I currently have 300mb fiber and was wondering if 1gig would be worth it. We have 4 PC/laptops, 1 tablet, 4 phones, and about 10 other Internet connected devices. Most devices are on WiFi and seem to get about 50mb to 100mb speed. Would gig Internet really help that out?
You must log in or # to comment.
It seems like you would benefit more from a better WiFi setup than WAN upgrade.
You are looking for a binary yes/no answer, but the reality is that only you can answer this question.
worth it
“worth it” is subjective…
- We don’t know how your ISP is pricing their Mbps plans
- We don’t know what your budget constraints are
- What do you consider to be cheap?
- What do you consider to be reasonably affordable?
- What do you consider to be expensive?
Would gig Internet really help that out?
This depends on whether your equipment can make use of the 900-1200 Mbps fiber in
Most devices are on WiFi and seem to get about 50mb to 100mb speed
Is this causing any problems?
I have 300Mbps Verizon FiOS in the northeastern United States. This is plenty for my needs:
- dozens to thousands of search engine queries per day; general web browsing
- constantly streaming of YouTube video
- video calls
- no gaming
- occasional TV streaming
- twelve total devices, not all concurrently used (although AdGuard Home tells me that they all make multiple DNS queries every minute)
I would say that most people over-estimate their internet bandwidth needs.
It’s overkill. Here where I live, only businesses invest in that much. Most users are happy with 150-250mbps.
Necessary … No.
Worth it. Yes.
I’m impatient as hell when I want something. If that means getting it through a connection 5x faster for the same price or just a bit more I’ll take it
Speeds benefit high res videos and downloads which are constantly increasing. So the faster the better
If you have to ask then the answer is “No”.
If you play call of duty, or any online game, yeah, since these freaking games are going for for like 200 gb’s or more in size nowadays
It doesn’t even matter. I have 400 Mbps and a 10 GB download can take over an hour. Having 1 gig won’t change that. In theory that download should take 25 seconds lol.
That’s crazy talk, I have 65Mb and 10GB data takes 30 mins to download. With your 400Mb 10GB data would take a handful of minutes at most.
It does if you’re computer and the server can keep up. Which is generally not going to be the case. I mostly only download games from Steam, but when I use other PC services they don’t saturate it and Playstation network on the ps4 at least several years ago didn’t even come close.
So ya it mostly doesn’t matter.
Map your peak data consumption, that will give you an idea as to whether or not you’d benefit from a package upgrade and what would best suit your needs. Still, I live in a house with 2 PC’s, multiple phones and a chrome cast - I have a 100/50 plan and have never noticed there being an issue when most devices are sharing the network load and even on an older wifi 5 device. You’d really need to be using all devices at the same time and hitting the connection with high data content like streaming services using 4k, 1080 60fps youtube or twitch etc all at the same time.
If you’re concerned about whether or not your devices are able to make the best use of the plan you have, you might do better in the short term to look at your wifi router and LAN/WLAN setup to make sure all devices are able to get access properly, that the wifi router isn’t struggling due to lesser hardware capabilities etc.
Absolutely necessary. You might not make it to the end of the week without it.
The applications that use that bandwidth most likely don’t exist yet. 5g and fiberglass are going to help us do things like self driving cars that need to exchange lots of data quickly with other cars in the neighborhood. Refrigerators that want to share data with your store. Robot cooks that need to download large models to perform their actions. Etc etc etc
The applications for this don’t exist yet, but once 5g is fully deployed that could move quite fast.
So no, you don’t need it now. But you might need it in 2-5years. It’ll also increase your download speed. So if it’s not to expensive why not.
We moved to a 300/300 plan for $45 per month versus 500/40 @ $110. I noticed nothing different.
Yeah we have multiple devices, me with a large collection of PCs. But I’m not downloading stuff constantly. At most my GF is watching a show and on her phone while I play a game with friends online and using Discord.
1Gb fiber is optional, we can upgrade any time. But we save a bunch of money going with the 300 tier. Realizing now we would just be throwing money away for bragging rights.
I did discover Steam’s game sharing feature, so I can get games from one PC uploaded to another across my network. I don’t have a known data cap with the ISP, but this is something a friend has been happy to have with data caps. He’s planning to setup a steam game server, which is a whole separate project.
TL;DR go with gigabit fiber service if you absolutely need it or get a good discount. Otherwise it is probably a better deal with a lower tier.
I use it almost daily. Spent a lot of time uploading and downloading large files from work.
Probably not unless you all regularly stream several as in more than one for each of you, 4K videos at once.
Other than that it’s mostly whether or not you want to download things faster. Most servers won’t even give you a full gigabit down. Steam does. So if you regularly install large AAA PC games maybe it is worth it.
If you do a lot of piracy you can sometimes a saturate a gigabit connection with a well seeded torrent.
o if you regularly install large AAA PC games maybe it is worth it.
Yeah buit from the sounds of it “Most devices are on WiFi and seem to get about 50mb to 100mb speed.” It’s not going to help. Unless OP of course left out the decent devices.
I would expect they are all old if thats the speed they are getting. I am on 500 and get 520 if I can be bothered to run wired. (it’s a 15M cable so not unless I know I need it).
I can usually download games and updates on steam with about 800 mbit though so I guess for those uses it comes in really handy.
Edit: using my 1gbit connection wired that is.
I don’t have 1G fibre however
The ‘benefit’ of 1G fibre is that more devices can share that bandwidth. You don’t notice day to day but when multiple people are using the internet;
- Work from Home
- Gaming and updates
- Uploading images to the cloud
- Security cameras in use
- Maybe uploading a video to YouTube
- Streaming on IPTV; Netflix, Disney+ etc
and there’s so much more that happens, all so seamlessly without a hiccup. It would be likely be just as awesome on 300Mbps too however on 1G you can burst more, especially when you need something as soon as possible.
—-
As for your WiFi issue. You need more WiFi points around to solve that.
I normally say 100Mbps per person. That is enough speed to stream around 4, 4K Netflix streams at once. Or 1 stream and browsing the web and other things at once.
If there are 2 people living there, then 200Mbps. Normally you’d have to go with a 300Mbps plan. Which is more than fast enough for most people.
My Brother and his wife life on top of a mountain basically, and have wireless Internet, and get around 100Mbps. Yet that is enough speed for the both of them to work at home and be on their computers.
If most of your bandwidth is being wasted, why have it? Now there can be reasons why you need more speed. If you do a lot of Peer to Peer and want to transfer a whole lot of large files all the time. Faster speed, won’t take as long as slower speed. Will it make it worth it for you? I doubt it.
All your devices don’t need 50-100Mbps non-stop. They grab a batch of packets and then stop. While some other device is grabbing some packets and then stopping. While other devices aren’t doing anything on the internet.
If you’re doing a lot of waiting around for something to happen on your devices because you’re using so much data, then yes, you need more speed.
It is nice for updating a steam library, or downloading a huge file. Other than that, 1Gig is pretty much useless for me.