Should I upgrade Home Internet Speed?

For extra 10 bucks I'd say go for it

That seems slow I have comcast for 30 bucks a month(1st year deal then jumps to 55) that is 20-25 MBP/S. For an extra 10 they will jump it for double 50 MBP/S.

Comcast has strange pricing. I get @ 33.72 Mbps down and @ 11.88 up for $32.48 (regular, not a special price).

I called Comcast and complained about my previous speed and pricing. 'Out of the goodness of their hearts" they gave this for 32 bucks. The squeaking wheel gets the grease. They need customers as much as you need an ISP.

I had a special with Time Warner for Road Runner Turbo that was $5 a month. Since all my computing devices use wifi, I did not notice any difference what so ever.

If you are using computers wired, then maybe it might be worth it.

I have basic RR service and usually pull 10-11 mbps. My take on this is that I live by myself so I don't share my bandwidth with anyone else. If I did have to share, I think it would make sense to have a higher bandwidth ceiling, but right now, there is not much content that can really benefit from a higher bandwidth for my needs.

Since you're frequently getting faster speeds then I would say save your money. 25mbps is a lot for Netflix and internet browsing.

wmitch said:

Should I upgrade Home Internet Speed?

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Should I drink more champagne? Should I take more luxury vacations? Should I drive a faster car?

I disagree with the comments above. If you have the means, then you should upgrade. Make sure that you have a proper Docsis 3.0 (or 3.1) modem first (so you get your money's worth) - but your bottleneck is your ISP, so improving that is your best investment.

Of course, if you can't find the money in your budget, then you should not do it - just like the champagne, vacations and car...

sequitur said:

Comcast has strange pricing. I get @ 33.72 Mbps down and @ 11.88 up for $32.48 (regular, not a special price).

I called Comcast and complained about my previous speed and pricing. 'Out of the goodness of their hearts" they gave this for 32 bucks. The squeaking wheel gets the grease. They need customers as much as you need an ISP.

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What area do you live !!!! That's crazy !!!

They are only offering 20-25 MBP/S for $30 bucks not including taxes + 7 for the wireless modem/router. How are you getting that deal. Comcast are a bunch a *******s. Even when complaning in some areas they are the only game in town.

In Boston I call to cancel and they give me free channels, boost my internet maybe give me a free month or keep my bill at the intro rate. In CT when I try to do stuff for my parents they go tough luck man. Its us or it's no internet.

From a performance point of view, what is your company's Internet speed? Residential speeds tend to be faster/cheaper than commercial ones. If you aren't their only employee and they only have 50Mbps, then you going to 35 might not make sense? What are you actually transmitting back and forth? If you are going into a virtual machine, then it really doesn't matter.

If you have iStat, you can check in real-time your Internet usage and max bandwidth. If you are almost never hitting 20, then MIT not be worth $10. Of course, if someone else is paying, then you have the second-party payment situation (like healthcare and college), so you care a lot less about price.

wmitch said:

Hey guys, not really sure the right forum for this but trying to decide if i should upgrade.

currently I'm Paying for cable internet at 15Mbps down 1Mbps up which is $70/mo although i do frequently get faster speeds. (just ran 2 tests and got 24 & 25Mbps down 1.7 up)

I'm wondering what kind of benefit I would get by upgrading to 30Mbps down and 2 up which is the fastest available in my area. would be an extra $10/mo which isn't too bad if I'd see noticeable change.

I work from home logging in through MyEd using an RSA SecurID. my company laptop has a hardline into my Apple Time Capsule (prev gen)
Speed here is my key concern but i worry that the company servers is the Bottleneck not the internet speed since my speedtests come back noticeably slower on this machine.

Wirelessly i've got a Macbook, 2 iphones an Ipad and an Apple TV. Don't have cable so we Stream Netflix and other TV quite often. not a gamer at all, more in the Dora the Explorer Pergatory phase of life. haha.

So, would doubling my speed give me any benefit or just throw away $10/mo? Thanks for your input!

