# What essential services for the home require  high speed broadband?



## Brendan Burgess (30 Jul 2018)

I asked this 4 years ago and probably didn't articulate it very well as I didn't get an answer. Anyway, 4 years later, the answer has probably changed. 

What essential services for the home need high speed broadband?

Would satellite broadband or whatever I get on the phone work for most essential applications in the home e.g. sending and receiving email,  doing my online banking, filling out my tax returns?

They might be a bit slower, but wouldn't they work fine?

Brendan


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## RedOnion (30 Jul 2018)

I've been using mobile broadband for the past few months. It's a dedicated router rather than tethering from phone, so connection is a lot better.

I need a stable connection for working from home - if I lose connection I have to reconnect VPN. Haven't had any issues on that front so far.

Use Skype, and Netflix without issues. I don't have lots of devices using it at the same time, but it's worked fine for the load we've put on it. You'd possibly notice some issues watching Netflix in high definition.

With satellite there are some slight delays that you might notice using video / voice calls, but you would definitely notice if you were a computer gamer.

Some interesting posts on the following thread: https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/phone-hotspot.205846/


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## odyssey06 (30 Jul 2018)

I suppose the question is, does the ability to work remotely from home count as an 'essential service'?


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Jul 2018)

RedOnion said:


> Some interesting posts on the following thread: https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/phone-hotspot.205846/



That is a very interesting thread indeed.

They all seem to be managing fine without broadband of any sort? 

Brendan


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## arbitron (30 Jul 2018)

For the vast majority of people, no essential services require broadband.

Email and banking are important, but they can be accessed on a smartphone, by telephone or in person.

For people working from home, the majority only required 10Mbps or less, which is relatively slow and in fact doesn't even meet the definition of broadband (25Mbps).  My parents live down the country and do fine with 4Mbps.  Realistically broadband speeds now are expected to be in the range of 100-300 Mbps.

Many family homes now have lights (Hue), TVs, voice assistants (Alexa, Google Home), house alarms, security cameras, and many other internet-of-things connections.  These would require a reliable service of around 100Mbps.

High-speed broadband is 1Gbps, which is way beyond the requirements of most people.  Some of us do require this if we have a business or hobby that involved streaming/uploading large amounts of videos/images, e.g. a graphic designer.  Also people who do a lot of online gaming or who stream 4K video (requires around 25Mbps).


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## Leo (30 Jul 2018)

arbitron said:


> Many family homes now have lights (Hue), TVs, voice assistants (Alexa, Google Home), house alarms, security camers, and many other internet-of-things connections. These would require a reliable service of around 100Mbps



Most of those services have pretty lightweight requirements in terms of up/download speeds. Even the HD CCTV streaming options will work with an upload as low as 1Mbps, the maximum possible usage for the various Nest camera systems range from 1.2 to 4Mbps.

You'll get into the need for bigger numbers in situations where you have multiple people streaming content. For example Netflix recommends 5Mbps for a HD stream, 25Mbps for UHD.


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## arbitron (30 Jul 2018)

Leo said:


> Most of those services have pretty lightweight requirements...



They are individually lightweight but many homes now have multiples of each item and would struggle below 100Mbps.


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## RETIRED2017 (30 Jul 2018)

I suspect i know where this is heading If you are working from home or running a business do you require high speed broadband in your area,


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## Leo (30 Jul 2018)

arbitron said:


> They are individually lightweight but many homes now have multiples of each item and would struggle below 100Mbps.



Some of the home automation options only rely on occasional internet access for updates or receiving remote commands, using RF or WiFi for internal system commands. They'll happily work away without external internet access, albeit without the remote command features.

If you look at the packet sizes for Hue messaging, or from other home automation like Nest, LightwaveRF, etc., they're tiny! Even running multiples of those systems would require less than 100Kbps up and down. Hue and LightwaveRF for example publish their API, so you can see the message sizes involved. Use WireShark or equivalent on your network so take a look at the traffic volumes involved. 

Same goes for the home assistants, when recording and transmitting voice commands, they need about 300Kbps upload. Audio streaming on Alexa only needs 512Kbps. 

