Is 300Mbps Enough?

[doginhouse]

Hello Everyone!

 

I operate a business from home and need the bandwidth for 1440p video calls, 6 wifi security cameras two PC's two smart tv's and 4 consoles.  

 

I currently have a 40Mbps connection that gives me anywhere from 5Mbps to 30Mbps and it is fine for my purposes but lets me down when I need it to be faster and I do have the option of 100Mbps for cheaper, but I just want to know if 300Mbps is complete overkill or just a bit of headroom if hypothetically everything was connected and using the network concurrently.  There are no fiber options available in my town, and the 300Mbps option is over $100 a month with the 100Mbps being a little under $100 a month.  

 

My question is do I need the 300Mbps?

[Ottoman420]

4 minutes ago, doginhouse said:

Hello Everyone!

 

I operate a business from home and need the bandwidth for 1440p video calls, 6 wifi security cameras two PC's two smart tv's and 4 consoles.  

 

I currently have a 40Mbps connection that gives me anywhere from 5Mbps to 30Mbps and it is fine for my purposes but lets me down when I need it to be faster and I do have the option of 100Mbps for cheaper, but I just want to know if 300Mbps is complete overkill or just a bit of headroom if hypothetically everything was connected and using the network concurrently.  There are no fiber options available in my town, and the 300Mbps option is over $100 a month with the 100Mbps being a little under $100 a month.  

 

My question is do I need the 300Mbps?

I think 100mbs will be fine but its more how all these devices are connected. If the router is poor or the out of the box the isp sends you then i think that router will struggle to manage even half the items you listed at the same time.

 

But speed wise i dont think you will need the 300mbps unless you are downloading or uploading large files constantly.

[Hinjima]

4 minutes ago, doginhouse said:

Hello Everyone!

 

I operate a business from home and need the bandwidth for 1440p video calls, 6 wifi security cameras two PC's two smart tv's and 4 consoles.  

 

I currently have a 40Mbps connection that gives me anywhere from 5Mbps to 30Mbps and it is fine for my purposes but lets me down when I need it to be faster and I do have the option of 100Mbps for cheaper, but I just want to know if 300Mbps is complete overkill or just a bit of headroom if hypothetically everything was connected and using the network concurrently.  There are no fiber options available in my town, and the 300Mbps option is over $100 a month with the 100Mbps being a little under $100 a month.  

 

My question is do I need the 300Mbps?

Get a month of 100Mbps and see if that works fine, if not you got your answer?

[Shimejii]

14 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

Get a month of 100Mbps and see if that works fine, if not you got your answer?

You generally cant do that, they want you to sign for years. Add ons that increase speeds  may increase pricing way more then just signing it day one.

[Hinjima]

1 minute ago, Shimejii said:

You generally cant do that, they want you to sign for years. Add ons that increase speeds  may increase pricing way more then just signing it day one.

I guess that depends on where you are from.  Here in Norway with my provider you can do that easily.

[Alex Atkin UK]

51 minutes ago, doginhouse said:

I currently have a 40Mbps connection that gives me anywhere from 5Mbps to 30Mbps and it is fine for my purposes but lets me down when I need it to be faster and I do have the option of 100Mbps for cheaper, but I just want to know if 300Mbps is complete overkill or just a bit of headroom if hypothetically everything was connected and using the network concurrently.

Depends a lot on how its being delivered and so how much upload you get, plus how much upload you're using.

 

Personally I prefer overkill if it means I never experience problems.  In an ideal world we'd all have way more bandwidth than we ever need to never have to think about it, but of course in reality there's a cost difference.

[beersykins]

On 2/13/2023 at 4:16 PM, Hinjima said:

I guess that depends on where you are from.  Here in Norway with my provider you can do that easily.

He means more that 'business' lines are sold at throughput targets and SLA.  At least for enterprise, your loop and port speeds are determined literally months before you're handed off any inkling of a usable circuit.  Can't really just phone them up and be like 'I'd like 5x the throughput, chief', usually there's other dependencies inherited via the design such as 'we cant provide you 10 gigabit access when our backhaul is less than that', as a single example.

 

On 2/13/2023 at 3:55 PM, doginhouse said:

My question is do I need the 300Mbps?

That's a reasonable productivity target.  I've seen an office of 300 share a 100 mbit line.  There's not really a single thing limited by that throughput target unless you have a specific use case like trying to real-time edit 4K footage from remote storage.  At that point you're acutely aware of how much throughput you actually need.

[Hinjima]

2 minutes ago, beersykins said:

He means more that 'business' lines are sold at throughput targets and SLA.  At least for enterprise, your loop and port speeds are determined literally months before you're handed off any inkling of a usable circuit.  Can't really just phone them up and be like 'I'd like 5x the throughput, chief', usually there's other dependencies inherited via the design such as 'we cant provide you 10 gigabit access when our backhaul is less than that', as a single example.

 

 

Obviously asking for 10 gigabit is a bit silly.  But I can definitely increase my speed by x5 by calling my provider and ask them to up my speed / price at my will. We do use optic fiber however, not old slow lines.