Cord Cutters Need Better Internet ... We Have Charts!!!

Cord cutting is liberating, but you'll need kick ass internet for today's streaming. It's not just about internet speed either, data caps should also be a consideration when deciding whether or not to cut the cord.

Giveaway:

When looking at how your streaming habits might affect your internet you have to pay attention to how fast your connection is and how much of that data you're allowed to use every month. If you've cut the cord and are using any of the popular streaming services, you're dealing with huge amounts of data. Even if you're only streaming in standard definition, your internet connection had better be strong.

Now how strong? Well lets go with Netflix's suggested speeds as an example...
- For standard definition video, you'll need a connection of 1 megabyte per second
- For 1080p which is the upper end of what's considered HD, you'll need 8 megabytes per second
- For streaming 4K, you'll need a whopping 18 megabytes per second
*All the examples above are for a single stream.

Do you have multiple people streaming simultaneously in your home? Do you ever browse online on your phone while you're watching TV? Got a bunch of connected devices like smart thermostats, and light bulbs, maybe a security system? All of this adds up quick. And if you cut the cord and you wanna keep watching TV it can tax your internet connection.

So for cord cutting homes with more than one user, a 50 megabit per second plan is your minimum. But you can probably get away with half of that if you live alone. Now Netflix is just an example, but we can use it as a benchmark whether you are talking about Hulu, Sling TV or whatever.

If you want more info, you can check out how much speed you need:

But as we mentioned there are two numbers you've gotta worry about, speed and the dreaded data cap. This is a cap on how much data your internet provider will let you use on a monthly basis before they slow your connection speed to a trickle or charge you hefty overage fees. The good news is not every provider has them, and those that do will almost always provide a plan where you can buy your way out of a data cap. The major exception of this for now is satellite internet, hues nets data caps for example are 10-50 gigabytes, this is low true, but it's not like your gonna be streaming a lot of 4K video on a satellite connection anyway.

Now for the big DSL, cable and fiber providers, you can check this handy chart from our friends at highspeedinternet.com and see that most commonly if you do have a data cap it will be set at a terabyte:

So how much video is that? Well lets use Netflix again as our example here. You can stream a thousand hours of standard def video on one terabyte of data. 4K video drops you all the way down to a hundred and forty two hours which again, especially if you have multiple people in the home, will go faster than you think. In HD video in 720p or 1080p will allow for a bit more, but if you're streaming live TV and that 720 or 1080 range is where most of them they will sit, then you'll chew through a ton of data really quick.

BOTTOM LINE - If you want to cut the cord good, I applaud you. But we recommend at least a little bit of the money you're going to save should be going into getting fast connection, and possibly an unlimited data plan if you can.

streaming tv,how to stream with bad internet,how to live stream with bad internet,how to stream with slow internet,streaming tv services,cutting the cord 2019,how fast is my internet,upload speed for streaming,internet speed required for streaming,streaming speed requirements,how to cut the cord on cable tv,cord cutting,cutting the cord,streaming tv 2019,cord cutting news,cutting cable,cut cable tv,how to cut the cord 2019,cutting the cord on cable 2019,