Only two providers that I'm aware of here only offer anything beyond 'up to' 100Meg.


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## dub_nerd (30 Jul 2018)

There's no one-size-fits-all. But definitely most bandwidth usage requirements are tiny compared to what's generally available. Almost the sole exception is video. Even then, the particular type of video is important. Things like Skype can accommodate themselves to the available bandwidth up to a point. If you don't use video and you don't have specialist requirements then you don't need high capacity broadband. For most of my usage, a couple of hundred kbps would suffice. But then I do high quality video from time to time. And occasionally for projects I need to do downloads running to hundreds of gigabytes. But even there, I've started to hire Amazon EC2 resources to do all that remotely, and only require a few bytes of terminal usage. Basically, it all depends.


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## arbitron (30 Jul 2018)

Leo said:


> Some of the home automation options only rely on occasional internet access for updates or receiving remote commands, using RF or WiFi for internal system commands. They'll happily work away without external internet access, albeit without the remote command features.
> 
> If you look at the packet sizes for Hue messaging, or from other home automation like Nest, LightwaveRF, etc., they're tiny! Even running multiples of those systems would require less than 100Kbps up and down. Hue and LightwaveRF for example publish their API, so you can see the message sizes involved. Use WireShark or equivalent on your network so take a look at the traffic volumes involved.
> 
> ...



It is clear that having even dozens of Hue lights in your home will use only a small amount of your bandwidth, but if you have ever lived in a busy household you will know that it is not so simple.

We recently had 3 adult family members staying with us for a period, which meant at times there were 2 TVs streaming 4K Netflix (which alone requires 25Mbps per connexion), 5 smartphones on the go, 4 Nest cams activating as people walk in/out/around the house, 2 Echos + 3 Google Homes streaming Spotify and responding to commands, many of the 27 Hue lights going on and off (sensors/scenes/voice controls), occasionally a Playstation streaming to a 3rd TV, as well as Skype/FaceTime conversations...

All of those things would sometimes be running at once and you would not have had much change out of 80Mbps.  If there was any lag we would all have been annoyed.  The expectation now is that things will run speedily and on cue.  Our household could not manage below 100 megs.  As I said above, it's not required for the majority by any means, but for larger households with a lot of tech it's getting there.


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## llgon (30 Jul 2018)

arbitron said:


> if you have ever lived in a busy household



In fairness, it doesn't sound like anyone in your house is busy.




arbitron said:


> Our household could not manage below 100 megs.



God forbid


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## arbitron (30 Jul 2018)

llgon said:


> In fairness, it doesn't sound like anyone in your house is busy.
> 
> God forbid



Ligon, posts like yours that are inexplicably snarky discourage people from sharing info.

Leo made totally legitimate and reasonable points.  I was explaining how in some cases it can be quite different, like our house recently.

I was just trying to help answer Brendan's question. Please don't be negative.


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## llgon (31 Jul 2018)

Sorry Arbitron, you're probably right but I couldn't resist. Your post does give an interesting perspective on the use of technology in some homes. However, I hope you can see that there is some irony in it and it doesn't really answer Brendan's question except maybe in a way you didn't intend it to.


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

Some types of remote working might require a better connection. Security video cameras maybe?

Many websites are painful to use on a slow connection because there's a lot of bloat on the web these days in general.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Jul 2018)

llgon said:


> God forbid



Hi arbiton

To be fair to ligon,  I saw that last night and posted the same response, but, on reflection, I deleted it.

I think you, and the others, have answered my question.

There are no essential services for which a home user requires high speed broadband. 

If it were switched off in your house, you would not lose access to anything essential. You would not be marginalised.  You might not be able to watch Netflix. I don't understand most of the other stuff you were doing, but it does not sound essential to me.  I am not denying that it must have been very nice to have, but it was not essential.

Brendan


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

Some people have replaced their TV and land line services with an internet service.


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## RETIRED2017 (31 Jul 2018)

AlbacoreA said:


> Some people have replaced their TV and land line services with an internet service.


