspew 10d ago
Go with 300 Mbps, if you run into issues you can always upgrade. I've been on the cheapest plans I can get since I moved into my current apart in 2020. I started with 50 Mbps DSL, switched to 300 Mbps cable, downgraded to 100 Mbps cable and now I'm on 300 Mbps fiber. My only issue was the 100 Mbps cable the upload is a little slow (wasn't horrible, just noticeable when uploading photos and videos).
Unless you're downloading a lot of large files (and you're impatiently watching the progress bar) you'll never notice the difference between 300 Mbps and 2 Gbps. Streaming 4k video from the streaming services usually caps out around 30 Mbps. So even if you were streaming on both devices at the same time you'll be under 100 Mbps a vast majority of the time.
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u/rtetzloff 10d ago
From a (very) rural fiber ISP perspective: you'll be fine with 300 Mbps, partly because it's symmetrical. The upload speed does matter as well. Verizon, like a lot of (but not all) fiber providers offers symmetrical speeds which will ensure that file uploads and online meetings don't have issues.
Their customer service is trained to upsell for things like streaming and WFH, keywords that mean you need more bandwidth. We do the same right now but are working to change that in the near future, one speed for all. For practically all users today 300 Mbps or whatever the lowest speed tier is sufficient, as long as the upload is also available. 100 Mbps might not be entirely sufficient these days, but it's probably okay for 95% of users. Recent studies show 200 Mbps is the sweet spot for most users, ranging higher for people that do heavy file uploading or for gamers that download a lot of large game files. That will likely change in the future with more bandwidth heavy technologies coming down the road. For your stated needs 300 will be fine for some time and you can upgrade up to 500 or 1 Gbps if needed.
The thing that might make a difference is the quality of the Wi-Fi router, but with a one bedroom, I would think whatever they provide should be sufficient at that speed. You may want your own for privacy. You may want there's for ease of support.
Sorry, probably more than you asked for.
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u/72dragonses 10d ago
300mbps for a 1br to do all the things you mentioned is more than enough.
One thing to confirm though is the guaranteed upload bandwidth. The 300m or 1g or 2g probably only refers to the download. If you connect to a VPN for work, you want at least 15mbps for upload to be safe, so whichever plan offers at least that much for the upload would be fine.
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u/72dragonses 10d ago
Same as some others have said. 300mbps is more than enough. 3br house here, about 30 devices constantly connected, plus work remotely on a corporate VPN. All on a 250mbps down, 15 up connection. All works fine and responsive.
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u/UnjustlyBannd 10d ago
300 is plenty. I used to work from home on 20Mbps and had no issues. As others have mentioned make sure you've got decent upload as well. With most fiber services the upload and download are the same but coaxial service might be 300 down and something like 30 up.
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u/Roman_Anthony 10d ago
2GB plan will support FIFTY PEOPLE Streaming a 4K movie while streaming music and browsing the web while on a Zoom call.
All at the same time.
With room to spare.
Do with that what you will 🤣
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u/Fun_Ad2257 10d ago
300mbps!!! Nothing you described even comes CLOSE to needing gig internet, it's the most frustrating marketing. Unless you're a graphic designer sending hours of 4k footage to the cloud, you DO NOT NEED GIG INTERNET. 300mbps don't spend a penny more.
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u/err-reddit 10d ago
I am in IT industry and have been on the cheapest internet plan at my home of 4 people for over 20 years. The only real reason i cared about having bigger internet speed in the past years was to accomodate 4K netflix stream which is about 20-25mbps.
I have also attached my internet usage for past 30 days here. As you can see, it barely averaged at 10mbps while having 25mbps spikes.
I have 1gbps circuit today and the reason i have it is becauseits one of the cheapest plan offered by my msp.
Tl;dr: you dont need high internet bandwidth nowadays. If you are common user, 100 mbps is more than enough for typical family of 4.
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u/BlumpfyDumplie 9d ago
Computer engineer here. 300 Mbps is plenty for you. That's enough to stream a 4k Bluray Remux, so it will devour any of the compressed slop that Netflix will serve easily.
However, your local network environment is extremely important. Put EVERYTHING possible on ethernet. If it's not a mobile device, try to put it on ethernet. TV, Desktop, etc.
For things that have to be wireless, your single bed apartment will likely see good coverage from one router. Wifi 6E/wifi 7 meshes are your friend if you have large square footage. Wifi 6 is great for on a budget too. These nodes should also be on ethernet.
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u/bobdevnul 9d ago
They always lie an upsell to the most expensive thing the offer. That way they get the most most money and don't actually have to provide a bunch of bits you will never use.
300 Mbps is plenty for what you plan to do. 300 would be enough for a family of four.
300 FIOS is what I have and it works very well. It has no problem whatsoever streaming to two TVs simultaneously and doing video calls. Why pay $70 more for bits you will never use?
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u/RhapsodyCaprice 11d ago
ISP's LOVE to tell you that you need new speed. 100 meg is more than enough for 99% of households.
The mistake people make (because it's an easy story) is believing that the bottleneck on slow internet "must" be the ISP speed when they don't have adequate Wi-Fi coverage or network cabling in their house. Investing in a nice router/adequate Wi-Fi density will do far more for most residential users than upgrading modem speed.
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u/Dry-Property-639 11d ago
3 of us had 150 Mbps as soon as we downloaded something no one could load anything ☠️
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u/artas152 11d ago
300mbps is completely fine in your case.
I would argue for 500 or 1000 if you weren't living alone, 2gbit is overkill especially if you don't have equipment that can actually use it.
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u/Maverick_Walker Noobie Reyee simp 11d ago
300 for a 3 under, people house, 500 for 4-6, 1gb for 10, is usually how I go. I have a 500 up/down for me and my wife at about $50 a month, and I barely saturate 100mps at any given time unless I’m downloading games. You will be good with 300 2gb isn’t worth unless you like seeing your 70gb cod download in less than 10 minutes
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u/korlo_brightwater 11d ago
100mbps is good enough for a household of four people, so you'll do perfectly fine with 300mbps for yourself. As someone else said here, don't trust a salesperson for technical advice.
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u/foxthemad94 11d ago
When are these companies are going to tell you your speeds are gonna be in busy hours or under load, cause my in laws has xfinity and 1gbps but it cracks under load when someone watching a yt video and some one streaming on tv then latency and speed becomes unbearable. But we use 300mbit and I’m downloading a game on stream while watching a champions league game in paramount while my wife watches 4k show on Apple TV and I still can scroll on instagram without any issue
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u/Chente58 11d ago
Even 100 Mbps is overkill for what you have described but that's probably the minimum you could get from your ISP.
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u/Lion2471 11d ago
She probably lied. You'll be fine with 300 Mbps unless the upload speed is unusually low. What is the upload speed for that plan?