My options are Verizon Fios or Comcast. Looking at internet only. Both have a couple of different options speed-wise and price. Don't need tv channels or anything but the Internet. For 95% of the time, there will just be one person using it. For streaming or a little gaming, what speeds do you really need?

Don't want to pay for the higher-end speeds when I don't need them.

At my workshop I can only get 16mbps but can still watch TV/video just fine without buffering.

I have 500 at home and downloads like larger Windows updates are a bit quicker but don’t seem to make the video any better.

I suspect if you can get 100 it will be more than fine for anything you're using.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 220-9er,

I am not a computer expert, but I would think getting any speed beyond what your computer network card, router, or wi-fi can handle is a waste. Unless that extra speed allows for more devices to use the full speed without slowing down others, that part I don’t know. I just know that if you have a network card or Ethernet switch that can only handle up to say 100 Mbps then having anything faster than that will do nothing for that device. You might have a wi-fi device that can go faster if your modem/router can handle that speed.

I forget what speed I get at home without looking it up, but my iPad and iPhone connected to my home wi-fi get faster internet speed than my home wired computer and that is due to the network card in my computer. My wired Xbox is limited by the type of ethernet cable run in my walls and the ethernet switch supplying those wires. For that reason, I use the wi-fi function on my Xbox to have faster speeds. My wi-fi might even be able to be faster if the router could handle the faster speed.

You may want to check data limits as well - some plans may limit how much data you can download per month. The limits, for me, are pretty generous (1TB?) but YMMV.

100-200Mbps handles 2 streaming w/o any issues (but it's mostly 1080p; I don't what it would be if I streamed the same content in UHD - even if double, I'd still be under 1TB per month and that's watching about 4 hours every day).

That being said, I upgraded to 200Mbps in order to get the faster upload speed (10Mpbs) for work reasons.

I'd start low, you can always change plans to increase speeds.

I would take Verizon FIOS in a nanosecond over any cable option. Most reliable by far, extremely fast. Don’t know what the cost difference is for you, but if they are both in the same ballpark at all FIOS is the way to go.

comet24,
Agree that 100-200 Mbps should be fine for what you say your usage will be assuming the "little gaming" you plan doesn't include a very demanding game software that will cough and sputter at such speeds.
As an aside Netflix recommends just 25 Mbps for their Ultra High Definition (4K) stream.
An example of other need scenarios, a Sony PlayStation 5 really needs a 1GB feed with actual speeds no lower than 850Mbps to work without any latency or other gamer issues.

FWIW our ISP keeps upping our speeds. Currently we're at 1GB/50Mbps for $69/mo. Wasn't that long ago we were at just 50Mbps/5Mbps.

I have 300 MBPS down and 20 MBPS up. I have never thought I'd need to increase this. Xfinity is laying fiber currently and offering 1,000 down. I don't need it. I don't game, rather stream TV and Music with no problems at all.
Mike

I have had both.

Verizon is more reliable.

Whatever the minimum speed is you should be good to go.

The limit is going to be your equipment, not their speed.

Different discussion if more than one person is streaming at once.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
I have 300 MBPS down and 20 MBPS up. I have never thought I'd need to increase this. Xfinity is laying fiber currently and offering 1,000 down. I don't need it. I don't game, rather stream TV and Music with no problems at all.
Mike

My plan [Spectrum] is supposed to be 500d/20u
Multiple speed tests, hardwire & wifi, best I can do is about 250d/22u

But, it's also just about the only option in my neighborhood. It's consistent & has no problems with streaming & holding up my work VPN when I need it on WFH days.

ETA: We also have a Vivint security system with 5 cameras (4 exterior inc 1 doorbell, and 1 interior).
The internet can sometimes struggle to stream the live feed from the cameras, and we get some delayed motion alerts on the doorbell.

25 down and 6 up will be fine for one person. We have 6 down and 1 up DSL which works for streaming HD, but not 4K. The 1 up doesn’t handle zoom meetings or uploading pictures well. If you want to remotely monitor security cameras, 25 up will be better than 6 if you want to view the highest resolution streams. Downloading large files is where more speed down is good. Movies and show will still download in a reasonable time at 25. Downloading games is the only place higher speeds have really benefitted us and even them, it might be a once a month thing. A game might take an hour at 400mbs or eight at 50mbps.

Verizon.

Only you can determine what you need. Start with slowest practical value and see how it works.

Gigabit is ideal for me, and is only $75 a month. I have about two dozen devices on it.

