Rural broadband speeds - 10mbps... how bad?
Discussion
Current Internet we are used to is around 600 MBPS – as such, we never have any issue with connectivity. However, looking at moving to somewhere more rural and have realised superfast Internet can actually mean speeds way below 100 MBPS.
What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
We are on the verge of discounting properties based on this issue, but don't want to do that. If we are overreacting based on the perception we need more speed than we are actually using now anyway.
Oh, and some of them seem to use 4G/5G – to me that is just mobile telephone speed Internet. Can you really run a house on that?
ML
What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
We are on the verge of discounting properties based on this issue, but don't want to do that. If we are overreacting based on the perception we need more speed than we are actually using now anyway.
Oh, and some of them seem to use 4G/5G – to me that is just mobile telephone speed Internet. Can you really run a house on that?
ML
I work in a small office, rural location, only option we have is ultra slow broadband, we can't even use Elon Musks satellite as it doesn't support static IP. Typically get 10 meg down, 5 meg up with 10 ish local users and same again remote accessing via VPN. I sit in meetings and it works fine, albeit the picture can go fuzzy at times and screen sharing takes 5-10 seconds before it shows up for others.
Entirely usable though, doesn't drop out during meetings, video quality is just auto-adjusted. I would say when I work remote and work on a 50meg Autocad file, it is painful, so painful that I copy locally to work on during the day.
Where I live the fastest I can get is 70meg down, 20 meg up with the wife and I plus 4 kids and even with 1 downloading a Xbox game, streaming Netflix is still fine and Full HD, just takes a while to download the Xbox game obviously!
Entirely usable though, doesn't drop out during meetings, video quality is just auto-adjusted. I would say when I work remote and work on a 50meg Autocad file, it is painful, so painful that I copy locally to work on during the day.
Where I live the fastest I can get is 70meg down, 20 meg up with the wife and I plus 4 kids and even with 1 downloading a Xbox game, streaming Netflix is still fine and Full HD, just takes a while to download the Xbox game obviously!
I moved into a house with no mobile signal and 3Mbps. Not good!
However, I survived on a 4G router with an external antenna (EE £20 a month) and 35Mbps. The external antenna was only able to sniff out 2 bars out of 5, but 35Mbps was perfectly fine. Wifi calling worked fine too via the 4G router.
Some near (ish) neighbours had satellite (pre Starlink) and it was rubbish. I have a mate with Starlink and he's delighted with the result - albeit a bit more costly.
I wouldn't discount any house with poor broadband given the solutions that are now available. Fibre gigabit speeds are obviously attractive - but I'd choose the house I really like first.
However, I survived on a 4G router with an external antenna (EE £20 a month) and 35Mbps. The external antenna was only able to sniff out 2 bars out of 5, but 35Mbps was perfectly fine. Wifi calling worked fine too via the 4G router.
Some near (ish) neighbours had satellite (pre Starlink) and it was rubbish. I have a mate with Starlink and he's delighted with the result - albeit a bit more costly.
I wouldn't discount any house with poor broadband given the solutions that are now available. Fibre gigabit speeds are obviously attractive - but I'd choose the house I really like first.
is starlink a viable solution? I really need a good solid connection – people talking about zoom calls going fuzzy isn't really going to work!
I am uploading to YouTube on an almost daily basis and conducting things like online podcast, that obviously require a reasonable connection speed.
I am uploading to YouTube on an almost daily basis and conducting things like online podcast, that obviously require a reasonable connection speed.
MarkL73 said:
is starlink a viable solution? I really need a good solid connection – people talking about zoom calls going fuzzy isn't really going to work!
I am uploading to YouTube on an almost daily basis and conducting things like online podcast, that obviously require a reasonable connection speed.
Yes,I am uploading to YouTube on an almost daily basis and conducting things like online podcast, that obviously require a reasonable connection speed.
We use on our vessels, and its a game changer.
MarkL73 said:
What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
You need to consider upload vs download speeds. You know how big your YT uploads are, so decide how long you are happy with them taking to upload, and that tells you the minimum upload speed you are happy with.I'd suggest a working minimum download speed for 4K streaming and a zoom call is somewhere around 50-60 Mbit/sec.
