What's considered to be "above average" internet speed nowadays in the US?

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stockwiz

Senior member
Sep 8, 2013
403
15
81
I had 30 (actually advertised as 15 but I was getting 30) and downgraded to 5 (advertised as 3) . As a single person I just don't feel like paying for the speed.

Here's what mediacom offers. They do at least offer really high bandwidth plans for those that want them.

https://mediacomcable.com/site/internet.html
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,504
12
0
Fast capped internet is like buying a Ferrari with a 1 gallon gas tank. The first mile is a blast, then you have to pay a tow truck to take you the rest of the way.
 

Sheep

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2006
1,275
0
71
With lot of people having more than 100mbps and even gigabit these days I'd say above average is probably like 50.

I can believe the 15-20 cited in this thread but there's literally no way it's 50. I know people whose home "broadband" is 3mbps down/500kbps up who suffer with those atrocious speeds because they simply won't pay more (we're talking people with expendable income too). That's not even taking into account municipal monopolies limiting keeping speeds limited.
 

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
6,115
171
116
Canada and US are geographically suboptimal in the context of a high "average internet speed". There are too many subscribers outside of the areas where infrastructure allows for higher speeds. You'd be surprised how many people are still at 6mbps or less due to being on older ATM/DMT2 infrastructure with no upgrades in the foreseeable future. This no doubt brings the average way down.

Having said that, simply having a high maximum throughput over the last mile offers little guarantee of constant top-speed to your devices, due to the nature of the equipment in use and teh interwebz. The host you're downloading from has to be capable of sending at that speed, the device you're using has to be capable of receiving at that speed, among all kinds of other factors.

So what it really comes down to is, what do you need to do, and how much bandwidth is required to do that? For most people, it's not a very big number. That number goes up if you have several people / multiple devices that will operate simultaneously, but even then.

Me, I have 60mbps and that's pretty much for just one device. It's totally overkill for me as one person. The only time I can tell the difference between that and say, 10mbps, is if I am downloading very large files. For all general usage you'll never see the difference.

People are often misled into thinking that a larger throughput will somehow magically make everything load instantly, but that's simply not how things work - unless things were slow because the existing amount of bandwidth was completely saturated all the time or inadequate for basic use (less than 1mbps for today's internet would probably feel slow sometimes).
 

JimmiG

Platinum Member
Feb 24, 2005
2,024
112
106
Well to determine what's "above average" in the US, you just need to find what the average connection speed is in the US. Anything above that value is "above average".

I've got 100Mb/s. It's convenient when downloading large files such as games from Steam etc. but most of the time it's probably overkill. I'd imagine 25Mbps is enough for light web browsing and streaming.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,931
5,803
126
i have 75 but stopped pirating shortly after i got it 3 years ago, so i don't really take advantage of it at all. it was pretty crazy downloading full dvds in a few minutes. i could only max my connection out on newsgroups using multiple connections. i would hear my HDD chug as it was dling because it was moving so fast lol.

i'd drop down to 50 if it made my bill cheaper, but it doesn't so i stick with 75.
 

edro

Lifer
Apr 5, 2002
24,328
68
91
The highest I can get is 30 and they call it Extreme (Time Warner).
I have been on 5mbps for the last 10 years or so, so 30 is amazing.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
96,218
15,788
126
Canada and US are geographically suboptimal in the context of a high "average internet speed". There are too many subscribers outside of the areas where infrastructure allows for higher speeds. You'd be surprised how many people are still at 6mbps or less due to being on older ATM/DMT2 infrastructure with no upgrades in the foreseeable future. This no doubt brings the average way down.

Having said that, simply having a high maximum throughput over the last mile offers little guarantee of constant top-speed to your devices, due to the nature of the equipment in use and teh interwebz. The host you're downloading from has to be capable of sending at that speed, the device you're using has to be capable of receiving at that speed, among all kinds of other factors.

So what it really comes down to is, what do you need to do, and how much bandwidth is required to do that? For most people, it's not a very big number. That number goes up if you have several people / multiple devices that will operate simultaneously, but even then.

Me, I have 60mbps and that's pretty much for just one device. It's totally overkill for me as one person. The only time I can tell the difference between that and say, 10mbps, is if I am downloading very large files. For all general usage you'll never see the difference.

People are often misled into thinking that a larger throughput will somehow magically make everything load instantly, but that's simply not how things work - unless things were slow because the existing amount of bandwidth was completely saturated all the time or inadequate for basic use (less than 1mbps for today's internet would probably feel slow sometimes).

no, not really. If you ftth Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary,that is like 40% of the population of Canada.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
I have 25 Mb/s service VDSL service from Frontier. It usually gets the job done, but I wouldn't mind 100 Mb/s service instead.

Doing so would require me to sign up with Comcast, though. Eww, No way. I've had enough fun with their customer disservice in the past.
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,740
452
126
With Comcast's recent speed bumps it seems 50 is common. Not sure how noticeable 75 would really be.
 

Riverhound777

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2003
3,363
61
91
I have 50mb from Cox, but the only time I notice the difference over 25 is when i'm downloading Torrents or games from Steam. With games these days all being 8GB+ it's nice getting them at 6mb/s.
 

walkur

Senior member
May 1, 2001
771
4
81
With lots of new games being tens of gigabytes, i'm happy with my 120mb connection.

Just had a mini LAN party where they only had 8mb.... downloading 3 steamgames took 19hrs...
 

Tweak155

Lifer
Sep 23, 2003
11,448
262
126
With lots of new games being tens of gigabytes, i'm happy with my 120mb connection.

Just had a mini LAN party where they only had 8mb.... downloading 3 steamgames took 19hrs...

That's just poor planning.

Pro-tip: update the game you want to play a day or 2 before the lan party then create a backup. Copy that backup to multiple USB drives (3 has been a good number for me).
 
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