Do I need 500mbs over 100mbs?

lenovo1 · 15-10-2021 9:33am #1

Just moved into a new house. We had been able to check internet speed on the Eir website before moving and said we could get up to 80mbs. That was good enough I thought.

We just signed up to an internet and tv plan with Sky. They informed me for the same price I could get FTTH 500mbs.

Only issue was that installation was a month away as opposed to a week away for regular internet plan. I'm working from home so waiting a month is an issue (I can go somewhere for 4 days). I looked at hot spotting my phone yesterday but had some connection issues on video calls, I get about 10mbs on my phone. Thought it would be enough. Using the phone isn't ideal either of I walk away from the desk with it.

Am I missing out on not getting the 500mbs deal? There is two of us in the house. Good few devices connected, may both be streaming at some point. Will probably look to get some echos or other smart stuff once we get settled.

Any other temp fix options? Is there a more stable way of using a sim card for internet rather than hot spotting?

heavydawson · 15-10-2021 9:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058213232/do-i-need-500mbs-over-100mbs

What price are both options? Are you paying line rental,etc. for the Eir option?

cnocbui · 15-10-2021 10:04am

You wouldn't miss the difference for the normal internet website stuff,but for big stuff like multi GB game updates or downloads you would. Very few services out there could move stuff at you at 500 Mbps but some like Steam could. I have 150 Mbps fibre and would not like to wind it back to 80, but I am also not lusting after 500.

Just buy a second hand 4G phone or SH router that takes a SIM or a USB data dongle and get a second SIM and use that for a month. Worth the wait in the long run. A month is nothing to people who waited for fibre and watched new poles installed, with an actual connection happeneing more than a year later and 3 months after the black boxes went up.

Explosive_Cornflake · 15-10-2021 10:21am

I'd say no. Especially if you are using wifi.

lenovo1 · 15-10-2021 10:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022578#Comment_118022578

Both options with sky are €50 for 12 months. It's the Sky 50 package they are advertising. The 500mbs package would cost €10 more after the year is up I think.

lenovo1 · 15-10-2021 10:29am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022624#Comment_118022624

Cheers. I do want to try and play some Xbox xCloud game streaming if I get the time...

I'll look into it. What the difference between a dongle and router? Is the dongle just for the laptop?

heavydawson · 15-10-2021 10:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022703#Comment_118022703

It sounds like one is DSL and the other is Fibre. If it was me I'd just get on the fibre bandwagon for other reasons (better latency,better long-term upgrade prospects). For the sake of an extra €10, it's a no brainer to me.

Snaga · 15-10-2021 10:56am

For the same cost? Get FTTH in a heartbeat. Any mid to high end device bought in the last 3-5 years will have faster wifi than 100Mbps (with higher end devices faster than even the 500Mbps FTTH package) - the latest devices with the latest WiFi versions can go multi-gigabit with the right conditions.

500Mbps will really shine if you have multiple people in the house, with kids come second tv's (more streaming), games consoles etc.. and 500Mbps will support that kind of independant activity without impacting the other activity. (If its just you and perhaps a partner watching netflix then 100Mbps is plenty of bandwidth (but id still upgrade for all of the other improvements FTTH brings over phoneline or cable based internet).

Its a night and day platform upgrade, you will actually notice web pages and other dynamic content being snappier, not because of the bandwidth upgrade, but because of the latency improvements of the technology FTTH uses (there are lots of little request/answer behaviour in web browsing and this is seriously sped up with FTTH). Its also far more reliable, generally less things to go wrong (at least in the piece connecting you to the network) and if things do go wrong, they tend to effect multiple people and so tends to get fixed more quickly than individual line faults which are so common when using the phoneline.

dotsman · 15-10-2021 10:58am

If waiting a month is an issue, and it sounds like it is, why not just go for the 80Mbps connection today and then upgrade to the 500Mbps connection next year etc.

The 80Mbps is perfectly fine for everyday use and the vast majority of people could go through whole year without ever noticing the benefit of a higher speed. Indeed, most people will be using devices that cannot support speeds anywhere near 500Mbp.

The reason for going to the 500Mbps line is simply about future proofing. Just as a few megs was consider ultra fast 10-15 years ago, in the coming years we will see the transition to the modern family home needing several hundred megs (For a family of 4, say 2 people streaming 4K on different devices, 1 person downloading large game updates, another is working from home, while a device currently not in use is automatically downloading an update, all being done at the same time and not wanting to interfere with each other). Now, some families are actually pretty close to that at the moment. But unless yours is, or intends to be over the next 12 months, then 80Mbps will keep you going perfectly fine, and you can upgrade next year.

iColdFusion · 15-10-2021 11:07am

Go for the FTTH definitely but factor in trying to get as many devices hardwired into it as possible, had 1Gb FTTH and now at cheaper 500Mb but trying to utilise that from one wifi point is pretty pointless, house has no data wiring and fiber line comes in at one side of the house so that's where the router is.

Tried those fancy powerline adapters but found it poor, kept dropping my remote connection to work and was better off with lower signal direct from router and not my house so cant go running CAT6a around it.

cnocbui · 15-10-2021 2:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022700#Comment_118022700

That's an old and erroneous popular misconception. 5 Ghz WiFi:

paulboland · 15-10-2021 3:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022700#Comment_118022700

You can get download speeds of 500Mbps and higher with WiFi 5Ghz I do with some of my devices

The whole point of having 500 Mpbs or 1 Gigabyte broadband is abilty to have multiple devices use broadband same time

Some homes have 10 or more devices connected to broadband router each day

Some homes have 14-25 devices in use on some days

A lot of devices in homes now connect to broadband especially in homes with more than 1 persons

You will have a mix of devices that are connected by entheret cable and some using Wifi

If you have multiple devices in use and only have 100Mbps package you have to remember each device shares that broadband speed

Cuddlesworth · 15-10-2021 3:38pm

For a household, 100mb's per second is the sweet spot depending on the price. Going past that gives diminishing returns.

But your not comparing 80 to 500, your comparing "up to" 80 with 500. You would be lucky to get close to 80.

Suck it up, wait for the FTTH product.

lenovo1 · 15-10-2021 10:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118024474#Comment_118024474

The 80mbps is the 100mbps plan. I believe I will get about 80, of course less over wifi.

So I'm looking at getting 4g wifi for a month to tide me over. The best I can find is from Vodafone 50gb for 40euro a month. Need to by a some router from them for €30. I doubt it's very good. Probably just cover the office room.

50gb isn't very much either. Would need to keep an eye on it.

Don't want to use anyone one the Three network as signal is poor. Will check Eir tomorrow.

cnocbui · 16-10-2021 12:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118026414#Comment_118026414

You can get a normal 100 GB a month plus all calls and texts SIM from 48.ie for €11. Even a vodafone router is going to cover more than a room.

Do I need 500mbs over 100mbs?

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