1.6Gbps BB - Is it overkill?

[hans gruber]

After a long time waiting FTTP is coming my way. I've had a look around and see that EE offer 1.6Gbps. I previously had Virgin 350Mbs a few years back and doubt I took full advantage, apart from a couple of console game downloads.

Under what circumstance would a 1.6Gbps connection (more likely 1.3Gbps) be useful? Even the PS5 hard wired to the router would presumably max out at 1Gbps, and also be limited by server speed when downloading games. I'm guessing wi-fi devices wouldn't even touch the sides.

And if a 1.6Gbps is way over the top, what would be reasonable speed?

 

[hans gruber]

Thanks everyone. That's a good point re: upload speed. The upload for the 1.6Gbps is 115Mbps and the 900 is 110.

Compared to when I had the Virgin connection my kids are now older and use consoles more. My wife works from home with lots of teams calls. We stream more 4k.

We are not doing too badly with a 4g+ connection that at last speed test was 24.7 down and 5.8 up. This connection is costing me £6pm on a three business unlimited data sim. I do struggle streaming some 4K content though and I use remote desktop a lot, which doesn't always work that well. And of course console game downloads take forever.

I can put whatever I go for through as a business expense (my own business so I still pay just minus the tax), but don't want to go crazy unless there will be some benefit.

I think the 900 looks the best value but need to see what smart wifi plus and wifi enhancer are? However if I go 900 I can choose any provider as it appears only EE offer 1.6. In that case would Zen or another provider be better and and provide better equipment?

One thing I need is a wifi extender I can plug my PC into. With sky I had a booster and linked my PC over Ethernet to that (even though Sky said it shouldn't work). I currently have my own TP link 4G+ router and an extender.

Also does anyone know if EE give discount for having mobile with them? I think I read 20% somewhere.

 

[hans gruber]

Thanks again. It appears 900 or 500 is the way to go.

Can anyone recommend an ISP? I've looked at BT, Zen, EE, AAISP, Sky, Plusnet etc. I have a Vodafone mobile and know they do discount on BB, but for some reason FTTP options are not showing up with Vodafone. My wife has mobile with EE and reading some more I think 10% discount can be had, but will have to confirm.

I'm not really bothered about getting my own router, but would like a decent one that can be managed. EE say you can set bed times for certain devices with theirs, which would be useful to me. I also want an extender I can plug my PC into. A guest network option would be useful.

 

[hans gruber]

The benefit is that whilst your PS5 is downloading at gigabit speeds, you still have 600mbps of bandwidth available to other devices....

People are too obsessed with trying to match their internet connection speed to their device's network speed, which all that does is create latency and "bufferbloat" for other devices on your network.

Even if hard wired would a PS5 download at max ethernet speed? When I had an xbox hard wired to virgin it was very fast, but I don't think it ever saturated the claimed virgin speed. I guessed the limiting factor was how fast the download was being served. Saying that I guess things will have improved as this was several years back.