Fiber... how fast is fast enough?

[juane414]

I'm moving to a more rural area this weekend, which means I'll be saying goodbye to my 100mb cable internet from Spectrum. Unfortunately, the only thing available to me at the new house is 20mb DLS. At least for now...

The isp that provides the DSL can install fiber at our house in 12 weeks if we pay for the fiber line from the road to the house, which should be about $300. I'm planning to do that. My question is, how much speed to I need? The base service for fiber is 50mb down and 20mb up. For $20 more per month I can get 100mb down and 40mb up. The 50mb service is already going to be more expensive than what I'm paying now for 100mb cable. I can afford to get a faster fiber service, but I'm wondering if I will need to. Does anyone have experience with both cable and fiber? How will 50mb fiber compare to 100mb cable? I will probably start out with 50mb and see if I'm happy with it, but I'm just wondering what others have experienced.

We use the internet for video calls, 1080p streaming, and gaming. We rarely have more than two devices in use at any given time. Will 50mb fiber be sufficient?

 

[EarthDog]

Fiber or cable shouldn't matter on the butt dyno... xx Mbps is xx Mbps.

 

[juane414]

Fiber or cable shouldn't matter on the butt dyno... xx Mbps is xx Mbps.

That's what I assumed. But I noticed that the upload speed with fiber is a lot higher. I wonder if that will lead to a better experience with video calls and gaming. I also wonder what the ping will be like compared to cable.

 

[Tír na nÓg]

50megabits is just above min requirements for 4K (40megabits IIRC), and 20upload is more than sufficient for video calls (Skype/Zoom use less than a mb/sec).

 

[InsertNameHere]

So I’m in the uk and have a 200mbs connection. I didn’t think my family (8people) would max it.

We have everything on it divided between two routers, four networks. I believe we have maxed out the connection a few times.

Im not sure how the contracting works over there. But I suggest you get more if you. You can then do more all at the same time without even having to worry. Then tone down it if necessary.

That’s what I did except I went up instead.

 

[mimart7]

For enterprise accounts, they can get up 10 Gbps, however, most consumer grade kit, will not support it. I have 1 Gbps, and have no complaints. In 5 years, I have never been down. Talk about about the 5 9's.

For video, streaming, you need a minimum of 10 Mbps, for what you want to do, I would definitely go higher, 50 is a good place to start