Americans are spending ever more for blazing internet speeds, on the promise that faster is better. But, The Wall Street Journal asks, is that really the case? For most people, the answer is no.
The Journal studied the internet use of 53 of its journalists across the country, in coordination with researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. What the researchers found is their subjects used only a fraction of their available bandwidth to watch streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, even simultaneously. Quality, clarity and launch speeds were not better.
Broadband providers such as Cox Communications, Comcast, Charter Communications and AT&T Inc. are marketing speeds in the range of 250, 500 or even 1,000 megabits a second, often promising that streaming-video bingers will benefit, writes The Journal. But for a typical household, the benefits of paying for more than 100 megabits a second are marginal at best, according to the researchers.
People who paid for even faster speeds still streamed video at about the same speeds as everyone else, researchers found, resulting in their using a smaller portion of available bandwidth.
There are some cases—such as downloading videogames or other very big files—when full capacity gets used briefly and there would be advantages to having a faster speed, said Guilherme Martins, a researcher on the study.
On top of this, broadband-industry experts said when consumers complain about service, the most cost-efficient action for call-center representatives is offering a faster package, even if that doesn’t solve the problem. Read the full story.
