The number of connected devices and users in our homes is growing quickly, and those devices are on more and more. Sometimes, you enjoy blazing speeds on your laptop, phone or tablet, and other times, you wonder why your connection is so slow. Maybe your game stalls when someone else in the house starts streaming music. Or maybe your Roku keeps buffering just as you're getting to the best part of that movie on Netflix. Tom's Guide contacted broadband experts and some folks who work at internet service providers ISPs to see if you really need to pay extra for faster connectivity.
Here's what we found. I know, I know — all the ISPs are telling you to get a faster plan. But you may be paying more than you need to. After a year of lockdowns, where people have handled everything from work to school right from home, having sufficient bandwidth for the whole family is more important than ever. Another senior engineer, who works at a well-known ISP and spoke to Tom's Guide on condition of anonymity, echoed that point, saying internet speeds ultimately depend on what the customer is doing with his or her internet connection.
The person added that the "average family" shouldn't pay for "anything beyond 20 x 5. Another broadband expert told Tom's Guide that the more bandwidth you have, the better, up to a point. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, said this will ensure you have enough bandwidth when you really need it — for example, if you have a big file to upload or you're doing sophisticated work on your network.
Gigabit speed offers 1, Mbps, an exponential increase over the 20 to Mbps plans that are generally considered high-speed broadband. See our article What is Gig-Speed Internet? However, "anything over 10 Gbps to a home user is pretty likely overkill," Mitchell said.
A gig everywhere should be a goal — not because people will max it out, but because it will ensure everyone can do what they want without worrying about the network being the bottleneck. As more people shift to streaming for their TV and movie watching needs, bandwidth requirements become a bigger issue.
If you want to stream 4K content to get the best picture for your 4K smart TV, you'll need a connection of at least 25 Mbps. Lower resolution content is less demanding, but even streaming p HD video will require a 10 Mbps plan for smooth performance. And that's all assuming you only stream to one device at a time. If there's more than one TV in your home, or you want to watch in the living room while someone else watches on a laptop in the kitchen, the bandwidth needs grow accordingly.
Smart home devices also bring new demand for bandwidth. It only takes a few devices, like a smart thermostat, a smart speaker and a smart lock, to start having an impact on your home's connectivity speeds, so don't forget to factor those into your thinking when you consider how many devices are in use in your home. Most experts recommend adding an extra 5 Mbps to your plan for every 10 smart devices, though some products, like cameras, will require much more.
Though there's debate over how much internet speed you need, it's clear that ISPs benefit from your desire for faster internet speeds. But they can also provide some insight into how much speed you really need by listing how many devices can connect to the network at any given time. If you listen to the above engineer, you can probably get away with the company's cheapest package, which offers download speeds of up to Mbps. According to the company, that should be enough to accommodate up to eight devices simultaneously connecting to the internet.
It will also check your connection speed. Netflix uses cookies and similar technologies on this website to collect information about your browsing activities which we use to analyse your use of the website. Learn more about our use of cookies and your information.
You can change your cookie preferences. Change your cookie preferences. Help Center. Join Netflix Sign In. Note: once you upgrade to high-def, it may take a few hours to take effect. No matter how spectacularly fast the internet coming into your house is, it's really only as good as your wireless router. As you're probably aware, router placement makes a huge difference in connection quality, as obstructions and wacky floor-plan layouts can inevitably create some Wi-Fi dead zones in your house.
If you continue to have issues, you may want to consider upgrading to one of the many great new high-performance multi-unit systems , which will expand your reliable coverage area especially in nook-filled homes and help you better manage the connections by allowing you to prioritize Wi-Fi to certain devices e. If you live in a crowded apartment building, you're also likely dealing with interference from the glut of connected devices in the vicinity that are sitting on similar Wi-Fi channels.
That's contributing to the drag-on speed of your connection. Modern, dual-band routers offer two frequency speeds -- 2. To manually set it to that band, log in to your router and access the settings page. Of course, this isn't ideal and is especially tough if your router's nowhere near your TV though an Ethernet powerline adapter could fix that.
To watch programming in HD or Ultra HD, Netflix recommends that you're hooked up to an internet connection with a minimum bandwidth speed of 5Mbps or 25Mbps megabits per second , respectively. Most of the lowest-tier internet service provider ISP plans will promise you at least that much, but even if your plan comes with a guaranteed 50Mbps or more, a Netflix stream isn't the only thing demanding bandwidth. It's competing with every other device operating on your Wi-Fi network, from phones and laptops to tablets and smart-home products, especially if someone else in your home is trying to stream something simultaneously.
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