I think we can see where this is heading ,I suspect we will be reading it in the papers in the next few weeks,


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Jul 2018)

AlbacoreA said:


> Some people have replaced their TV and land line services with an internet service.



And that is nice. But it's not essential. If they lose their Hi Speed broadband they can go back to their TV and land line.


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## RETIRED2017 (31 Jul 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> And that is nice. But it's not essential. If they lose their Hi Speed broadband they can go back to their TV and land line.


I think you will find land lines are being neglected at present so there may be no landline service worth going back to,


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

RETIRED2017 said:


> I think we can see where this is heading ,I suspect we will be reading it in the papers in the next few weeks,



Really? I'm lost. Maybe you refer to the national broad band plan. Or lack thereof.

People are moving from TV and land lines to save cost and convenience. It maybe this discussion is about people moving to a location with poor broadband.


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## Páid (31 Jul 2018)

Brendan, what services do you class as essential? Water, electricity, heating (gas,oil, etc)?


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## seamless (31 Jul 2018)

I am increasingly using cloud services for activities like software development, testing etc.. and I find high speed broadband essential for this. 

More and more services are being offered as cloud hosted and an implicit assumption is HS broadband to make them usable.


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## Leo (31 Jul 2018)

arbitron said:


> We recently had 3 adult family members staying with us for a period, which meant at times there were 2 TVs streaming 4K Netflix (which alone requires 25Mbps per connexion), 5 smartphones on the go, 4 Nest cams activating as people walk in/out/around the house, 2 Echos + 3 Google Homes streaming Spotify and responding to commands, many of the 27 Hue lights going on and off (sensors/scenes/voice controls), occasionally a Playstation streaming to a 3rd TV, as well as Skype/FaceTime conversations...



I think we can all agree that household is far from the norm. 2+ people watching different 4k TV streams (50Mbps down, minimal up), another 5 people simultaneously listening to various audio streams on Google Home / Alexa (2.5-3Mbps down, 0-1.5Mbps up), and occasionally another on the PlayStation, plus more people then using FaceTime or Skype (both around 1Mbps) all at the same time...

You can almost forget the Nest cameras, as that bandwidth is predominantly upload, unless you have more people there watching live streams from the cloud service. You can completely ignore the Hue lights, the usage you describe above does not consume any bandwidth.

The only real bandwidth drain in your house is streaming two 4k streams at once. I don't think too many people would conclude that two, or even a single 4k stream is an essential service. If the 8+ people in your house could make do with regular old HD streaming, your demand wouldn't exceed 50Mbps.




arbitron said:


> If there was any lag we would all have been annoyed. The expectation now is that things will run speedily and on cue.



Lag is generally related to limitations or demand on the intermediary hops the data makes from source to your house. But I understand with that many people in a house, all trying to do their own thing, things could get tetchy


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## Leo (31 Jul 2018)

seamless said:


> I am increasingly using cloud services for activities like software development, testing etc.. and I find high speed broadband essential for this.
> 
> More and more services are being offered as cloud hosted and an implicit assumption is HS broadband to make them usable.



Depending on the service and your overall usage, moving to cloud can significantly lower the local bandwidth requirements. One of the main benefits of using cloud services is that it eliminates the need for full local copies of all data.

It sounds like you might be working on smaller scale stuff and actually building locally. As a model that's on the way out in the corporate world as a result of data loss concerns.

We now use centralised HVDs for all user desktops, all build and integration infrastructure is also localised. For remote users VPNing in, even when using HD video calling the local bandwidth requirements are in the low single digits.


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## arbitron (31 Jul 2018)

No need for people to keep telling me that high speed internet isn't essential. In my first post I said most people don't need broadband. Even midband is excessive for many.



arbitron said:


> For the vast majority of people, no essential services require broadband.
> 
> Email and banking are important, but they can be accessed on a smartphone, by telephone or in person.
> 
> For people working from home, the majority only required 10Mbps or less, which is relatively slow and in fact doesn't even meet the definition of broadband (25Mbps). My parents live down the country and do fine with 4Mbps.



