[ed’s note: i wrote this at the end of august, and at the end is an update]
This week I have upgraded my broadband at home, we now have a massive 150Mb/s connection from our provider.
We upgraded because it was cheaper than my previous 60Mb/s
And I thought I should put that number in context …
when I started work back in 1987 (yes we had computers and electricity back then) my office had 2 19.6kbit modems to connect into the local University, and from there connection to the internet. We used it for email, BBS and file sharing with our colleagues in America. So my connection is c. 10,000 times greater bandwidth, and much much lower latency too.
Now here’s the really interesting bit, as far as I recall, back in ”87 there were 2 transatlantic lines each hosting 300Mb/s in each direction, so that means my connection at home is 1/4 of the entire transatlantic capacity from c. 25 years ago. Amazing.
Now it’s not an unreasonable question to ask why we have such a huge firehose into the house, well we have a lot of connected devices, each wanting their fair share, that and my teenage daughters watch more TV on their devices than their TV.
We have the following devices that connect at least once a week (I’ll not list all the other older schtuff that gets rarely used)
1 Windows 7 work laptop, 1 windows 8 laptop, 1 macbook, 1 chromebook.
3 ipads, 2 ipods, 4 android phones, 2 apple phones, 1 kindle fire, 1 kindle touch
1 printer
2 TVs, 1 Tivo*, 1 VM box*, 1 Roku and 1 Chromecast, 1 BlueRay player, 1 Hifi/Internet Radio
1 Wii, 2 DSi
1 Wifi range extender
and I don’t think we are a particularly geeky family but that’s, what, 30 devices …
Ohhh one last thing, so, of course I disconnected the old broadband router, then needed to go on line to get my account number, so I hooked up my Samsung 4G device as a hot spot. And then I thought why not run a speed test see what I get.
Amazingly this gave me a sustained 28Mb/s download and 12 upload. It’s amazing because before 4G, I could only get GPRS in our house (still cannot get a 3G signal inside!) and so I have stepped up from 50kbit or so, to 28Mbit.
* uses the docsis cable I believe)
UPDATE
ok so what has it been like for the last month.
Well I had to replace my, admittedly, old wifi router. The wifi router that came in the VirginMedia box did not seem to be able to cope, many devices would get a connection, but could not hold it for more than a few minutes. And my old router, could not cope with the number of devices, and could not sustain the throughput. Had to be rebooted 2 or 3 times per day, just to refresh the DHCP tales.
New router is far smarter anyway and has apps that let me see what is on the network, even when away, likely there’ll be some hacker exposes a security flaw, but I have nothing of interest on the home kit, and my work kit is all enrypted.
The throughput on the 150Mb/s seems to sustain in the 10 to 20 range during the day, which is mostly a limitation of the wider internet. At non-peak times (eg when I am working past midnight) then I do get 150Mb/s download which is scarily fast. Credit to Virginmedia, the connection has been rock solid.
All Things Mobile 
Adam Fifoot
September 28, 2014
Really good article Steve, Scary numbers!
Makes you think about what the possibilities are with 5G being developed already! I’ve spoken to a few of the design engineers at Virgin over the past 6 months and the future is looking interesting
Can I ask what you replaced your Superhbub with? I have the same issues – trying to listen to iPlayer via iPad to Bose wireless soundink and it drops all the time and ruins the experience.
Have you seen BBfix? it is not what it sounds, it is a very smart piece of tech from some amaziing guys in Bath called Actual experience, check out what they are doing if this is an areas you are interested in.
Adam
sdevo
October 2, 2014
Hi Adam,
I have chosen a linksys smart wifi box because it can handle all the devices, it has apps that let me see the network state when away from home, which makes helping the kids print homework etc much easier to support.
If you do use a wifi router then either make sure your new router and the super hub use different bands on both 2G and 5G bands otherwise they will fight each other. If your not sure then put the super hub into “modem” mode which turns off wifi, and is the official advice from VM.
I use an android app called wifi analyser that shows all the wifi signals their bands and relative strength, so you can select the best bands to use to ensure you have the least cross talk. It is scary just how many wifi signals there are in the average suburban area.
Last advice is use the newer 5G bands if your devices support it as it is less commonly used, and has a far greater throughput as it’s bandwidth goes up to 300 Mb/s so again less contention on the radio signal.