I moved into this place (in London of all places) in 2017 and it was served by an ancient cabinet giving all of 7.5Mb/s.
A few days in we killed it. My son was downloading a game, I had Spotify going at it highest bitrate, my daughter was streaming TV and my wife decided to back up her phone. It just ground to halt.
Luckily we managed to get BT to upgrade the cabinet and normal human life was restored. In the interim I fannied about with variations on mobile data. It was a PITA.
75Mb/s is fine, 7.5Mb/s is not.
A few days in we killed it. My son was downloading a game, I had Spotify going at it highest bitrate, my daughter was streaming TV and my wife decided to back up her phone. It just ground to halt.
Luckily we managed to get BT to upgrade the cabinet and normal human life was restored. In the interim I fannied about with variations on mobile data. It was a PITA.
75Mb/s is fine, 7.5Mb/s is not.
xeny said:
MarkL73 said:
What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
You need to consider upload vs download speeds. You know how big your YT uploads are, so decide how long you are happy with them taking to upload, and that tells you the minimum upload speed you are happy with.I'd suggest a working minimum download speed for 4K streaming and a zoom call is somewhere around 50-60 Mbit/sec.
We have starlink.
Installed after we moved to a semi rural property in 2021. The major networks were a shower of poo, and sky offered us a 5mb for £25.
A week after ordering, and ten mins after unboxing, we run at around 200mbps. I am on teams all day, often at the same time as my wife and our connection is flawless.
Maybe a little spenny, but is cost neutral after one week or not having to commute to the nearest office to work.
As others have said, gamechanger...
Installed after we moved to a semi rural property in 2021. The major networks were a shower of poo, and sky offered us a 5mb for £25.
A week after ordering, and ten mins after unboxing, we run at around 200mbps. I am on teams all day, often at the same time as my wife and our connection is flawless.
Maybe a little spenny, but is cost neutral after one week or not having to commute to the nearest office to work.
As others have said, gamechanger...
For many years my dad had 1 Mbps ADSL and the green box was about 3 miles away in town.
I say 1 Mbps but Speedtest reported
Download: 0.75 Mbps
Upload 0.33 Mbps
Ping 176 ms
It was surprising how much could be achieved with patience. Email and web was generally OK and also the Ring doorbell and he could even stream BBC iPlayer. There was no mobile phone signal but Wi-Fi calling at 1 Mbps worked great.
The main problems were...
An email with attachments could be a problem because it would block up everything happening until the email downloaded.
Computer updates could also bring everything to a complete standstill.
Mobile phones in the area were starved of data and if the Wi-Fi password was shared then just a visitor walking into the house could cause uploading of photos which would take hours.
Full fibre has now arrived but unfortunately too late for dad.
I say 1 Mbps but Speedtest reported
Download: 0.75 Mbps
Upload 0.33 Mbps
Ping 176 ms
It was surprising how much could be achieved with patience. Email and web was generally OK and also the Ring doorbell and he could even stream BBC iPlayer. There was no mobile phone signal but Wi-Fi calling at 1 Mbps worked great.
The main problems were...
An email with attachments could be a problem because it would block up everything happening until the email downloaded.
Computer updates could also bring everything to a complete standstill.
Mobile phones in the area were starved of data and if the Wi-Fi password was shared then just a visitor walking into the house could cause uploading of photos which would take hours.
Full fibre has now arrived but unfortunately too late for dad.
MarkL73 said:
Current Internet we are used to is around 600 MBPS – as such, we never have any issue with connectivity. However, looking at moving to somewhere more rural and have realised superfast Internet can actually mean speeds way below 100 MBPS.
What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
We are on the verge of discounting properties based on this issue, but don't want to do that. If we are overreacting based on the perception we need more speed than we are actually using now anyway.
Oh, and some of them seem to use 4G/5G – to me that is just mobile telephone speed Internet. Can you really run a house on that?
ML
We get 16mbps and it is definitely usable but I support it depends on what you are doing with it. We have a backup 4G router which means we can have a connection per person or device. What's the reality of living with something like that nowadays? One property, that was otherwise perfect, had Internet of 11 MBPS - if I am trying to hold a zoom call, while my wife is watching 4K Netflix, or I'm uploading to YouTube, etc, etc is that sort of speed just going to create non-stop problems and frustrations?