Leo, you seem determined to argue that my house didn't need 100Mbps. 95% of the time we didn't but at peak usage we certainly used close to that. Not for essential services because, as I said at the beginning, virtually no one needs internet for anything essential.

Our usage at that time was unusual even for us, we're back to a 2 person household now, but consider family homes with kids streaming and gaming. 4K TVs are becoming common, some live TV broadcasts starting in 4K now. I think the FCC definition of broadband is now or is proposed to be 100 megs.


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## dub_nerd (31 Jul 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> And that is nice. But it's not essential. If they lose their Hi Speed broadband they can go back to their TV and land line.


That depends on your definition of _essential_. I haven't had a regular phone line for years. I also have gotten used to making video calls.  I can't go back to a regular phone line for that. And if you say that video calling isn't essential, well neither is audio calling. There's always the postal service. And failing that you can do everything in person.


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

Leo said:


> ...
> It sounds like you might be working on smaller scale stuff and actually building locally. As a model that's on the way out in the corporate world as a result of data loss concerns.
> 
> .....



Cloud is not suitable for everything. Though it is for a lot of tasks. A lot of our environments are virtualized, so we can VPN into them if needs be.

I'd hate to be trying to do my work on mediocre broadband.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Jul 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> And if you say that video calling isn't essential, well neither is audio calling. There's always the postal service. And failing that you can do everything in person.



That does not hold at all. 

Being able to make telephone calls is essential.   Video calls certainly are not, whether you have got used to them or not.  Don't get me wrong, I am sure that they are nice, but they are not essential. 

We have a universal postal service - I would consider that essential.
We have a universal telephone service - I would consider that essential. 

The ability to make video calls is not essential.  I don't think that anyone at all could argue that. 

Brendan


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## Leo (31 Jul 2018)

arbitron said:


> Leo, you seem determined to argue that my house didn't need 100Mbps. 95% of the time we didn't but at peak usage we certainly used close to that. Not for essential services because, as I said at the beginning, virtually no one needs internet for anything essential.



I'm not having a go, but the subject of this thread relates to the argument put forward by some that high speed broadband is almost essential to modern life, and using that argument to justify significant public funding. You did state as much in your earlier posts, so those arguing the above point clearly have a different impression, or perhaps don't have sufficient knowledge on the subject. 

I picked on your contribution just to tally the numbers and demonstrate what the overall requirements would actually be in a very high-demand household. I'm sure there are many reading this that don't know the bandwidth requirements of these devices, so it made a good example.

I was just trying to point out that unless a household considers watching multiple 4k TV streams simultaneously as essential, they only need a fraction of 100Mbps.


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

Unless it's essential for work. 

For people working away from home they might feel it's essential to them.

Though I've seen some people doing video calls on the bus with a tablet. You can do it on your mobile broadband also.


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

Leo said:


> I'm not having a go, but the subject of this thread relates to the argument put forward by some that high speed broadband is almost essential to modern life, ...




Modern life means different things to different people....


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## Leo (31 Jul 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> The ability to make video calls is not essential. I don't think that anyone at all could argue that.



Even if it were essential, it doesn't require high speed broadband. Skype for Business for example will work on a minimum of 500Kbps up & down.


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## AlbacoreA (31 Jul 2018)

A lot of people may pay for a much higher capacity service than their equipment can use


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## Leo (31 Jul 2018)

AlbacoreA said:


> Cloud is not suitable for everything. Though it is for a lot of tasks. A lot of our environments are virtualized, so we can VPN into them if needs be.
> 
> I'd hate to be trying to do my work on mediocre broadband.



Absolutely, anyone who needs to upload/download vast quantities of data on a regular basis will suffer delays when doing so without a high-speed connection. 

But if your environments are virtualiased, there should be limited need for such bandwidth. My parents live in a rural location with broadband of ~6Mbps, my VPN connection works perfectly over that.


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## arbitron (31 Jul 2018)

You're right Leo, we generally don't need as much as we buy. 100 megs is excessive for most of us. It's a marketing trick in many ways. It would be interesting to hear what most people feel is essential though. I'd happily do away with my landline but my parents consider it a basic necessity.


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