The purpose of this article is to help consumers relate Internet speeds to something more tangible like water pipe sizes so that they may make more intelligent decisions about the amount of Internet they actually need. Major companies are selling “city water mains” to individual households when they cannot possibly use that kind of bandwidth. The prices suggested here are only estimates and vary by region.
| Connection type | Like this size water line | Avg speed (Mbps) w/ latency (+wait time per click) | Usable (Mbps) | Acceptable for simultaneously used devices* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DSL ($40) | 1/8-inch tube (coffee stir straw full of holes) | 10 Mbps (+0.03 s) | 9 | 1 |
| Satellite ($60, 25 Mbps) | 1/16-inch spiral novelty straw (long detour) | 25 Mbps (+0.60 s) | 7 | 1 |
| Fiber 50 ($50) | 1/2-inch high-pressure pipe | 50 Mbps (+0.01 s) | 48 | 4 |
| Fiber 100 ($70) | 1-1/4-inch high-pressure pipe | 100 Mbps (+0.01 s) | 95 | 6 |
| Fiber 300 ($90) | 3-1/2-inch high-pressure pipe | 300 Mbps (+0.01 s) | 285 | 12 |
| Fiber 500 ($110) | 6-inch high-pressure pipe | 500 Mbps (+0.01 s) | 475 | 20 |
| Fiber 1 Gbps ($130) | 12-inch high-pressure pipe (city main) | 1000 Mbps (+0.005 s) | 950 | 32 |
What is especially important to consider is the type and age of devices that are in your home. Up until recently most computers only had 100 Mbps capable network interfaces. Speeds over Wi‑Fi often top out at no more than 100 Mbps in everyday households. Even if you have a 1 Gbps fiber connection to your home, like having a water main directly attached to your home, the devices inside the home cannot use that much volume. Now just like water lines, if you happen to want to fill the pool at full blast, water the lawn at full blast, take a full shower, flush the toilet, run the washing machine, and the dishwasher all at the same time, then maybe it is well worth bumping one notch above the minimum. For most households, this kind of usage is simply unreasonable. A 1 Gbps line is sufficient for a business of 100 employees in many cases.
Almost all households, and most companies too, need primarily download-only speed. Unlike something like YouTube.com or Facebook.com, very few individuals are expecting thousands of people contacting their home Internet connection at the same time. Huge companies, like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and so on must have Internet capacity enough to handle 100,000s of customers using their resources simultaneously. This scenario simply does not apply to consumers who are not hosting their own websites on their own computers in their own homes.
Unless you have a server farm in your garage (that is like it sounds, racks and racks of computers), it is highly unlikely you will use more than 200 Mbps at any given time, and you can be quite happy with 50 Mbps. Fifty megabits per second is enough to run 5 smart TVs at the same time all on different streaming channels without missing a bleep, and still make 3 phone calls through WiFi, and run Windows Update on several computers all at the same time. If you bump it to 100 Mbps, eh, the Windows Update will finish about twice as fast, but the TVs and phone calls won’t blink at the addition because they were very happy getting more than they needed already anyway. Our suggestion — if you can get fiber, by all means get it — and the moment it is hooked up drop ALL cable TV contracts. Change that $100 monthly dish bill into a fixed $100 one-time cost on brand new top of the line Roku TV device, remote and speakers!
Roku is the simplest and most neutral streaming stick, focused on affordability and wide app support. Amazon’s Fire TV Stick ties closely to Alexa and Prime Video, while Google Chromecast with Google TV emphasizes Assistant integration and casting. Apple TV is more expensive but offers seamless iOS and Apple service integration, and NVIDIA Shield TV is the most powerful, aimed at gamers and advanced users. Virtually everything offered on those other platforms is also available on Roku, making it the most universal choice.
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