Internet Speed Question

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regdog

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I'm going to be getting new internet tv and phone service soon. I've been looking at bundles and was wondering if 50 mbps is a fast speed or should I look at a bundle with 250 mbps?

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Enlightened

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50 Megabit (Mbit) is 6.25 Megabytes (MB) per second. 250 Mbit is 31.25 MB per second.

It depends on what you need it for. If you do not do heavy uploading/downloading or a lot of streaming video, or you do not run servers of any kind (web, email, ftp, podcast, other), I'd do the 50 Megabit one.

Just make sure you have unlimited data for downloading. Some ISPs may cap you at 10 gigabytes a month, or something like that.

If you go either route, make sure you can swap to the other (without too much hassle) if you need to. In other words, I would buy the faster cable modem (what the 250 deal requires) and use it for the 50 connection. If you want ot upgrade, you won't need to buy a second modem.

I would buy not rent modems. You end up paying for multiple modems with renting, and never own one. Ask what brands work best with their service (and both throughput speeds). See if Amazon carries the modems for cheap, or see if your local computer store carries them cheap. If you are American, try Best Buy; and definitely get the replacement/Geeksquad warranty (for 3 years?). This saved me LOTS of money in the past.
 

Enlightened

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P.S. Check the terms of contracts and check user reviews, online, before choosing one. 50 Mbit is some theoretical maximum; some get nowhere near this. If you are considering broadband Centurylink, I can tell you some nightmare stories with them (bandwidth nowhere near what they claim, 3 year contracts that can ruin people if they want out). The company, from what friends told me, makes a lot of threats for those needing to back out of a multi-year contract.
 

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I'm going to be getting new internet tv and phone service soon. I've been looking at bundles and was wondering if 50 mbps is a fast speed or should I look at a bundle with 250 mbps?

Thank you

What do you want to do?

Will you be uploading (pictures or videos, for instantce) much?
 

lizmonster

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Best we can get here is 1.5Mbps up and down, so I envy you the choices. :)

We can stream Netflix, but doing that along with something else (someone watching Youtube on a tablet or downloading music) means we get a fairly low-quality stream that sometimes stalls.

50 would be fine for most people.
 

regdog

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Thank you for your help


What do you want to do?

Will you be uploading (pictures or videos, for instantce) much?


I upload some photos but like to watch Youtube videos and download comic books
 
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