World Wide Worx CO Arthur Goldstuck says that many households are being sold fibre speeds they don't need.
Most South African households will find a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connection with download speeds of 100Mbps suitable for their needs, while some may even find products with sub-50Mbps satisfactory.
That is according to technology expert and World Wide Worx CEO Arthur Goldstuck, who told MyBroadband that many households were being sold speeds they would rarely use.
“Speed is easy to sell. It gives ISPs a bigger number to put on the package or in the ads,” Goldstuck stated.
“For most households, 100Mbps download is plenty. Even 50Mbps will comfortably handle streaming, video calls, browsing, social media, and several people being online at the same time.”
Goldstuck said that a single person or couple mainly streaming, browsing, using social media and making the occasional video call could get by very comfortably on 25Mbps to 50Mbps.
A household with multiple heavy users can benefit from a 200Mbps or faster product, especially if people work from home, move big files, download games, or stream video on multiple screens at once.
For a small home office with multiple users, Goldstuck recommended a download speed of 400Mbps or more.
Goldstuck also highlighted that upload speed often did not get the attention it deserved. Upload speed is important for sending large files, backing up to the cloud, or when conducting frequent video calls.
“A decent upload speed can be more useful than another few hundred Megabits on the download side,” Goldstuck said.
Goldstuck also said that online gaming presented an interesting case because download speeds don’t necessarily make gaming better.
“Low latency and a stable connection are often more useful, so fibre beats fixed-wireless or mobile broadband any time of day,” Goldstuck said.
“The big speeds do become useful when downloading the games themselves, because those files can be enormous.”
The table below summarises Goldstuck’s recommendations on appropriate FTTH line speeds for various types of home Internet users.
Type of household or setupRecommended line speedPrice on Vumatel via AfrihostSingle or two-person household25Mbps to 50MbpsR517 to R727Average household with three or four users50Mbps to 100MbpsR727 to R997Heavy user household200Mbps+From R1,167Small home office with multiple users400Mbps+From R1,297
Goldstuck also warned that households should not be too quick to upgrade their lines if they experience speeds slower than what they need. The problem might not be the line itself, but the Wi-Fi router.
“One thing people often get wrong is blaming the fibre line when the problem is actually the Wi-Fi inside the house,” he said.
“If the router is badly placed, or there are thick walls between it and the device, even a 1Gbps connection can feel slow in the bedroom.”
To understand what Internet speed you need, it can also be useful to refer to the bandwidth usage of some of the most popular types of online applications.
Over the years, many Internet service providers (ISPs) have told MyBroadband that video streaming accounted for the vast majority of most residential users’ fixed and mobile data consumption.
Relative to today’s entry-level FTTH products, video streaming is not as demanding as it was in the past. Netflix recommends at least a 15Mbps download speed to stream at 4K resolution.
In a single- or two-person household where only one TV is streaming 4K at a time, an additional 10Mbps of bandwidth is likely sufficient to support connectivity for other devices.
If you have two to three users streaming at the same time and want to keep other devices online at the same time, then 50Mbps download speeds would be sensible.
The table below provides a few examples of online services and what speeds they require to function without buffering or other issues.
ApplicationSpeed requiredAudio streaming (320kbps)<0.5MbpsOnline browsing with minimal media content<1Mbps720p video conferencing1.5Mbps to 3Mbps4K video streaming (Netflix recommended)15Mbps1080p cloud game streaming25Mbps1440p cloud game streaming35Mbps4K cloud game streaming45MbpsDownloading a 2-hour 4K movie in 30 minutes100MbpsDownloading a 100GB game in an hour200Mbps+