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Duuno..... I pay about $US 20 a month for a nominal max of 7.2 Mbps, but typically am lucky to see 5% of that (350 kbps). The best I have seen is about 1.5 Mbps! Living where I do, I can only dream of your dilemma

my old job use to pay for my internet and cell phone. They would require me to get certain plans that they wanted to make sure I could work anywhere(New England snows a ton...... work snow days are the best thing ever. Free money to just watch blu rays and throw snow balls with your friends as an adult. I had a Verizon 4g plug in for my computer and 105 mbps internet at home

Then I switched to a new job and lost all that. 105 internet is over 100 bucks but man it's so fast !!!!! I would download blu ray movies offline in minutes. Now I have 50 mbp/s as part of my triple play from comcast and it's still really fast just downloading crazy things takes longer.

I got my parents 20mbp/s from comcast that I pay for and really notice no difference between theirs and my 50mbps at home. Tho I am not downloading stuff on their computers.

Not paying for something get the best you can unless they tell you differently. They are expecting you to work at home for time they aren't paying you for they aren't going to cry for another 10 bucks. They aren't going to fire you for getting better internet. It's not like your getting lap dances with your company card as a business expense ......

Weaselboy said:

Just curious why you think he should upgrade and spend an extra $10 a month if he would see no observable benefit with his usage pattern?

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We don't really know if he'll observe a benefit. People are assuming that he wouldn't notice going from 15 down to 30 down - but if he uploads anything to the company server, he will likely notice going from 1 up to 2 up.

If his ISP is treating his quoted numbers as a minimum (i.e., he often sees more bandwidth than his tier promises), there's no reason to think that the same thing won't happen at a higher tier.

wmitch said:

i didn't want to say it earlier in the discussion b/c many of you may say well, if you aren't paying for it, just do it b/c I don't actually pay for my own internet/phone service. It's a company paid perk of working for home so it's not a matter of fitting into my budget.

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Once upon a time I had 16Mb cable service. I upgraded to 40Mb DSL. We will often be doing at least 3 streaming or gaming connections at the same time in the evening. I have 3 teenagers. The difference was noticeable in my case. But on the 16, we were able to stream 2 connections without problem. If you are streaming only 1-2 connections at a time, I would not bother upgrading at this time.

I had the same thoughts this year...should I upgrade my 40 to 105 for 50% more money? Chose not to, we can stream 4 things at once without choppiness, and some of those HD. Whether I can afford it or not, I'm not going to waste money when I don't need to.

Although, the upload discussion may be important to you. All of my choices are at least 5Mb up, so no issues there.

wmitch said:

So, would doubling my speed give me any benefit or just throw away $10/mo? Thanks for your input!

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Why don't you try it out for a month or two. If you don't notice any difference, go back to what you had previously.

wmitch said:

Seems that some of the performance lag i'm seeing maybe upload since upload speeds in office are significantly higher.

Also seems that my remote login (a VPN I think? i don't know much about it) is causing the problems but they tested everything and said it seems to be running properly.

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No doubt those are the same problem. 1Mb really is pretty slow. If you are constantly connected via a VPN, that's a lot of 'talk' back and forth. As your tests showed, "business" level connections are usually equal speeds up and down, whether at 12/12 or 200/200. And that's why they cost more.

5Mb or higher upload would really benefit you, I think. Don't know if that is possible for you. A business level connection might be possible at home, if they want to bump the price up for that.

If you're already getting 25/1.7 at some times, then definitely not worth the extra $10. For your activities, why bother? If they had 10 down/1 up for $50/month I would get that package.

wmitch said:

ok, i didn't realize that the upload was so important but like i said, i really don't know anything about VPN. I know i could go from 1 to 2 mb upload for $10/mo extra and not raise any eyebrows. to get 5mb upload I would have to buy 50mp download service which would be an extra $50/mo which i can't quite swing. I need to keep the bill under $100.

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Even the small increase to 2Mb might be pretty noticeable in your situation. If you get 1.7 often, you may get over 3 with a "2" plan. Cable is often like that. Heck, I even got higher than my 40 down on DSL last time I tested, and all they guarantee is 80% of whatever speed the contract says.