Convince me that I need faster internet.

[Fleet of Foot]

Current speed with Spectrum is 200/12. The 12 up sucks but I've lived with it for years. I'm not streaming anything to Twitch or anything. Download speed is much more important.

Recently my town got wired for gig broadband. It's taken forever. Like a whole year+ of them digging a hole in front of practically every house. They dug a hole in my yard three months ago and still they've been doing whatever with digging and wiring for months after that.

Finally, now, I can sign up. The prices are this:

500/500 = $95
1000/1000 $135

I don't know how reasonable that is. I'm paying $75 for what I have now. The allure of gig internet is real but when I think about why I need it, I'm coming up a little blank. Yeah it'd be cool to download game pass games faster…

I'm already streaming Netflix etc. at 4k and there are only three people in my house so it's not like we have a ton of devices connected.

I always wanted this speed but now being realistic I can't come up with many good reasons.

If I went with the 500/500 that's $20 more a month. But even 500 seems lame when I've waited this long. I feel like it's 1000 down or nothing. It's not that I can't afford it. I just am wondering what practical difference I'd see.

Those with 500 or 1000 down…convince me I need this. What am I not considering?

 

[xxracerxx]

Ehh, at those prices I wouldn't. I pay $70/month for gig, but I am not sure I would pay more.

 

[Biosnake]

You don't really need the speed increase but if you want to spend a little just go for the 500/500.

 

[mute]

The price quotes seem expensive compared to here. If Spectrum aren't doing the yearly rate hike thing to you I would probably stay.

 

[EPLirish]

500 to 1000 speed difference is minimal, rather than, say, 100 to 500. I downgraded from 1000 to 500 because it wasn't a massive improvement on what I'd get from 500.

If I download 100 GB with 1000 Mbps speed, it would take me 13 minutes to download 100 GB, compared to 26 minutes with 500 Mbps speed, that's 13 minutes difference, but is it worth to pay more than $50 for less 13 minutes of downloading?

 

[shaneo632]

500 is sick but tbh I could make do just fine with 200. Usually if I'm downloading anything large like a game I leave it on in the background while I'm working or during dinner anyway.

 

[nsilvias]

if its only you 200-300 is as much as you really need for downloading unless your a buisness or content creator

 

[Couleurs]

i have Centurylink gigabit for $70 a month. It's nice but it wasn't really a noticeable upgrade from Comcast with ~500 down/15ish up. 500 is fine if your current plan seems too slow

 

[Hrodulf]

If your current speeds suit your needs then it's basically just wasted money to upgrade, especially if you can't think of any good reason to.

 

[jackie daytona]

Depends on what you need it for.

Before I moved I had gig fiber, and honestly the only time it was noticeable was when downloading a gigantic game. And, sure, the peace of mind was nice knowing that whatever else was going on in the house would have virtually no impact to my speeds, but in reality streaming services use such low bitrate that it's not really necessary.

I was slightly annoyed that I'm now paying more for slower speeds (on spectrum too now), but I've come to terms that it will have very little impact on my day-to-day.

 

[thewienke]

$135 per month?!

Hell no

 

[Lump]

The only time you're going to feel speeds above 500 is when you're downloading new games or if you're regularly downloading giant media files. Honestly, I usually go for the 300 plan if I can get it (and if the upload isn't ass) because I just won't feel any speeds above it 99.9% of the time. It's just me and my wife in this house, so I don't need excessive bandwidth to spread around.

Is downloading a new large game in 12 minutes instead of 24 minutes worth an extra $40 a month? For me it wouldn't be, but your needs might vary.

 

[Carn]

why pay for things you dont need? I'm actually contemplating downgrading (from 350/35 to 200/20) since I'm struggling to make use of that extra bandwith.

 

[facepalm007]

If you're happy with your current speeds then no need to upgrade and spend more money. Instead I would use whatever information you can get and try to negotiate the plan of your current price down.

 

[Seirith]

I pay $50 for 500/500 but if my choices were 200 or 500, I'd go with the 500 and download stuff faster.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

No one needs it at those prices

 

[Replicant]

200 is fine unless yo rurally download a lot of stuff

 

[Auros01]

Those prices are comparable to what is offered in my area and I would not go with either. I'd stick with the 200/12 you are getting.

