You share your home and table with those who matter the most when hosting for the holidays. You also share your internet!
Whether they’re part of the 196.7 million Americans shopping on Cyber Monday or are connecting new devices they received as gifts, your family is bound to use your internet over the holidays. Keep reading to see a breakdown of how much bandwidth you need for each guest, what usage affects your network’s bandwidth most, and how to boost your internet speed ahead of hosting for the holidays.
How much internet do I need?
Internet connection is just as much a part of hosting for the holidays as the gifts under the tree. After all, hosting for the holidays today involves things like streaming movies in between meals, working remotely from a relative’s house, and checking local grocery stores to see where you can find a last-minute ingredient for your big meal. That’s why it’s vital that your home network is ready for the extra strain your guests will put on it.
In general, you should have 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for each person in your household. There are other factors you need to be aware of to prepare your network for hosting for the holidays.
Your internet speed
To start, you need to know how fast your internet is right now. Although you may know what speed your internet provider sells you, it’s important that you check to make sure that the speed you’re receiving is the same as what you’re paying for.
Our internet speed test will show you what speed you’re actually receiving on the device you’re reading this on.
How much bandwidth you use
Once you know your internet speed, you need to know how much bandwidth each person you’re hosting will use. Each person’s usage will vary, but there are some basic numbers that can give you a good idea of what to expect for internet usage over the holidays.
Check out these numbers from the Federal Communications Broadband Speed Guide to see how much common usage require:
- General browsing and email use require a minimum download speed of 1 Mbps.
- Social media use also requires a minimum download speed of 1 Mbps.
- Online multiplayer gaming requires 4 Mbps.
- Remote work that includes video calls could require anywhere from 5-25 Mbps.
- Streaming high-definition video requires 5-8 Mbps.
- Streaming 4k video requires at least 25 Mbps.
How many people you’ll be hosting
You may see those numbers and think you have plenty of bandwidth. You may be forgetting that each person you host could use multiple devices at once though. For example, one guest might work remotely on their computer while streaming music from their phone. Multiply that usage by two or three people and you can see how your bandwidth could easily be pulled in too many directions.
How many smart devices you own
You also can’t forget about internet connected devices, otherwise known as smart devices. If you don’t know what the advantages of a smart home are yet, then now is the time to learn. Smart homes filled with smart devices can do everything from save on energy bills to let you check on your pets while you’re away from home. However, these devices use your internet, even if you’re not actively using them, so they can pull from your bandwidth without you even realizing it.
Barriers to connectivity in your home
Lastly, natural barriers in your home could prevent your guests from connecting to your internet. For example, if your router is in your basement then the distance between device and router as well as barriers like walls and floors could disrupt your internet on the top floor of your home.
The layout of your home may make slow or spotty connections inevitable in some rooms. However, solutions like 360 WiFiTM from Quantum Fiber can easily boost your home coverage.
360 WiFi is a mesh network, which means that instead of your devices getting their internet connection from one router, they automatically connect to WiFi pods placed throughout your home. Although each pod is on the same network, they act as their own mini routers so that wherever they are you can easily connect to the internet.
It’s as if instead of trying to listen to music from one speaker somewhere in your home, you get to listen from speakers placed in each room.
If a mesh network like WiFi 360 isn’t an option for your home, then you can also try to select a preferred device for your network. When you choose a preferred or priority device, your network reserves bandwidth for that device.
For example, if you know that your entire family will be watching a movie then you wouldn’t want any buffering from your streaming device. You would then open your network preferences and choose your streaming device as your preferred device so it gets the bandwidth it needs to perform well.
How to boost internet speed with multi-gig internet from Quantum Fiber
Of course, the best way to ensure that you have enough internet before hosting for the holidays is to gift yourself ultra-fast fiber internet.
Fiber internet uses special glass cables to transmit data at nearly the speed of light. While that may sound like science fiction, Quantum Fiber internet speeds are real and ready to take your internet into the future.
Quantum Fiber internet is your gateway to speeds of up to 940 Mbps and even top multi-gig speeds of up to 1, 3, and 8 gigabits per second (Gbps.) To give you an idea of just how fast multi-gig internet is, 940 Mbps alone allows you to stream in 4k on 10+ devices. 1 Gbps alone is equal to 1000 Mbps, and Quantum Fiber offers unlimited data so you and your guests can use each and every ounce of that data without limits.
Of course, speed on its own won’t fix natural barriers to connectivity like we mentioned before, but that’s why Quantum Fiber internet plans include seamless 360 WiFi coverage!
Check Quantum Fiber availability for your home today so you have all the bandwidth you need before hosting for the holidays!
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