What’s your internet speed?

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A recent survey shows that consumers don’t know much about their internet speed. Allconnect, a resource for cable-operator information, reveals that 73% of those polled said they did not know what internet speed they really needed, and that almost two in five people were not even able to tell what speed they were paying for. More surprisingly, two-thirds of respondents are happy with the speed of their connection though providers often get low satisfaction ratings. “This leads us to believe that the problem is not with the broadband connections themselves, but the billing and customer service issues that come along with them,” says Allconnect. For the record, browsing the web requires around 10 Mb/s to adequately download; 10 to 25 Mb/s is recommended for videoconferencing and HD video; and if you stream 4K videos or do online gaming, 25 to 35 Mb/s is a minimum. However, an important factor to consider is the number of users and devices on your network. If you’re streaming a 4K video and someone else on the same network is playing Fortnite at the same time, you’ll hit a 35 Mbps connection’s ceiling pretty quickly. 50 to 100 Mb/s should satisfy a plugged-in household. But let’s not forget that these speeds are still inaccessible luxuries in some areas away from urban centers ...

The Allconnect study was conducted by market research firm YouGov from May 14 to 17, with a total sample size of 1,214 adult respondents in the United States.

⇨ Cnet, Ry Crist, “How much internet speed do you need? 73% of us have no clue.”

2021-06-17