Your use cases just don't really suggest you need the bump to 500 or 1000.

 

[firehawk12]

You don't think you need the upload speed, but you just notice it when doing even simple things like photo backups. I also don't feel my connection slow to a crawl every time I have to upload something, which is a nice bonus.
That said, 1 gig isn't worth it unless you have hardwired connections anyway, so go with 500.

 

[Saladin]

I used to have 100 and two years ago upgraded to 500. Can't go back nor go anything lower. The speed in everything definitely makes it worth it

No buffering, fast downloads and all is good. Not sure if the jump from 500 to 1000 is worth it, but I want to try that!

 

[Kattlauv]

I just got a free update from 100 to 400. Doesn't really matter, I only see the difference while downloading a game from Steam or something, and it's not that often. So I would have been just as fine with 100. But it is of course okay to download a game faster, but if I had to pay extra I would have declined.

 

[Rumenapp]

I have 200/20 and it's fine.

 

[Herne]

To think I'm paying €35 for 500/50 and was complaining when I was paying €60 for the same and the price was going up to €70 for 1000/100. Telling my ISP that I was going with another provider for the above cheaper price I mentioned got them to quickly let me know they'd give it to me for the same price. Anything to keep their customers in contract.

I'd happily go back to 150/30 if it meant continuing to pay the lower price. $95/€88 for 500/500 is stupid money.

 

[The Albatross]

I pay like $94/mo for Charter Spectrums 'Ultra' which is like ~425/20. I'd definitely do the $95/mo for 500/500.

 

[gozu]

$75 fpr 200/12 is a terrible deal, frankly.

500/500 will allow you to backup your computers / iPhones to the cloud cheaply, easily and reliably. You can't do that with 12mbps upload.

As far as downloads go, 200Mbps is probably enough for you. You would know if you needed more. You'd be all impatient and annoyed and shit.

 

[LazyGradient]

Holy crap, I pay 40 euros (35 with extra phone discount) here in NL for 1000/1000 I'd definitely not go over 60 for that. Your prices are incredible!

The way I use it is mostly to really quickly download games on Gamepass I want to try. It may be a little wasted but for the price I pay I'm not complaining.

 

[bionic77]

I wouldn't pay more than $50/month for internet unless I needed it for work.

The lowest speed has always been enough for me because the provider keeps upping it.

I think we are 300 down for $30/month. I don't mind waiting 40 minutes for a PS5 game to download or an update for my OS.

Not sure what most people need 1gig speed for. I am sure some people definitely need it but this speed is fine for us so far.

 

[Charcoal]

I pay $165 per month for 1000 down w/ unlimited data, but I live in rural Illinois.

My employer covers $75 though, so at the end of the day, $95 a month isn't horrible.

 

[Ra]

I think you should absolutely pay $20 more for the 500Mbps symmetrical. The down will be nice but going from 12Mbps to 600Mbps peak on the upload will be huge.

 

[Aleman]

The reality is that most servers—including game downloads—won't actually provide you with 1 gigabit downloads anyway.

If you're fine with your current upload speeds then I'd save the money until you're not.

 

[Jisgsaw]

Holy shit at those prices, and I thought we were getting ripped of in europe.

On topic: honestly, if you live alone, I'm not sure you'd even feel the difference between 200 and more. Now, if several people stream at the same time, that's another story.

 

[Deleted member 4212]

I pay $69.99 for 1000/1000. And it comes with HBO Max.

 

[PinkSpider]

200 down is fine, I have 200 and get around 160. Up I get far higher but don't use it massively. I'd say stay as is with those prices. Wait for them to come down (Our ISP upgrades packages every few years as they get more efficient).

 

[Frodo]

I really need OP to edit their post to include units in it, because, even though I assume I know what the units are, the fact that the units are missing is annoying me.

200 what?

Edit: actually I need y'all to edit your posts and have some common decency and include which unity of measurement you're talking about. It only adds a couple of letters at the end of your numbers.

 

[julia crawford]

who even needs more than 100mbps that's not because of work or something like that

 

[Charcoal]

I really need OP to edit their post to include units in it, because, even though I assume I know what the units are, the fact that the units are missing is annoying me.

200 what?

Click to shrink...

