How much bandwidth do I really need?

I'm pricing internet. right now we have a 3Mbps DSL connection and if my wife trys to stream a movie or something, it sucks up everybody else's bandwidth in the house. Ideally, we would like to be able to stream 2 movies in different rooms of the house, while browsing the internet in yet another room, all simultaneously. I'm looking at these packages:

I think they are a little bit skewed as we have no problem video conferencing or streaming movies with the 3Mbps line.

Also, these packages all come with a 250GB/month limit. According to my math, with the 24Mbps connection, (provided we could find a site that uploads fast enough, and the connection reall IS 24Mbps) we could reach that limit within 24 hours...

 

I wud say as much as u can get

 

I have 3Mb/s at my house, and I don't have a problem streaming video and doing something else on another computer. 6Mb/s would be all I'd really need at this point (considering all I do online), but for what you describe I'd go for the 12Mb/s (if you can afford it).

R!f@@, the problem with that is that you might be paying for bandwidth you don't really need. He might be able to do just fine with, say, the 6Mb/s, but if he's paying for 24 and not using it up, it's unnecessary.

My money's on the 12, but that's just my personal opinion

 

It also depends on what quality you want to have to your streaming movies. If you stream in HD netflix claims they send about 4.8Mb/sec MAX. Now movies are sent with a connection-less protocol and they have several different bit-rates for "HD", so you can actually go with less and it will still work to some extent. That would explain why you can do it today but it "sucks up" all your bandwidth on a 3Mb/sec plan.

"Cap" wise a HD movie is about 3.6GB, a SD is ~700MB.

 

One thing you may want to consider, is whether you are watching using a wired or wirelss connection.
If you are all wireless, then consider that the data is effectively 'broadcast' by the wireless access point, this means that you are all sharing the bandwidth of your wireless access point.
Also, if there is interference around from other access points, this might be reducing the total bandwidth available.

 

I have 10 Mb/s, no cap that I know of, and there is only one of me at this house. I turn off the HD feature of Netlix because it causes some slight stutters in the flow. According to post#4, that would go a long way toward keeping you away from your cap limit. Meanwhile, if Netflix stutters at 10Mb/s and you want to run 2 HD at the same time, that calculates to the maxed out package.

 

id say 6mb or 12 depending on the usage of the third system and the resolution, etc movies being watched. 6 should be fine i would think though. we have a suposedly 1 meg hughesnet conection but on downloads its usily like 80-200Kbps if your lucky you et above 100. it takes a bit to buffer a vidio at the begining then it usily keeps a bit ahead of the playing video so it does ok.

 

Yeah, I've learned from experience--NEVER get Hughesnet

 

Your video on HD should be rock solid. I'd say something else is wrong here. Either your ISP is "optimistic" with their ratings or something in your network is causing trouble.

 

Just got new broadband hooked up at work yesterday.
35 Mbps down/5 Mbps up SOOO FAST

used to have 7M down/768k up

 

yah i still don't care for them but its better than celular or dial up. would drop it soon as we can get DSL. they like to push updates to the modems that dont work corectly, not tell you about the download limits. and the dish has to have the snow swept off it in the winter. the way this company does business seems so corupt (i'm suprised nobudys suid them yet because of how they tell you nothing).

 

And now we just signed up for sharedband service.. They take our 35Mbps broadband line and our 7Mpbs DSL line and basically combine them at the switch.. So 1/5th of the packets are split and sent down the 7M line and 4/5ths sent down the 35M line...
Effectively giving us 42Mbps down now..

My hair is just blowing around from the speed of data around this place..

 

Well I signed up for the 24Mbps service and they sent me a modem in the mail. Didn't work. Also I remember the cable didn't work before which is why we have satellite now. So I investigate the cable. 150ohms between center and jacket. the distribution box is in my backyard, so I unplugged my own feed and still have low resistance. Seperated the underground cable from the house cable, and resistance on both. underground cable has suffered trauma from the weedeater. Probably inside cable has been a snak for some critter. I ran a new cable from the distribution box to my garage on top of the lawn and put the modem in the garage with wifi router, but wifi is too weak inside. I need to get in the attick and pull new wire .

 

Or just get a wifi repeater..