Internet speeds: what are the cool kids using?

I'm about to get internet access for the house. What kind of throughput would I need to get if I wanted to do the netflix thing? What about if I decided to play forza with you guys

I have Comcast's cable modem setup. It can do netflix and Black Ops concurrent while leaving bandwidth to be VPN tunneled to work and my wife also working uploading huge images to her server all day. It's $80/mo whatever it is called.

Thanks. Any idea of your Mbps download/upload?

We have 18Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up. We experience lag on COD MW3, but everyone seems to have occasional lag on that came, no matter how good their connection is. I think you're Verizon down there, right? Are you FiOS eligible?

for gaming everything I read sounds like FiOS is the way to go if you can get it...

i've got att Uverse and pleased...

Uverse here.

I've got Comcast, and people rag on Comcast, but around here, Comcast rocks.

I'm living in the dark ages over here...

Speed costs money, and I hate spending money (That's why I autocross a geo.) How fast do I need to go to do netflix and forza?

I've been doing without internet (or home phone, or cable[*]) for several years, and won't need much bandwidth to connect to the computers used at work, but figure that if I'm doing it, I might as well get enough to do bandwidth to do netflix. I'm even thinking about getting Forza 4 - have 2 and 3 - and occasionally playing online with you guys.

I'm thinking about getting internet without phone (I've been uisng my cell phone for years.....who will call except marketers?) or TV channels (that netflix thing seems more flexible)

I've never been a gamer, but I did buy that xbox a while back thinking that I would start using Forza to familiarize myself with Sebring. (A track day there is on my to-do list. Running a crap can race there - e.g. chumpcar - is the almost-attainable dream.) I'll be getting internet, anyway, because it will make the new job easier.

My two options in the area are brighthouse and verizon/fios.

Brighthouse pricing breaks down as follows
$35.00/mo. for 1mbps/512kbps
$51.00/mo. for 10mbps/1mbps
$66.00/mo. for 20mbps/2mbps
$81.00/mo. for 40mbps/5mbps

They tack on a $2/mo. modem fee, an internet installation fee of $40.00, and (presumably) a wireless installation of $100. (I still have not decided if that's a reasonable price for a modern wireless router, or if my old one will work. What's the current flavor of 802.xx that's used in residential. What specs do I need on a router to not muck with netflicks/forza)

Here's a similar breakdown for fios - apples to apples (i.e. no TV or phone.)
$60.00/mo. for 3 Mbps/1 Mbps
$70.00/mo. for 15 Mbps/5 Mbps
$80.00/mo. for 50 Mbps/25 Mbps
$90.00/mo. for 75 Mbps/35 Mbps
$100.00/mo. for 150 Mbps/65 Mbps

The Fios prices don't include "fees and taxes".

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[*] - My brother-in-law was staying at my place, and was visibly distressed at the lack of TV/internet. He incredulously said, "How can you live!?!?" I smiled at him and said, "I have a welder."

You should be able to do FM4 + Netflix with 10 down and 1 up.

On crappy TWC, I was on 10 down 1 up for a while running Netflix, XboxLive and VPN to work. I upgraded to the next tier only because we got a "long time customer" discount.

JoeyM wrote: Speed costs money, and I hate spending money (That's why I autocross a geo.) How fast do I need to go to do netflix and forza?

I don't know how fast you need for netflix, but I doubt Forza requires real speed. Gaming in general doesn't send a lot of data, so raw sped isn't essential. But they do require responsiveness measured most simply in terms of ping times.

Luke wrote: I'm living in the dark ages over here...

That's about what my speeds show as well. It's supposed to be 3Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up but I've never gotten that. This speed does not work for streaming video. I think a min of 6Mb/s is probably what you need for streaming video for Netflix, Hulu, etc.

We are on Comcast's 15 down/3up package. It works well for VPN, Netflix, and Forza. I'd go Brighthouse, 20 down/2 up out of the options you're presenting. If you already have a wireless router, you should be able to skip the wireless installation fee - no point in paying the cable tech to follow the instructions on the box.

Wireless tech is dependent on what wireless devices you have - that is, if your client computers are 802.11g, there is no point in spending a buttload of money on a pimpy new 802.11ac router. The Xbox 360, I believe, is an 802.11g device. I'm actually not sure, as the Xbox is right next to my router and connected via Ethernet. For the Xbox, this is definitely the way to go.

The newer model, the 360 Slim is a G device, but the old model is ethernet only.

Find out if there are any issue with your local cable system. We are served by Comcast for cable in our area, but the system doesn't work like it should. My neighbor has a Comcast guy there at least once a month, and when we were using their service, it was a call a week. We switched to Uverse and have only had 2 outages in the 3 years we've used them, and both have been in the middle of the night, which is when ISPs do safetime upgrades.

The FiOS pricing structure sucks. They're pretty clearly setting it up so people see more value in the faster speed packages and are willing to pay more. Speed doesn't cost the ISPs as much as it used to, so they can charge less for it.

As odd as it sounds, can you package super basic cable in with either of those and end up paying less due to a bundle discount? I know the big V is known for that, at least with DSL.

Road Runner Lightning from Bright House... Its advertised at 40MBs down and 5 MBs up. Its about $60 before taxes/fees but I bundle that with digital cable which has all the channels except HBO, Showtime, etc and its $105 a month before taxes.

I really wanted Fios but Verizon doesn't service my neighborhood but 1 block down they have it

Meh, its okay for $45 a month($25 a month for the first year). I get on Netflix and Xbox live often and seems to work.

Another thing to note is that you will get better real speeds on an FTTP service such as FiOS than you will on cable. The cable ISPs can detect when you're using a speed test site, and they crank up the bandwidth for a few seconds to make it look faster than everyone else's. The DSL, FTTP, FTTC, and FTTN systems don't do that, so my speed test reflects much more closely to my actual working speed. Not all cable providers bump up speeds, but Comcast is known for it.

Yikes!

In reply to SVreX:

That horrible upload speed might indicate that you have malware on a system or a possible line issue.

In reply to Derick Freese:

Or that I live in South GA!

There's still a minimal amount required, even by the ISP themselves. I'd give them a call if you start experiencing an intermittent issue, as from the information available here, it appears that you have poor margins on your upload.

Keep in mind that all the listed speeds are usual "up to" and that you're often snookered if you don't get anywhere near the advertised rate unless the rate is so bad that it's basically unusable.

What the berkeley? Att is screwing me apparently. $168/month for cable and internet and that only gets me 6mbps down and their u450 tv package.

call and complain and they should toss on you whatever the deal going on right now is for a few months or so...

I have FiOs from Verizon. I'm pretty pleased. All of the services say "up to X mbps" and you rarely get it. With FiOs I'm paying for 15 down/5 up and I'm getting what I pay for. So far (since December) it has been dead-nuts reliable, consistent, and Netflix is lightning fast, even on wireless. It even has a battery backup for when we lose power.

Netflix will tell you that you need at least 3mbps for HD viewing. That might be true, but you'll get 10 seconds of video and then 2 minutes of "rebuffering." Ask me how I know. 5 minimum, and it will be kinda slow at that. For me, 15 is great. Right now I'm surfing with zero speed issues while my wife is Netflix-ing a movie AND talking on VOIP.

When I download something like an MP3, the download is finished before Firefox can even open the download window.