Kbps

 

[Ayirek]

200 down is fine unless you're streaming 4K across five or more devices at once. Higher download speeds mostly increase your bandwidth.

I really need OP to edit their post to include units in it, because, even though I assume I know what the units are, the fact that the units are missing is annoying me.

200 what?

Click to shrink...

MBPS, probably.

 

[Beanbeany]

70 for 1200 down and 160 up.

We have 3 people in the house that only stream video and play games. It's been a huge boon coming with no cap as well.

If you're good with what you've got then I see no need to convince you otherwise.

 

[elty]

I am using 75/10 and it seems fine? Unthrottle 1000 can easily double my bill.

 

[Frodo]

Kbps

Click to shrink...

MBPS, probably.

Click to shrink...

A-hem...

 

[Cajun]

For 135 bucks a month, absolutely not. Even the 500 speed is a bit overpriced (I pay 75 a month for gig in Dallas). If you have zero plans to produce content in any format, even streaming with friends in discord, then your current service is fine, unless your ping/service consistency is horrible, but location matters most in those regards most of the time. I don't really stream, but if I'm recording a vod and showing it to friends/the FF raid team, the gig up has been really nice.

500 if anything, depends on the ISP (Spectrum? Yuck)

 

[GreenMonkey]

Yeah that feels a bit steep.

I'm on the Comcast promo plan for a year or two again at $70/mo ($80 without autopay)

The full retail is like 100+ though

 

[Faceless_Caesar]

The extra speed will be largely meaningless if they are delivering it to you over copper. Make sure that if you are paying for speeds like that you are getting fiber to the home. Companies like to talk around the fact that they deliver your internet over copper by saying that their internet is 'fiber to the node' or 'fiber to the neighborhood'. It should really be called fiber to the bottleneck as you won't get anything resembling the speeds you are paying for during peak hours if it's all copper.

 

[Johnny956]

Current speed with Spectrum is 200/12. The 12 up sucks but I've lived with it for years. I'm not streaming anything to Twitch or anything. Download speed is much more important.

Recently my town got wired for gig broadband. It's taken forever. Like a whole year+ of them digging a hole in front of practically every house. They dug a hole in my yard three months ago and still they've been doing whatever with digging and wiring for months after that.

Finally, now, I can sign up. The prices are this:

500/500 = $95
1000/1000 $135

I don't know how reasonable that is. I'm paying $75 for what I have now. The allure of gig internet is real but when I think about why I need it, I'm coming up a little blank. Yeah it'd be cool to download game pass games faster…

I'm already streaming Netflix etc. at 4k and there are only three people in my house so it's not like we have a ton of devices connected.

I always wanted this speed but now being realistic I can't come up with many good reasons.

If I went with the 500/500 that's $20 more a month. But even 500 seems lame when I've waited this long. I feel like it's 1000 down or nothing. It's not that I can't afford it. I just am wondering what practical difference I'd see.

Those with 500 or 1000 down…convince me I need this. What am I not considering?

Click to shrink...

Those prices seem excessive, even AT&T's fiber is $65/month for 500mbps. I had 300 fiber until AT&T got rid of so I'm on 500mbps and it's more then enough and upload quite often for work

 

[HK-48]

If you get faster internet I'll give you a cookie, maybe even two

 

[captive]

here i am working for 4G cell internet, my kids stream youtube/netflix all from anywhere between 20-50mbps if we're lucky with crappier upload.


i'd kill for bonded 50/50 or even 20/20.

 

[Ayirek]

A-hem...

Click to shrink...

The kbps line is probably a joke. 200 mbps is the baseline for Spectrum unless you're grandfathered into an ancient account.

 

[TaySan]

If it's just you 200 will be more than enough.

 

[VanWinkle]

Holy shit at those prices, and I thought we were getting ripped of in europe.

On topic: honestly, if you live alone, I'm not sure you'd even feel the difference between 200 and more. Now, if several people stream at the same time, that's another story.

Click to shrink...

I pay $112 for 200 down in West Virginia. And my ISP won't give me a better deal like they do with new customers, and there are no competitors in my area.

 

[VariantX]

I wouldn't even say you need faster internet, you just need an price that fairly reflects what you getting. If spectrum met your needs but at a lower price then fine but if they're charging anywhere near what the gigabit stuff is I'd dump them in a heartbeat