As the title states.
Both myself and my parter are avid gamers.
All 4 kids are also gamers, but watch Netflix etc. too and with our current connection, all is fine.
Our main concern is that we both are remote workers and work from home, anything that throttled our internet connection would become unsustainable to us.
Some sites say that 70mbps is pushing it, but should be okay, others say it’s completely untangible
Any advice is greatly appreciated
Why are you downgrading? Call the company and see if they have any specials for like 2 years at a reduced cost for the 500Mbps
10 years ago I managed my family network: 17 devices, 25/5, some used streaming, some navigation, me low latency games. Had this old TP-link with dd-wrt, set QoS 95%/85%. NOT A SINGLE SLOWDOWN.
So yeah, you can do it.
A lot of people can’t even get 70mbps and they survive. Of course it’s doable, might not be ideal, but it’s doable.
it depends on usage patterns honestly. You didn’t mention any single activity that would really struggle on a 70/70 Internet connection. The issues would start when you run 3 Netflix streams and a zoom call while patching your game library. 4k Netflix is about 25 mbps on average.
With a family of six i think it’s basically guaranteed at least three people want to do something at the same time.
Use a router with Cake SQM (or other good QoS) and configure it correctly, on both upload and download. In my experience, managing multiple sites, this is a life saver.
My last router made it pretty easy to throttle the connections to specific IP addresses. I made it so the kids and TV received lower priority than my work computer, and all was well.
This really is the answer. I host a 20 person lan party on a 100/100 circuit and even got by with a 14/2 circuit the year before that. QoS is the key to prioritizing traffic and making this work.
I leverage OpnSense but probably more consumer friendly options available.
OP this is the key. 70 Mb is probably ok. That’s what we have (4 people, 5 when my MIL’s here), and it’s typically plenty. Very rarely do we saturate bandwidth beyond bursting let alone have multiple people simultaneously trying to saturate bandwidth. However, all it takes is one beefy download or upload, and everyone else is screwed. Keeping everyone happy during those times, especially the gamers, requires not just QoS but QoS that can help with both bandwidth and bufferbloat. It’s possible to achieve with highly configurable QoS, but Cake is easy and effective.
Upload speeds are a very relevant part of this. My connection is 150mbps down but only 20 up and it’s great for downloading but I can barely manage a single 1080p/60 stream for remote access/gaming when I’m away from home.
Given you’re dependent on internet access for remote work, I’d be investigating higher bandwidth options because it sounds like a recipe for frustration. Imagine having a child home sick and having to negotiate their Netflix time because it’s causing issues with important virtual meetings… it might be fine, but do you really want to find out at the most inconvenient time?
I would not want to do that. One game update and the whole connection is struggling. Xbox/PS5 downloading something in standby? Not fun.
One game update and the whole connection is struggling
What are you smoking. Ive run a 60mb connection for 10 years and been fine with multiple things downloading.
If I understood right, you’re downgrading your connection from 500 to 70Mbps, and the question is whether this will be enough for six people?
I’d say it depends on to what degree all six of you will be doing bandwith intensive things at the same time.
For example, Netflix recommends minimum 15Mpbs for a 4k stream, so if all six of you will be doing that on separate screens at the same time, you’ll be about 20Mpbs short. But if everyone is on 1080 screens you’ll be fine as the requirement is 5Mpbs per stream.
Remote work doesn’t necessarily require a lot of bandwidth, although it depends on what you actually do for work. MS Teams for example only requires about 2Mpbs for group video calls.
Most gaming also doesn’t require a lot of bandwidth, but of course downloading games and their updates does.
Will it work? Yes I think so, though you may encounter times when it gets laggy.
No downloading during business hours 😁
Maybe set up a small server on the network that can act as a cache, like steam cache for example.
Caching proxy server.
Yeah and turn off cloud connected home video cameras. Video upload is horrible at that connection speed with 6 users.
Don’t forget if work has a VPN the speeds will be slowed even further! My wife and I both have VPN for WFH… we have Xfinity 1200D/40U and she is constantly complaining her video calls are dropping. We test speeds when she is not on VPN and (wirelessly) she gets around 300D/20U but then we connect to her works VPN and it suddenly goes to about 80D/7U. When I wirelessly am on VPN I get 130D/20U.
if everyone is at home and using their devices, you will notice issues. if the work and the gaming/netflix are done at different times it can be done with little issues.
I wouldn’t skimp… imagine a world were your boss, partner and your kids are screaming at you because thats were this is headed.
What’s the upload speed? Your video calls depend a lot on upload speed. ad well as latency.
Also anything that has a file sync component may be of concern, my line of work requires hundreds of pushes a day that needs to happen nearly instantaneously as others’ workflow depends on my response time.
QoS and traffic shaping is the best way to manage this kind of situation.
Make sure that real-time (latency sensitive) traffic has priority, or even just do something as basic as throttling certain ports/devices on the network.
Just keep in mind that you’ve mentioned the download speeds, but upload is something to consider as well.
Worst case scenario, keep mobile data on your smartphone as a backup.
Just be wary, just because they advertise 70mb they aren’t necessary going to reach that unless they advertise their minimum guaranteed speeds at that.
I lived in a rural area for a couple years that advertised 76Mb but very rarely got above 40 on a wired connection.
We did 3 people on netflix and me working from home on a 20 mbit line. You should be fine, besides large downloads taking longer i doubt you will notice anything.
Some Netflix titles exceed 20 mbps, did you not mind lower video quality?
That’s going to be pretty constraining. I don’t think you necessarily need 500 most of the time, but 70 is just to little for 6 people at once.
Most of the time, you’ll probably be fine, but there will definitely be times where your network gets so congested that your video streams and gaming performance will suffer.
This is even worse if you’re moving to something like a wireless connection, where packet loss is going to be worse, or a satellite connection, where latency will be higher.
70Mbps fiber is prob fine.
The problem is going to be something like video calls or VPN if anyone starts a large file download, like a game install or something if they don’t throttle it. It will eat up most of that and cause issues with anything that is sensitive to download speed/latency. It will still prob work, but you will notice quality drops. Video streaming is likely fine, 10-15Mbps per person is doing ok for that typically.
70Mbps on a non-fiber line, it will suck badly. The upload is likely pretty low, and using most of your upload will crash the download speeds and kill VPN connections and video calls. Not to mention 70Mbps on non-fiber is advertised ‘max’ speed, actual ‘guaranteed’ speeds could be half or lower and when I worked for an ISP there was zero guarantee’s on latency or occasional packet loss which will murder VOIP, voice calls, and VPN connections.