Is this Internet speed any good?

[Drachenei]

So me and a friend will be moving to an apartment here soon, and from what I can find, the best Internet is 7mbps download and 640kbps upload. It's right next to the university I am going to, and I have no knowledge about Internet. Is that speed any good, is it fast enough to do dual multi-player gaming, HD streaming of movies, videos, fast downloads, etc. We'd be paying , $85.95 monthly, and from what I can find, it is the best Internet we can get. Thanks for the help!

 

[dexxterlab97]

Whats the ping. The speed is not really bad for gaming. It's actually more about ping but with that speed it might take some time to download large games

 

[TJ Hooker]

As said above, that should be fine for gaming, depending on latency. However, you definitely wouldn't get what I'd consider fast downloads. You should be ok for HD movie streaming (Netflix recommends 5 Mbps for HD streaming), but multiple streams at once or other traffic might be iffy.

 

[Solandri]

What country are you in? If in the U.S., how close are you to a large metropolitan area?

For the U.S. (which doesn't exactly have a reputation for cheap, fast internet), that's a terrible price. I'm in Southern California and pay $85/mo for 100 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up. That's over cable. DSL here is about $50/mo for 18 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up.

I manage a building which is in a mid-low income area with terrible Internet service. For over a decade DSL was the only game in town, and cable (which showed up about 5 years ago) still isn't available in most areas. They charge $30/mo for 1 Mbps down, 128kbps up, $50/mo for 1.5 Mbps down, 256kbps up, and $70/mo for 3 Mbps down, 768kbps up. (The lines are too old and long to allow faster speeds.) Everyone in the area agrees these prices are total rip-offs, and your price is about in the same category. The places where DSL has strong competition, the price usually drops to around $25/mo for 5-10Mbps service.

Usually there's both DSL and cable Internet available in most areas, especially around universities. Cable internet tends to be about 2-5x faster than DSL, and so is cheaper per Mbps. Even if you don't plan to watch TV or already have satellite TV, most cable companies will provide you with internet-only service.