Who Needs Gigabit Internet? I Do, And You Might Too

Key Takeaways

• Gigabit internet is essential for work from home to save time and money.
• Bandwidth divides quickly among multiple users and devices in a household.
• Smart home devices, cloud services, and backups demand fast upload speeds for all users.

I’ve been using a symmetrical 1Gbps internet connection for almost three years now, and while at first it may seem to be more internet than anyone needs at this point in history, I’ve quickly grown to depend on the fat internet pipe connected to my home. Here’s why I can’t go back from the Gigabit life.

I Work From Home

I’ve been working from home since the start of the pandemic, and when my former employer decided to renege on my permanent work-from-home agreement, I decided it was the perfect time to become a full-time freelancer. Whether that was the right decision remains to be seen, but my job entails spending the whole day on the internet, uploading and downloading massive files, and working with colleagues via video chat. Every minute I have to wait for the internet to do something is money down the drain, so Gigabit fiber is a business expense that just makes sense.

Multiple People Share the Connection

Like most people my age, I don’t live alone. While a Gigabit of bandwidth sounds like too much for one person, when you start to divide that number by three, or four, or more people, it suddenly doesn’t feel like that much. I use a mesh network to serve at least 200Mbps to every room in the house and with enough people making use of my internet, it’s really not that extravagant.

Every TV Is 4K

We have multiple TVs that might be watched at the same time by different people. All of these TVs are 4K models, and to get the most out of them we need fast internet. While the exact bandwidth requirements vary by service, you can easily lock up a few hundred Mbps with multiple 4K streams.

There Are Multiple Consoles and PCs

It’s not just about the number of people, but the number of devices that eat up bandwidth even when you aren’t using them. My wife and I each have our own laptops, phones, consoles, and other internet-connected devices. That’s before guests and friends who come over are added to the equation. With so many devices that want a slice of the pie, the data can dry up quickly.

Video Games and Movies Are Enormous Now

PC and console games now routinely clock in at around 100GB in size, and I certainly don’t have the SSD space to just keep them installed forever. So we frequently delete and download games as we finish them and want to play something new. Likewise, when we stream movies, or download movies for offline viewing, they can eat up hundreds of gigs. Just look at my data usage at the end of May 2024.

We uploaded well over 100GB of data, and downloaded more than four terabytes of data! Downloading that much data on a 100Mbps connection is no fun, believe me.

Gigabit Uploads Are Game-Changing

Speaking of uploads, even though the total amount of data we typically upload in a month isn’t that much, relatively speaking, uploads are usually time-sensitive. Clients have deadlines, and having fast upstream internet means that we can work on projects for longer before submitting them. It’s just another way that time is money.

Even if you’re just a private user of your home internet connection, and you don’t use it for work, upload speeds are becoming more important for everyone. We all use cloud services now, and when we create that data it has to go up the pipe, not down it. With the rise of the smart home, local artificial intelligence, and even more applications we can’t yet imagine, having fast upload speeds will become critical.

Backups Eat a Ton of Bandwidth

There’s a good chance that every personal computing device you use has some sort of automated, cloud-based backup cycle. Whenever it gets the chance, your device will upload your photos, videos, documents, and other personal data to a cloud-based storage solution. Then, if you ever accidentally delete something, or your device is lost or stolen, your data is safe.

Device storage is getting larger, the photos and videos we take are becoming larger, and you probably have a significant amount of personal data backed up to the cloud you don’t even know about.

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If, like our EIC Jason Fitzpatrick, you don’t need Gigabit Ethernet yet, it’s likely only a matter of time before the inevitable creep in bandwidth requirements pushes your own household towards the Gigabit standard, just as 10Gbps home connections have started to peek over the horizon.