Does the average household need more than 100/20 broadband?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Does the average household need more than 100/20 broadband?

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#3430901 4-Nov-2025 16:35

It's pretty easy to use up 100Mbps of bandwidth, even in a small household. Whether you need more is relative to your digital footprint and how many things you have active at any point in time, and your tolerance for delays when those peaks happen. A few concurrent video streams adds up...

gehenna

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#3430957 4-Nov-2025 17:24

cddt:

tripper1000:

2) If you are like many "average" households and use WiFi exclusively (eg, don't have Ethernet connected devices), and your router is sub optimally located (e.g. are you using wireless range extenders?), then WiFi is probably the weakest link and you could be wasting money by paying for more fibre than your WiFi can deliver.

This probably applies to at least 95% of households...

That's true for 1 person's connection to wifi. 5 people connected to the same wifi all streaming at the same time may well cumulatively add up to throughput that approaches the line's bandwidth.

Aucklandjafa

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#3430967 4-Nov-2025 18:15

100/20 is more than sufficient. Unless you’re regularly downloading and/or uploading large files (and you need to in a timely matter) - you’ll have no issue with it.

nova

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#3431107 5-Nov-2025 07:22

SpartanVXL:

Also if anybody starts downloading at full speed it will affect everyone else for however long it takes to finish(which will be longer on 100/20). Look at QoS or queue/buffer features on your router to avoid this.

QoS makes a big difference. The problem is that even though your connection may be plenty fast enough to support your average bandwidth requirements, services download in chunks. So for example Netflix will download the next chunk in the stream every 20 seconds, and that might only take 500ms, but it will max out your connection for that 500ms. And that might cause your video call to lag during that time. So even though Netflix might only need 2.5% of your bandwidth, the way it uses it can still impact you, unless you have decent QoS in your router.

cddt

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#3431113 5-Nov-2025 07:38

gehenna:

That's true for 1 person's connection to wifi. 5 people connected to the same wifi all streaming at the same time may well cumulatively add up to throughput that approaches the line's bandwidth.

I think five people streaming on the average wifi setup is going to cause airtime contention issues before it approaches the fibre line's bandwidth.

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johno1234

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#3431130 5-Nov-2025 09:13

gehenna:

It would be a sad and lonely 5 person household if all five are sitting on a video stream at once!

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DECA

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#3431552 6-Nov-2025 12:56

Kia ora - Marie here from the Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa. Just jumping in here as this is a hot topic at the moment. I don't know if you saw this recent article, but it's lead to a lot of whānau to ask us this exact question. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/577563/have-you-been-speedwashed-on-your-broadband-plan

We’re putting together a household scenario guide to help people figure out what internet speed they actually need and what those numbers really mean. This thread along with some community feedback has been really helpful in shaping the work. As mentioned previously, sometimes the telco wording around this can be a bit opaque.

I’d love to hear more about your household experiences and those expert tips and tricks for getting the most out of your connection. Nothing will be directly quoted beyond this forum. I’m just listening with interest!

Feel free to email if you would prefer support@digitalequity.nz

richms

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#3431555 6-Nov-2025 13:01

johno1234:

It would be a sad and lonely 5 person household if all five are sitting on a video stream at once!

Have you seen how kids operate? If there was 5 people there would be way more than 5 streams going. Usually watching someone on twitch, playing youtube and playing a game all at the same time as on discord on their phone or tablet and downloading the next game they will be playing with their friends.

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#3431560 6-Nov-2025 13:06

cddt:

gehenna:

That's true for 1 person's connection to wifi. 5 people connected to the same wifi all streaming at the same time may well cumulatively add up to throughput that approaches the line's bandwidth.

I think five people streaming on the average wifi setup is going to cause airtime contention issues before it approaches the fibre line's bandwidth.

Especially when they're using an ancient router and 2.4GHz wifi...

johno1234

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#3431646 6-Nov-2025 14:22

richms:

johno1234:

It would be a sad and lonely 5 person household if all five are sitting on a video stream at once!

Have you seen how kids operate? If there was 5 people there would be way more than 5 streams going. Usually watching someone on twitch, playing youtube and playing a game all at the same time as on discord on their phone or tablet and downloading the next game they will be playing with their friends.

Sounds like a lonely house then. Nobody really talking to anyone.

mrgsm021

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#3431683 6-Nov-2025 16:27

johno1234:

Sounds like a lonely house then. Nobody really talking to anyone.

As lonely as that may sound, it is what they do and how they behave in this day and age unfortunately🤷‍♂️.

