Minimum broadband speed you could live with?

A strong 8/1 is as low as I would go.

Other than large downloads I've found a law of diminishing returns once it goes over 10Mbps.

I can upgrade to 80Mbps but currently sticking with my 17Mbps service as it streams all my HD Netflix etc. etc. just fine. I can wait a few minutes for an ISO to download. I remember the 2400baud days.
 
I lived with DSL 1.5 meg and then 3 meg for years. That is about the lowest I would want to go. Now I typically pick the fastest residential speed offered.

Way back in the dial-up days I had to run on a 9600 baud modem for a while and then a 28.8k.
 
Currently on comcasts 100/10 plans and usually get 120/12.

Bare minimum would be 25/8 if I felt faster net would be available in a year or 2.

I'd rather have 50/50 than what I have now. In my exp streaming 1080P on less than 15-20 mbps results in occasional buffering, so with 4k coming and 25mbps being the recommended min for 4k streams , I figure it will take 30-50mbps to give a good experience.
 
Who cares if my other tasks don't saturate it 99% of the time, if there are 1% of extremely crucial times where I need the bandwidth.

1% of the time you NEED it? Or 1% of the time you use it and it's nice to have? If you are doing something that requires those speeds, I'd be interested to hear.
 
TWC just bumped me from 50/5 to 300/20 for the same price (San Antonio, TX).

No complaints.

I never knew that I NEEDED 300Mbps for my home... ;)

TBH everyone needs 100Mbps+ minimum for "bursting," nobody really needs it for sustained and should be fine with 10Mbps or better minimum.
 
i'm surviving at home on wireless tower 5 down, 1 up i think. i live out in the country.



its enough to get netflix and a bit. i can sometimes hit 8 down.

i have 50/10 and 150/20 comcast at my two offices, respectively. this is how i dont go insane..
 
I had AT&T DSL (3.5/768) for a few years. I could have lived with 3/2, but the 768k upload was killing me badly. I switched to Verizon LTE (unlimited) that I was paying $120/month for. Unfortunately, the tower is a good 15 miles away and even with an external yagi the best I could do consistently was 10/5.

AT&T recently upgraded the local tower to LTE (it was GPRS only until a few months ago) and so I am switching to them (Unlimited, $100/month) since even on my Cricket (AT&T MVNO, DL capped at 8Mbps) line I get 8/22 on my iPhone 5 because the tower is largely uncongested and less than two miles away with a clear line of sight. I'm expecting to get 40/22 or better, which will make me really happy when uploading videos and photos.
 
20/5 should be the BASE anyone gets. What I want to live with is 1gig/1gig but we all can't get google fiber.
 
I had AT&T DSL (3.5/768) for a few years. I could have lived with 3/2, but the 768k upload was killing me badly. I switched to Verizon LTE (unlimited) that I was paying $120/month for. Unfortunately, the tower is a good 15 miles away and even with an external yagi the best I could do consistently was 10/5.

AT&T recently upgraded the local tower to LTE (it was GPRS only until a few months ago) and so I am switching to them (Unlimited, $100/month) since even on my Cricket (AT&T MVNO, DL capped at 8Mbps) line I get 8/22 on my iPhone 5 because the tower is largely uncongested and less than two miles away with a clear line of sight. I'm expecting to get 40/22 or better, which will make me really happy when uploading videos and photos.

I used to play WOW off an AirCard and typically had pretty good luck with it until the device was basically dying after a year. This was a 3G card and damn, today if I was on 4G I prob would of been happy with it.
 
I used to play WOW off an AirCard and typically had pretty good luck with it until the device was basically dying after a year. This was a 3G card and damn, today if I was on 4G I prob would of been happy with it.

I didn't end up with quite as good speeds as I was hoping for, but I am very much satisfied with the results:
4446147954.png

Setup is a AT&T Unite (AirCard 770S) in a DC113A Signal Boosting Cradle with Ethernet on a band 17 carrier(10MHz). Unfortunately, it appears that the tower is only broadcasting on B17 for LTE. If they ever light up B2/4/5 I'll upgrade to the Unite Pro to enable Carrier Aggregation and full speed data rates. As it is, with 10MHz, there is zero difference between a Cat 3 modem and a Cat 4 modem. It isn't until you are dealing with a 20MHz carrier that Cat 4 can shine.

I'll play around with the positioning next week, but I think this is nearly as good as it gets. The only downside is that I am behind a carrier grade NAT.
 
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