Required Bandwidth Question

[Saiylem]

I'll be looking at getting Internet for a new home in the coming months. I'm expecting to have 3-4 simultaneous devices doing any combination of streaming hd video, online gaming, or downloading in general (mostly 2 gaming, and one streamer and downloader).

How much bandwidth should I be looking for?

A breakdown of average requirements for each task would also be useful.

*Edit*
I live in the US. Gaming will be done on a Ps4 and a couple PCs.
I'd like to have the ps4 and 2 pc's on wire with one wireless laptop, but I'm not sure if I can get the pc's wired with their proposed locations.
I think I'm looking at 30 or 40 down and 10 up?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

How many devices will have wired connection?

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Whereabouts are you living? USA or UK or somewhere else?

 

[tallywho]

gaming? xbox, playstation, pc? generally xbox minimum 5/2mbps to be decent "per system" and your so 2 gaming with simultaniouse streaming..... you would want at least a 20/10 mbps connection. And your your going to need a router/ load balancing router to regulate all the traffic. xbox games/servers are a bandwidth hog, you could have 500 mbps and its still going to suck the entire connection, as most online gaming applications. when you get into streaming and gaming at the same time you need a gaming router/ load balancing router to rout traffic and manage bandwidth appropriately to maintain a "uninterrupted user experience" across all your devices "at the same time" if you can get your self a 50/20 or 40/10 that would be a great place to start.

 

[Saiylem]

*Edited original post with information*

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

I would go for Verizon's FiOS 75/75 plan if your budget allows it - I personally live in the UK but I have heard great things about that package from people I know in the US.

 

[Solandri]

Netflix requires 5 Mbps for HD streaming. (4k streaming will be 25 Mbps.)
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

Games are trivial. About 0.1 Mbps tops, except when you're downloading updates. Latency and jitter matters a lot more with games than bandwidth.

The rest is your preference. If you want faster download speeds, go ahead and pay for the faster plan. It sounds like your ISP is pretty generous with upload speeds, so you're pretty free to get whatever you're willing to pay for.

The only other thing to watch out for is that capping your upload bandwidth can slow down your download speeds. TCP/IP requires acknowledgement that a packet was received. So if you're downloading a file, the website will send your computer (say) 100 kB, then ask "did you get that?" Your computer has to then respond "yes I got it" before the site will send the next 100 kB. If your upload bandwidth is saturated (e.g. you're filesharing a ton of stuff), that acknowledgement packet can get delayed, meaning the next chunk of download data can be delayed. You can combat this with QoS, but QoS can get tricky if you have very little upload bandwidth to begin with.