{"id":947,"date":"2017-08-10T07:00:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webcommand.net\/?p=947"},"modified":"2017-08-09T16:48:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T20:48:01","slug":"bandwidth-wars-much-speed-need-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webcommand.net\/index.php\/2017\/08\/10\/bandwidth-wars-much-speed-need-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandwidth Wars! How much speed do I need for my home?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The marketing department loves to put their spin on just about every product and service for sale. This is also true as it pertains to Internet Bandwidth for your home. Technology companies and\u00a0 computer hardware manufactures (as well as other manufactures) seem to think that we are all stupid sheep, and rather than educate us properly on what we really need they tend to force feed product in the hopes of increased profit.<\/p>\n

Before I begin writing about how much Internet Bandwidth you need for your house, let me first show a few examples of how the marketing machine<\/strong> caused misleading advertising wars of the past.<\/p>\n

Intel vs Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)<\/h4>\n

\"\"Way back in the 90s Intel wanted to increase market share and increase sales. The marketing department came up with a brilliant “Intel inside” campaign and began educating consumers on processor clock speed (MHZ & GHZ) They touted that a 90Mhz PC was better than the 60Mz and\u00a0 AMD did the same. Both companies basically started an arms race to achieve the highest speed processor and consumers were led to believe faster is better. Here we are over 20 years later and we now know that clock speed is NOT a good representation of how fast a processor can perform. There are so many other factors that contribute to a FAST computer but I’m not going to cover that in this article. Marketing alone may have duped thousands into prematurely upgrading to a new computer.<\/p>\n

Vacuum cleaner AMP ratings<\/h4>\n

This marketing campaign told consumers that the higher an AMP rating of a \"\"vacuum cleaners motor the better it would perform. We began seeing 5amp, 7amp and even 12amp models hit the market each touting better performance than its predecessor. Hello! Anyone that finished high school should realize what BS this is. An AMP is the amount of electricity a device consumes while operating, and yes a 12amp motor consumes more electricity than a 5amp motor. However, there is no direct coloration between AMPs and cleaning power.\u00a0 I could have a very efficient 5amp motor and great vacuum design that can provide more suction than the most powerful 12amp unit. This is simply more marketing BS!<\/p>\n

I have gigabit bandwidth speeds at home, I’m better than you!<\/h4>\n

\"\"Thank you for sitting through the two examples of marketing BS above, I just wanted to show how this was done before and will be done again. About a year ago, Verizon began marketing 1000Mbps (gigabit) bandwidth speeds for home users.\u00a0 Not\u00a0 soon after Comcast is now pushing 400Mb Internet speed, with the promise of gigabit speeds coming soon.All of these increased offerings come at an increased price. (Increased Profit!)<\/p>\n

Just what is bandwidth and should I even care?<\/h4>\n

Bandwidth is simply a measure of speed. Going back to the old “tubes” \"\"analogy you can think of bandwidth as a water pipe entering into your house. The bigger the pipe the more water you can consume. However it is important to point out that this does not mean you will use the additional available water. If you have a 1″ pipe and 1\/2″ garden hose, your garden hose will use the flow rate of 1\/2″ worth of water. If you increase your pipe to 2″ and keep the same garden hose the flow will be the same as the 1″ pipe. Does this make sense?<\/p>\n

\"\"I have an office of about 60 users that up until 3 months ago shared a 10Mbps internet connection without issue. I know they were all not using Netflix and watching streaming video, and most internet connected devices worked just fine. It wasn’t until the ISP began offering 100Mbps internet for the same price that we decided to upgrade.<\/p>\n

How much bandwidth does streaming video take?<\/h4>\n

NETFLIX<\/strong><\/p>\n