There's a minimum cost associated with actually providing a service in the first place, £20 today was about £14 in 2005 and nobody ever did broadband at that price.
Is Internet speed now oversold?
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There's a minimum cost associated with actually providing a service in the first place, £20 today was about £14 in 2005 and nobody ever did broadband at that price.
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Last time I signed up for broadband all I could get was 65mb for £27 per month. This time round I now have 940mb for £30 per month. The technology is getting better for very similar prices. So why not get it?
Downloading big games to save time. Multiple users in a house / gaming and streaming at the same time etc etc. There's quite a few situations where most will struggle on 65mb. Given the price of broadband has barely changed over the last 10-20 years I don't think it's oversold at all.
Downloading big games to save time. Multiple users in a house / gaming and streaming at the same time etc etc. There's quite a few situations where most will struggle on 65mb. Given the price of broadband has barely changed over the last 10-20 years I don't think it's oversold at all.
Currently I'm on 80/20 and I do get my full speeds... I also have the option of 1gig (up and down) fibre from lightspeed if I wanted to swap and comically this would cost no more than my current 80/20... Why haven't I swapped, honestly I don't like the t&c's for lightspeed or the fact I can't get a fixed ip (they use cgnat sharing...). I work from home so remote networking etc would be nicer on 1gig obviously.
I wouldn't want to go any lower than my 80/20 though, it's now at the point where it's starting to feel a little slow on the download side but that's to be expected when games, programs etc start getting bloated.... I really would like more upload speed but to be fair I'm only going to make use of those upload speeds if I could find a fairly priced offsite backup (big media collection means expensive online storage
), so it's a kind of catch 22 situation with uploads.. I'd want faster if I had a reason to use it.
IMO 80/20 is fine for streaming, general downloading etc but I'm also finding that many sites aren't saturating my 80meg download so I need to run multiple downloads to get full use of it... I'd even go as far as saying that 80/20 is probably the sweet spot for most people who don't have specific requirements such as remote networking etc.... the issue is cost wise you might be better off going for a higher speed...
I wouldn't say no to losing the 'telephone' cost part though, hardly use it and a voip setup would work out cheaper for me these days.... but then this is the joy of BT/openreach being the only real option.
I wouldn't want to go any lower than my 80/20 though, it's now at the point where it's starting to feel a little slow on the download side but that's to be expected when games, programs etc start getting bloated.... I really would like more upload speed but to be fair I'm only going to make use of those upload speeds if I could find a fairly priced offsite backup (big media collection means expensive online storage
), so it's a kind of catch 22 situation with uploads.. I'd want faster if I had a reason to use it.IMO 80/20 is fine for streaming, general downloading etc but I'm also finding that many sites aren't saturating my 80meg download so I need to run multiple downloads to get full use of it... I'd even go as far as saying that 80/20 is probably the sweet spot for most people who don't have specific requirements such as remote networking etc.... the issue is cost wise you might be better off going for a higher speed...
I wouldn't say no to losing the 'telephone' cost part though, hardly use it and a voip setup would work out cheaper for me these days.... but then this is the joy of BT/openreach being the only real option.
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The answer clearly is “Yes” 70/20Mbps is enough, and yet the answer is also “No” because 900/100Mbps is 5x the upload speed which is required for cloud backups and content uploads.
And having had symmetrical gigabit I wouldn’t want to go back.
I do think that much over 1Gbps symmetric is a waste if you only have 1GbE networking at home, so you’d need a substantial speed upgrade to utilise anything over 1Gbps from the internet.
It’s also true though that a badly set-up DNS can make 1000/1000 feel like 70/20.
And having had symmetrical gigabit I wouldn’t want to go back.
I do think that much over 1Gbps symmetric is a waste if you only have 1GbE networking at home, so you’d need a substantial speed upgrade to utilise anything over 1Gbps from the internet.
It’s also true though that a badly set-up DNS can make 1000/1000 feel like 70/20.
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I think OP's issue is not that gigabit is available, nor that people can get it for comparible prices to FTTC.
I think the issue is that people are being sold speeds they don't benefit from for stupid prices, e.g. BT want £56pm for gigabit on a 24 month contract.
I've heard of talktalk going door to door in Edinburgh aggressively selling their full fibre 150mbit package. Today I found that we share an office building and listened in on their training and it's pretty gross how slimey they are. Lies about wifi, ping, dns, buffering and more.
I think the issue is that people are being sold speeds they don't benefit from for stupid prices, e.g. BT want £56pm for gigabit on a 24 month contract.
I've heard of talktalk going door to door in Edinburgh aggressively selling their full fibre 150mbit package. Today I found that we share an office building and listened in on their training and it's pretty gross how slimey they are. Lies about wifi, ping, dns, buffering and more.
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People are also forgetting that to get these higher speeds you need further tech to support it.
You not going to get full speed if you have a 100 Mbps switch in between (example).
You not going to get full speed if you have a 100 Mbps switch in between (example).
I have SSDs that provide GB/sec of bandwidth, god knows how many IOPs I could drive in the house, I have more CPU cores that I know what to do with. Why would I want to wait for a download? Also, buying the upper packages often means you get a higher low end speed should you face congestion - does everyone "need it" most likely not but the wife fits into that category, when we go anywhere she moans about how crap the internet is compared to at home so that's all the justification I need. If it passes the wife test, then nothing else matters.
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Yes and No. The average user doesn't need 100Mb+ if all they are doing is web browsing. Someone who plays games 1-2 times per week for 1-2 hours can likely get away with 250Mb, ideally 500Mb for updates.
