Is Gigabit Fibe 1.5 internet service overkill for home use?

coolmanfever wrote: ↑ Hello all,

I have 5 family members at home using internet streaming for high definition content. Is Gigabit Fibe 1.5 internet service overkill for home use? Should I consider downgrade? I want the fastest internet service but at the same time want to take advantage what I pay for.
https://www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Produ ... bit15-FTTH

Yup...overkill for sure. Most people are overpaying for the marketing hype as you really don't need much bandwidth to stream.

Hi-def content on the internet is so compressed that you don't need much to watch most content. If you stream 4K content from Netflix or DisneyPlus, you need about 25Mbps for each user. Other streaming services like Amazon Prime require less (15Mbps).

If 5 people were all streaming 4K at the same time, you would need 25X5 = 125 Mbps... say 150Mbps for an extra margin. Any more than that you're just paying for extra bandwidth that is wasted. ISPs just love customers who don't understand what they really need. Do you own calculation for the type of hi-def content your family watches and you'll often find that the lowest internet plan can pretty much cover your needs. I have a family of 3 that streams all day long and I have no issues with the lowest Shaw Internet plan @ 300Mbps.

Thanks for the info..how much are you pay for your 300 mbp internet per month?

I'm paying around $80+taxes for internet service for their 150Mbps plan (correction from post as Shaw keeps changing their way they market their plans).

coolmanfever wrote: ↑ Hello all,

I have 5 family members at home using internet streaming for high definition content. Is Gigabit Fibe 1.5 internet service overkill for home use? Should I consider downgrade? I want the fastest internet service but at the same time want to take advantage what I pay for.
https://www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Produ ... bit15-FTTH

It's only overkill if you're paying in-market pricing.

how do i find the in marketing pricing?

Currently I am paying $132 before tax per month.

This is my current plan package:
Gigabit Fibe 1.5
Basic Bell Fibe TV
Home Phone Lite

coolmanfever wrote: ↑ how do i find the in marketing pricing?

bell-internet-tv-home-phone-new-custome ... s-1779871/

You can't even use the full 1.5 gigabit unless you pay for really expensive routers, switches and network cards/USBs.

BigBrother0 wrote: ↑ You can't even use the full 1.5 gigabit unless you pay for really expensive routers, switches and network cards/USBs.

+1

OP pays for 1.5 gigabit, but wifi get only 300Mbit if lucky

teoconca wrote: ↑ +1

OP pays for 1.5 gigabit, but wifi get only 300Mbit if lucky

OP needs to buy a 2.5 gigabit switch/router and install a 2.5 gigabit network card on a desktop to make full use of anything over 1 gigabit. Otherwise you might as well get 1 gigabit since that's the limit for most consumer routers/switches and network cards. Gigabit wifi is pretty much non existent when you have neighbors broadcasting on the same frequencies 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz. I rarely get anywhere close to 500 mbps on wifi. Usually 300 mbps tops like you said.

teoconca wrote: ↑ +1

OP pays for 1.5 gigabit, but wifi get only 300Mbit if lucky

I have Rogers gigabit as Bell FTTH isn't available in my area.

I easily get 600 Mbps on my Macbook consistently throughout the house. Phones get 300-400Mbps (they're 2-3 years old).

My desktop on the other hand gets 950Mbps (wired)

at87on wrote: ↑ I have Rogers gigabit as Bell FTTH isn't available in my area.

I easily get 600 Mbps on my Macbook consistently throughout the house. Phones get 300-400Mbps (they're 2-3 years old).

My desktop on the other hand gets 950Mbps (wired)

Even if you had 1.5, your speeds would most likely not improve even if wired. Most people dont have 2.5gbps or 10 gigabit capable routers/switches/nics.

Also most people dont have great APs installed so the 200-300mbps is pretty standard.

@coolmanfever

I have 1 Gig Fibe and I use it to download from News groups

I have never been able to saturate the entire pipe. I have bursts that got me to ~79 MB/s but on average it is 45 - 50 MB/s (450 Mbps)

The limit is not on Bell, it is the sites you visit. If each site gave you the maximum bandwidth available, they wouldn’t be able to accommodate all their users.

In your case, you’re just wasting money. Because you have 1.5 Mbps, but your equipment only goes up to 1 Mbps. No possible way for you to use up all that bandwidth unless you have four users with high bandwidth requirements running concurrently. Even then, each user would need to consume 380 Mbps. The reason why it is 4 users, that is the amount of ports on your Home Hub 3000. Even with a switch used for an uplink, the extra ports goes through a single 1 Gig port.

Gee wrote: ↑ @coolmanfever

I have never been able to saturate the entire pipe. I have bursts that got me to ~79 MB/s but on average it is 45 - 50 MB/s (450 Mbps)

The limit is not on Bell, it is the sites you visit. If each site gave you the maximum bandwidth available, they wouldn’t be able to accommodate all their users.

I also use newsgroup and torrent and often they could reach max speed...

However the 45-50 mb you are seing look alot like an Hard drive write limit. I had that limit when writing to SAN or 2.5'' HDD.

Of course you could use a SSD to buffer dowbload and move when completed..

All that to confirm that to support 1.5gb transfer... There is alot to take into account.

However, high speed allow for my ps4 to silently download 100GB update, Sonar to grab new show releaee on Newsgroup, while we work on ZOOM and kid watch 4k movie.

grisensko wrote: ↑ I also use newsgroup and torrent and often they could reach max speed...

Never been able to max out the speed on News, but I can see it happening with Torrents since you have lots of connections. However, I don’t torrent.

My news provider offers 60 connections and the max I have been able to sustain is ~500 Mbps

Gee wrote: ↑ I have 1 Gig Fibe and I use to to download from News groups

I have never been able to saturate the entire pipe. I have bursts that got me to ~79 MB/s but on average it is 45 - 50 MB/s (450 Mbps)

The limit is not on Bell, it is the sites you visit. If each site gave you the maximum bandwidth available, they wouldn’t be able to accommodate all their users.

This is 100% where torrents shine.
With a large enough file I can saturate 40gbps. But due to the sheer speed, unless it's a terabyte sized file, it's done downloading before it gets enough peers to get that fast.

Is there a way to check when Bell Pure Fiber will be available in my area.

death_hawk wrote: ↑ This is 100% where torrents shine.
With a large enough file I can saturate 40gbps. But due to the sheer speed, unless it's a terabyte sized file, it's done downloading before it gets enough peers to get that fast.

Totally agree, I just don’t bother with torrents, too much hassles for me

40 gbps? Your servers co-located?