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SpartanVXL

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#3431693 6-Nov-2025 16:53

DECA:

Kia ora - Marie here from the Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa. Just jumping in here as this is a hot topic at the moment. I don't know if you saw this recent article, but it's lead to a lot of whānau to ask us this exact question. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/577563/have-you-been-speedwashed-on-your-broadband-plan

We’re putting together a household scenario guide to help people figure out what internet speed they actually need and what those numbers really mean. This thread along with some community feedback has been really helpful in shaping the work. As mentioned previously, sometimes the telco wording around this can be a bit opaque.

I’d love to hear more about your household experiences and those expert tips and tricks for getting the most out of your connection. Nothing will be directly quoted beyond this forum. I’m just listening with interest!

Feel free to email if you would prefer support@digitalequity.nz

The speed advertised is just a small part of the equation. It unfortunately gets very complicated if you want to try explain how ‘good’ a service providers connection actually is, especially if the service you connect to is outside of nz/aus.

There are simple calculators online like https://www.broadbandcompare.co.nz/n/broadband-speed-calculator

Note that in terms of value/convenience the faster plans are worth it for time savings. A 100/20 plan vs 500/100 plan is a 5x difference in bandwidth for usually 1.5x cost. A 20min download would take 1hr40min on the slower plan while also affecting everything else using the connection for that time (without QoS/buffers).

If you don’t mind waiting then drop to a lower plan.

KrazyKid

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#3431706 6-Nov-2025 17:44

I think it's really going to come down to how many people in your household, the home IT equipment and how they use the Internet.

If I look at how much I download that is not streaming it's not a lot. IThe occasional game download will take longer, but is that going to be everyday and will I even get 5x the speed by having 100 vs 500 down?

The number of concurrent streams will be a factor so we will use how that goes.

I suspect is the users on this site generally will be happy to pay more for a faster speeds since they are spending money on a hobby/ area of interest. Most people won't care as long as the streaming and gaming just works most of the time... The slightly longer time for downloads every so often won't be an issue.

As others have said having a 5-10 year old computer and/or older wifi router that came free from the ISP will also be a factor in network speeds. Your home setup may limit your speeds you get anyway so you maynot be making full use of the 500 speeds anyway.

$400 a year in savings is not nothing, even on a good good wage

I am fortunate that my provider will let me change up and down at will do this is an easy test for me.

In my case I've applied to switch down, but it has not kicked in yet. I'll report back once it does. Who knows I may only last a week, out. But it's with trying at least for $400.

SpartanVXL

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#3431782 6-Nov-2025 20:47

KrazyKid:
…Most people won't care as long as the streaming and gaming just works most of the time... The slightly longer time for downloads every so often won't be an issue…

…As others have said having a 5-10 year old computer and/or older wifi router that came free from the ISP will also be a factor in network speeds…

The RNZ article touches a bit on the upselling that is being pushed to people that may not need it but are unaware of what they really need. It is very hard to accurately answer someone about what is causing any issues they might have with internet connectivity without diagnosis. The average person only really has the info that there are tiers of plans and if they are on the slow, less pricey plan, that might be the issue they are encountering as they would default to cost premium = better service (which is not usually the case).

Routers from well over 5 years ago were 1Gb/s capable. The infamous HG659 could do this well despite other issues.

For me personally the speed difference can affect whether I am able to play a new release game the evening it comes out or wait for the next day to have time to play. Especially with modern games pushing into 100GB territory.

snj

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#3431788 6-Nov-2025 21:20

I've got a uncle who barely uses 20GB/mo (iirc from the stats I saw when I logged into his account the other week) that was put on Spark's Unplan (now 500/whatever). Problem I was facing was trying to explain to him that he should be on the 100Mbps plan and save the $20-ish because he never will need that speed. His view is that "it works so why change it". Coincidentially that would also be Spark's view, they're clipping the ticket and it's not costing them much to support him.

When you've got those two attitudes happening, it just leaves people paying more than they need to, especially when they don't understand that they only need the basics and what they're on isn't the basics.

Of course, now he's just been moved to respite care away from home, so he's paying even more for a connection that isn't used at all (except by us when we're visiting the house).

I suspect part of the problem in my uncle's case is that I seem to recall that Spark didn't initially offer the lower speed (30 then 50 down) plans in Northpower areas (I seem to recall checking his address once upon a time and it not showing). Of course if my memory is correct, it's then compounded by the fact that as I've said, it's not exactly in the ISP's interest to identify customers that are barely using their connection and checking if people are on the right plan.

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