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OT: What speed internet service do you have?

Discussion

3 replies
Posted by Jody Grigg on October 20, 2011 at 1:18 PM
Well most of you don't know that I lost my job 3 months ago, and have been unemployed since. One of the few benefits I have had working for Comcast for the last 13 years was very cheap cable and internet. Next week my severance ends and for the first time I have to pay full price for my internet. We, being my wife and I are dropping cable totally, our plan is to just watch over the air shows but some shows we will watch on line via Hulu Plus. Which brings me to this, what speed internet service do you have? How many Mpbs do you think you can get by on? Does anybody else use Hulu Plus or something similar for watching shows online. I have Blu-Ray player that has Hulu Plus built in so I can stream and watch on my tv. Basically where I live I can only use Comcast, so I am trying to figure out what speed service to buy, anyway you guys get the drift, help me out here.

Thanks
Jody
Posted by Jon LaBass on October 20, 2011 at 4:18 PM
Sorry to hear you lost your job, Jody! As for internet connections, I've got a 5mbps download with CenturyLink which works just fine for video streams. I had a 1.5mbps plan, which worked as well, but I would encounter some buffering delays so I upgraded. With cable, I'd think you could get a pretty fast connection for pretty cheap.
Posted by Stephen Trainor on October 20, 2011 at 8:46 PM
Jody - very sorry about the job too. We're on Comcast - just signed up again after our antipodean adventure - and got the Boost package along with basic cable TV for $40/month for 6 months. We're getting up to 30Mbps down (burst) and 15-20Mbps sustained. The cable tv box is still wrapped up in the basement - we got it as that was included in the promotion, but it's of no interest to be honest as we watch everything online. Let's just say it compares well with the 6Mbps ADSL we had in Oz for $145/month (although that was still sufficient to watch streaming video).
Posted by Kurt Bowman on October 22, 2011 at 11:53 AM
Jody, I actually work for a telecom company and have a little experience with this. A lot depends on the quality of video you are streaming. I have never streamed Hulu, so don't know whether or not they stream HD or not? Also, if they are, is it full 1080p or 720p? If you are streaming just SD, you can easily get away with 5MB and it should be ok for 720p, but you will see some issues once in awhile...especially using a shared access service like Comcast at certain times of the day when everyone else jumps on at the same time (more of a fan of a point to point service myself, but understand you have no choice there.) If you are going to stream 1080i or 1080p and most of the time 720p, I would get 20MB for consistency.