If you think that your current Internet plan is not sufficient or you plan to upgrade your Internet services, a question must have crossed your mind. This question would be, “how much Internet speed do I need?”. When you decide on the internal speed and package you need, you must keep a few things in mind. These would be the size of your family, the number of devices that are connected to the Internet at one time, and what online activities are conducted in your home. Before you understand how much speed you will need, let’s understand what bandwidth and speed are.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the total speed of the Internet connection at which data gets delivered to your home computer or any other device connected to the Internet. Usually, bandwidth is expressed in terms of Mbps. There is a huge difference between speed and bandwidth. However, they are pretty closely related. Thus, most people end up using the two terms interchangeably. The speed is the actual speed that you receive on your computer. However, the bandwidth gives you the maximum speed that you can avail yourself of. If you have a higher bandwidth, you will be awailing more download and upload speeds, less buffering time, and stream video in HD quickly. If you land up with low bandwidth, your Internet speed will be slow. This may cause longer buffering time, poor video quality, longer download and upload Et cetera.
Therefore, if you have a household with many people who are constantly using the Internet, you should opt for higher bandwidth.
Which is the right speed for you?
The speed that would be correct for you and your household will depend on the size of your home and your Internet usage. Here are a few facts about the bandwidth that should give you an idea of how much bandwidth you will need:
- Households with two users need 1 MBPS for streaming music, while a household with 3 to 4 users needs 2 MBPS for the same.
- Households with two users need 1.5 MBPS for web browsing, social media browsing, and emailing, while in the case of 3 to four users, 3 MBPS will be needed.
- For video chat on zoom, FaceTime, Skype, et cetera, 3 MBPS will be needed for 1 to 2 users while 6 MBPS will be needed for 3 to 4 users.
Now, depending on the needs of your household, you should have a fair idea of whether the bandwidth that you current have is enough or not. If you are planning to change your internet service provider due to low browsing speed, obviously, your bandwidth is not enough.
If you are a part of a large household that has multiple users who are constantly using the Internet for schoolwork, shopping, streaming media, video conferencing, et cetera, even opting for the 20 MBPS internet connection may not be able to fulfill all your needs. You may need more speed in the above-mentioned circumstance.
CenturyLink Internet packages
Let’s understand the different CenturyLink Internet packages:
- Simply unlimited 20. This plan offers 20 MBPS download speed, and 2 MBPS upload speed
- Simply unlimited 40. This plan offers 40 MBPS download speed, and 5 MBPS upload speed
- Simply unlimited 60. This plan offers 60 MBPS download speed, and 7 MBPS upload speed
- Simply unlimited 80. This plan offers 80 MBPS download speed, and 10 MBPS upload speed
- Simply unlimited 100. This plan offers 100 MBPS download speed with 12 MBPS upload speed.
- Simply unlimited 120. This plan offers 120 MBPS download speed with 30 MBPS upload speed.
- Simply unlimited 140. This plan offers 140 MBPS download speed with 40 MBPS upload speed.
- Fibre Internet 200. This plan offers 200 MBPS download speed, and 200 MBPS upload speed.
- Fiber Gigabit. This plan offers 940 MBPS download speed with 940 MBPS upload speed.
The monthly cost of all the above-mentioned plans is $50 except for fiber Gigabit, which is $65. Whichever plan you choose for your household, you have the option of leasing the modem of CenturyLink for a fee of $15 per month period. Alternatively, you can also buy the modem for $200. Over time, buying the modem is a better option from the prospect of saving money.
One of the best features of CenturyLink is that there is no data cap on any of the above-mentioned plans. It does not matter how much you use the Internet; you will not have to worry about the speed slowing down. Thus, take your time and note down all the activities that use the Internet in your household. This will help you calculate how much Internet you will need and which plan is the best for you.