We are on the verge of discounting properties based on this issue, but don't want to do that. If we are overreacting based on the perception we need more speed than we are actually using now anyway.
Oh, and some of them seem to use 4G/5G – to me that is just mobile telephone speed Internet. Can you really run a house on that?
ML
Actual said:
For many years my dad had 1 Mbps ADSL and the green box was about 3 miles away in town.
I say 1 Mbps but Speedtest reported
Download: 0.75 Mbps
Upload 0.33 Mbps
Ping 176 ms
It was surprising how much could be achieved with patience. Email and web was generally OK and also the Ring doorbell and he could even stream BBC iPlayer. There was no mobile phone signal but Wi-Fi calling at 1 Mbps worked great.
The main problems were...
An email with attachments could be a problem because it would block up everything happening until the email downloaded.
Computer updates could also bring everything to a complete standstill.
Mobile phones in the area were starved of data and if the Wi-Fi password was shared then just a visitor walking into the house could cause uploading of photos which would take hours.
Full fibre has now arrived but unfortunately too late for dad.
I had the same when we first moved to the arse end of Salop. I say 1 Mbps but Speedtest reported
Download: 0.75 Mbps
Upload 0.33 Mbps
Ping 176 ms
It was surprising how much could be achieved with patience. Email and web was generally OK and also the Ring doorbell and he could even stream BBC iPlayer. There was no mobile phone signal but Wi-Fi calling at 1 Mbps worked great.
The main problems were...
An email with attachments could be a problem because it would block up everything happening until the email downloaded.
Computer updates could also bring everything to a complete standstill.
Mobile phones in the area were starved of data and if the Wi-Fi password was shared then just a visitor walking into the house could cause uploading of photos which would take hours.
Full fibre has now arrived but unfortunately too late for dad.
Fine for emails, anything else, not so much. A large attachment on a file and it all ground to a halt. thankfully, we switched to 4G before Lockdown, so I could WFH.
For us, it is fine - I can run Rouvy or Zwift while the wife watches some rape or murder on BBC iPlayer. We don't really watch TV/films much and with only 2 of us and not in to gaming, it works fine. It can judder when I run hi-res music, but that is probably the annoying Play-Fi app and Qobuz.
I have enough down the tube to watch Bradford City lose again on the i-Follow.
I suspect a 30mb 4G router won't curt it if someone is playing Fortnite while the other is watching 4k dwarf pron.
Lefty said:
No cable broadband here and pretty crappy 3G/4G signal so we have starlink. Varies from 30-150mbps, ping usually 50-100ms. Never had any downtime in the couple of years we’ve had it.
Interesting – I assume because satellites are up in space, it doesn't really matter whereabouts in the UK you are, as long as you can see the sky you're going to get a decent signal?MarkL73 said:
Ok - so the place is with 100 MBPS are back on the list and the place with 11 is off. There is only so long I could stare at the tranquil stream rolling through the garden before not being able to get online did my head in
Do you have a 4G phone? Do a speed test while you are there as that will be the slowest 4G you'll get?Data speeds are only going to get faster, especially with 5G which could make the need for wired broadband obsolete for most users.
Was the 11Mbps measured or just state on the advert?
Best thing is to get hold of the phone number for the property and run a few checkers.
When I moved into a new place I got 6Mbps on ADSL, upgraded for faster speed and got 8Mbps for 3 times the price.
In the end got BT out to look at the telephone wiring to the BT master socket, turns out an extension had been wired in before the master socket that wrecked the performance. That was sorted and got 18Mbps, things settled down at 38Mbps.
I think a conversation with the home owner about internet speeds and their phone wiring would be my first step if everything else is fine.
Best thing is to get hold of the phone number for the property and run a few checkers.
When I moved into a new place I got 6Mbps on ADSL, upgraded for faster speed and got 8Mbps for 3 times the price.
In the end got BT out to look at the telephone wiring to the BT master socket, turns out an extension had been wired in before the master socket that wrecked the performance. That was sorted and got 18Mbps, things settled down at 38Mbps.
I think a conversation with the home owner about internet speeds and their phone wiring would be my first step if everything else is fine.
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