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Broadband Users 'Need' At Least 10Mbps To Be Satisfied

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-up-to-speed dept.

Mickeycaskill writes: A new report says broadband users need at least 10Mbps speeds to be satisfied with their connection — especially with regards to online video which is now seen as a staple Internet application. Researchers at Ovum measured both objective data such as speed and coverage alongside customer data to give 30 countries a scorecard. Sweden was deemed to have the best broadband, ahead of Romania and Canada, while the UK and US finished joint-eight with Russia. "Ever since broadband services were launched, there has been discussion on what is the definition of broadband and how much speed do consumers really need?" said co-author Michael Philpott. "In 2015, the answer is at least 10Mbps if you wish to receive a good-quality broadband experience, and a significant number of households, even in well-developed broadband countries, are well shy of this mark."

3 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. 10 Mbits isn't enough by Nyder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can't stream decent video with 10 Mbits while someone else in your house is trying to play an online game or even web browsing these days.

    Worse, I have a 50 Mbit connection with Comcast and you can't stream their Xfinity stuff without buffers and pixelated/blocks showing up. Which I find amusing, that Comcast can't even stream their own shit on their own networks.

    I'd say 25Mbits is the least people can use with a mostly usable internet.

    And I"m saying Mbits instead of Mbps so people understand we are talking bits, not bytes.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:10 Mbits isn't enough by beelsebob · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you can't stream over 50Mb/s, you're not getting 50Mb/s. BluRay video is between 16 and 32Mb/s.

      As always, the cable company is screwing you with "up to" 50Mb/s, rather than the actual advertised speed.

  2. Re:Strange by JMJimmy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I agree with game downloads, p2p I do not because everything is streamed nowadays that is legal...So lets bring back real copies of data, then p2p will be there.

    Like the THEMIS Day IR 100m Global Mosaic torrent, at 42GB is streamed? Or the Internet Census 2012 at 569.43GB? Torrents are not just movies - there are some really interesting public domain datasets out there. Try academictorrents.com

    Let's think about a game download, you have say 10GB of data for a game...

    At 10mbps that will take slightly longer than 2 hours....

    At 50mbps it will take 27 minutes....

    Are you really gonna sit at your computer waiting 27 minutes to download a game (that you could download overnight) or can you not go outside? How many times a year will you do this, 5 times? How when averaging 5 times over a year can you not just wait overnight?

    If I only downloaded my games once it would be 9.05 times per month, every month since 2006, and that's being very generous. That is *just* games, not datasets/video/etc. I *average* 10GB/day through all my various online activities (only counting downloads and not including 2am-8am) a 50mbps connection would save me 47 hours of waiting per month, whether that's active waiting or not that's a LOT of time.