If you have double-digit Mbits, latency will matter more than raw speed on just about anything you do. Incorrectly set up, your network can hamper more than any gains you'll see above 100Mbit.
A 1080p BlueRay stream can run on 4-6Mbit and look good enough on a 50" TV, visually better quality with 10-12mBit. That's using HEVC/x.265 compression from my own remote server->client (plex) with 100Mbit upload speed. I haven't tested 4k, I just transcode that on the fly. I have 4Mbit via a wifi connection that makes 3-4 hops before it reaches a hardline. They offer 10Mbit max. That's what's available out here in the sticks. Starlink is the only other option, but $500 in hardware + 125/month isn't really worth it for what we do.

Frontier ran conduit for fiber, partially, along my road, after announcing they were discontinuing all service in our area. I'm sure they got .gov money for that.... Notice I said 'conduit', not fiber - just the damn tube & no fiber. Also, I said 'partially' - there's 5 sections in 2 miles, none connected together, I guess we could leave the ends open & just aim the fiber lines at each other, but there aren't any.

Our wired choices here are AT&T or Spectrum. I personally would not use AT&T because of their abominable (lack of) customer service.

I'm grandfathered on an old Spectrum residential plan, 30 down, 3 up, no problem supporting two computer users, one streaming TV, and a Ring video doorbell.

I have Spectrum business class internet at the hangar -- the airport is not zoned residential, so that's basically my only choice. The cheapest plan (I think it's 300 down) far exceeds my needs.

We currently have 100/25 on Comcast Business High-Speed Internet. It's more than sufficient and I actually run our own email and web servers on the connection.

Before that we had 75/15. That was sufficient, too.

Before that we had 50/15. That, too, was sufficient.

Household of two. Besides email and web server: Streaming devices on each TV, occasionally with up to three streaming simultaneously (when I'm watching a golf tournament while moving about the home), iPads, desktop computing, etc.

For gaming: Latency will be as important as bandwidth--even more so beyond a certain point.

I'm not too technically literate, but Comcast helped me learn that you don't need a lot.

I had a 400mbps plan and they jacked up the price. I checked their site and found out I could get 800mbps for less than the increased 400mbps plan, so I did.

A year later the same thing happened, and I switched to a 1,000mbps plan.

This year, the same thing happened, and their 1,200mbps plan was cheaper than the increased price for the 1,000mbps plan.

But, it was still more than I wanted to spend. To save money, I switched to a 75mbps plan and have had no issues.

Granted, it's just me and the wife doing websurfing, checking e-mail, and streaming music. But, unless you have a lot of people in your house using the internet, gaming, etc., I don't think you need a high mbps plan.

Just went around on this the other day, pages loading slow, livestream disconnect, etc., thought it was just normal. Then checked the download speed, 3 Mbps. Then checked the provider, supposed to be 200 Mbps. OK. The provider told me to call Netgear. For only 99 bucks, I was advised by the rep to stick a paper clip in the modem (not the same as unplugging it). Turns out, I learned so much in the convo it was worth it, since I'm my own "IT dept".

That bounced the wi-fi download speed up to a range of 30-50 Mbps. Turns out that is the norm to be expected with wi-fi. When I connected the modem directly to the machine with an ethernet cable, the download speed bounced up to the plan rate, 200 or more Mbps.

I was wondering about updating the equipment to obtain a faster wi-fi speed, but the rep said it wouldn't make any difference. To take advantage of the speed I'm buying, @75 bucks/month, I'd like to connect the desktop using the ethernet, plus run a connection to the wi-fi router for the phone and laptop, the rep said that could be done, but I haven't learned how to do that yet.

had 50 Mbps up/down FIOS through the pandemic.

only time I wished I had more was when our company changed our backup solution to OneDrive from whatever it was we used before.

Took about 24 hours for everything to transfer from work laptop to OneDrive since I have a lot of large engineering design files.

work friend had comcast with something like 1.2 TB data cap per month. He capped out during the process since he also had kids at home using the internet.

Another friend had 1000 Mbps (1Gbps) and seems like his transfer to OneDrive was much smoother and took less time.

This was a rather unique situation, and the only time when only 50 Mbps up/down seemed slow.

I get an average of 150 down/15 up at home, and it's plenty for streaming ultra high def videos, surfing the internet, and the occasional non-serious online gaming.

quote:

Originally posted by sse:
I was wondering about updating the equipment to obtain a faster wi-fi speed, but the rep said it wouldn't make any difference.

Which rep?

The correct answer is: It depends.

If the reason for your slow WiFi speeds is because of the WiFi equipment certainly it'd matter.

If the reason for your slow WiFi speeds is the client hardware it won't matter.

If the reason is because of poor WiFi access point (probably part of your "WiFi router") siting: It probably won't matter or won't matter much.

I have an EnGenius WiFi access point mounted in the ceiling nearly dead center of the home. I regularly see WiFi speeds of 250-300Mb/s or more.

quote:

Originally posted by sse:
I was advised by the rep to stick a paper clip in the modem (not the same as unplugging it).

Is this what you did?
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Wifi-Antenna