I'm lucky to have 1Gb up and down and for downloading games that I do play very often, it's great for updates. But with provider I'm with is only £1 more expensive than what I used to have with Plus Net. If people can get the higher speeds for the same or just a couple £ more, I don't see why they wouldn't go for it.
I'm lucky to have 1Gb up and down and for downloading games that I do play very often, it's great for updates. But with provider I'm with is only £1 more expensive than what I used to have with Plus Net. If people can get the higher speeds for the same or just a couple £ more, I don't see why they wouldn't go for it.
I've just had a knock at the door from a LightSpeed representative as they're going live here in the next couple of weeks. I asked about a static IP and he said no, not at the moment but it's coming in the next two months. Seeing as they use cgnat, I suspect that was salesman talk.
At a push, I can live without a static IP by using dynamic DNS but it's not something I'd really want to do but cgnat is an absolute killer for me. Not a chance I'd go with an ISP who use that.
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It's all sales. Never trust a sales person.
To be fair they say that static IP is 'coming soon' on their website... along with basically moaning about lack of IP4 addresses, well give us IP6 then lol.
I don't like cgnat purely on the basis that 'I' could get tarnished by other users who happen to use the same IP address when the server side just bans by IP etc. I'm not sure I'd want to go through all the hassle of dynamic/reverse dns etc these days, it's just so much easier with a fixed IP.
But yeah, never trust a sales person lol
For me, only having a ~16Mbps upload speed is crippling. I work from home a lot and regularly need to share lots of large files. Sometimes I have to go to a colleagues place nearby to upload files as he has been upgraded to Gigabit and my area hasn't. It's quicker to drive there, upload, and then drive home. 70 down/16 up is the fastest I can get, even if I was to throw money at companies. I also like to use Plex outside my property and the upload speed can't even cope with that. Downloading games and game updates at 70Mbps is also frustrating when I know that 5 mins down the road can do 900Mbps.
There is a gigabit provider rolling out in my area, which is a symmetrical connection, but they have no time frames and it could be another 6 months to a year away. I think 100 down and 50 up should be the minimum for everyone.
There is a gigabit provider rolling out in my area, which is a symmetrical connection, but they have no time frames and it could be another 6 months to a year away. I think 100 down and 50 up should be the minimum for everyone.
I host stuff so cgnat is utterly useless for me. I have the same upload speed that @Skilid mentions and I really would like it to be a lot faster so was initially quite excited when he knocked on my door but reality has bitten and there's no way I can go with them at the moment. Hoping BT/PlusNet pull their finger out soon.
Feel for me, RDR2 took over 9 hours for me to download so had to split it over 2 days. That's on a 36Mb connection which is all that is available to me at present.
I do agree though that the average user doesn't make the most of the speeds they are sold and that ISP companies are a bit guilty of overselling the requirement to the consumer. However, the consumer also has a responsibility to know their needs and requirements; they pay for their ignorance.
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I would love "superfast" speeds but sadly the speed has been dropping more and more every year as more people sign up to fibre. We can only get the 36mbps package here as that is the most that our exchange is capable of and that isn't going to change any time soon. I got fibre the day it was enabled here and was consistantly hitting 36-37 mbps according to the BT Wholesale speedtest. The past couple of years has seen speeds steadily drop and the minimum gauranteed speed along with it. Three years ago it was 32-36mbps with a minimum of 28mbps then last year was 26-28mbps with a minimum of 21mbps and I am regularly in the 22-24mbps range while on a very good day can sometimes get 26mbps so we have lost coming on for a third of our original speed. Openreach says it's because of the number of people who have now jumped onto fibre connections but whther that's true or not I don't know. All I know is that game downloads are getting bigger and bigger with some games coming in at 60+Gb which ties the internet connection up for most of the day. We even get buffering when streaming at 1080p sometimes. If it get's much slower I will be looking at going back to ADSL which was a solid 16mbps before I switched to fibre. If everyone is switching to fibre and speed is suffering as a result then nobody must be on ADSL and it will be a solid hassle free service.
Dropping to ADSL would put you on a sub-1Mbps upload which is going to be noticeably worse than whatever you're on now.
Crosstalk is a real thing, when my neighbours moved out my FTTC went up to 80Mbps, the line being enabled again for the new people dropped it back to 68Mbps.
Crosstalk is a real thing, when my neighbours moved out my FTTC went up to 80Mbps, the line being enabled again for the new people dropped it back to 68Mbps.
Moved from outer London where we could 'only' get 76mbps. It was absolutely fine. New games would take hours to download (legally.) and we'd stream 4k/HDR without issue.
Moved out of London, am now 1gbps down and 120mbps up because there are no symmetrical suppliers here.
The Sky rep even asked why I even needed the speed which was nice of him, but to literally get 15x the speed of the old place for pretty much £10 more p/m is a luxury I can afford.
Could have easily got 500mbps and still had the same luxury.
Probably won't go 2gbps unless I'm given it for free but even at that point I don't know how I'd utilise it (beyond cloud stuff/naughty internet things) - Don't know of any legal services where 2gbps could be utilised.
Diminishing returns innit.
Moved out of London, am now 1gbps down and 120mbps up because there are no symmetrical suppliers here.
The Sky rep even asked why I even needed the speed which was nice of him, but to literally get 15x the speed of the old place for pretty much £10 more p/m is a luxury I can afford.
Could have easily got 500mbps and still had the same luxury.
Probably won't go 2gbps unless I'm given it for free but even at that point I don't know how I'd utilise it (beyond cloud stuff/naughty internet things) - Don't know of any legal services where 2gbps could be utilised.
Diminishing returns innit.
940Mbps for me was cheaper at the time than 500 or 200 with Vodafone (via CityFibre), so am I excluded from this discussion
I think this discussion can be applied to a lot of different things in life...
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