If you can average a 25 megabits-per-second download speed with your connection, you should have a smooth daily internet experience, whichever connection method you choose. However, if you stream several video sources at the same time to several simultaneous users, a 25 Mbps download may not be enough.
Cable Internet
Speed
Down speed (more is better): 25 to 100+ megabits per secondUp speed (more is better): 2 to 8 MbpsLatency: (less is better) 150 to 500 ms, depending on your area
Cost
$25 to $90 per month, plus installation fees
TV cable internet is arguably the best choice for urban residents. Depending on your location, you can get blazing-fast download speeds of 30 to 100 megabits-per-second (Mbps). Cable internet is a service offered by your television cable provider, and the type of cable hardware they use supports these phenomenal connection speeds. The one major downside is that cable internet often shares your download speeds with your neighbors, in the same way, your hot water tank is shared across your whole house. If you happen to live near two or three hardcore file downloaders in your neighborhood, you will see your download speeds drop to as slow as 5 Mbps during simultaneous heavy usage. Cable internet requires special modems, and a hard line will need to be either wired to your house, or your existing TV cable will be spliced to bring the internet into your home.
DSL: Digital Subscriber Line
DSL has a few variants: ADSL, ADSL2+, and VDSL2, in order of increasing speed.
Speed
Down speed: 1.5 to 15 Mbps for ADSLUp speed: 128 kbps to 1.0 Mbps for ADSLLatency: (less is better) 75 to 400 ms, depending on your area
Cost
$35 to $50 per month, plus installation fees
Example: Here is Verizon’s DSL internet. ADSL, or often just called DSL for short, is a type of telephone connection made for internet signals. If you already have a telephone hard line in your home, it can be quite quick to enable internet DSL for your computer. ADSL achieves speeds that are not as fast as cable but can be quite fast for most users: 8 to 15 megabits per second. Unless you’re a hardcore downloader, this is plenty fast for daily Internet and gaming needs. ADSL requires special modems and small devices called microfilters that plug in between a wired home-telephone connection and the wall jack.
Cell Phone Internet
Speed
Down speed: 0.4 to 50 MbpsUp speed: 0.2 to 6 MbpsLatency: (less is better) 250 to 800 ms, depending on your area
Cost
$30 to $110 per month, plus startup fees
These are essentially cellular internet connections that use cell phone towers and signals to provide your internet connection. Some cellular download speeds can be significantly slower than wired cable and DSL. Some, however however, are much faster at 14 to 42 Mbps down speed, and they easily rival cable and DSL connection speeds. As a cellular data user, your wireless modem will likely be a dongle, a small device that connects to a USB port. As long as you are in a cell coverage area, you should get wireless internet with the same reliability that you get cell phone service. You will only get to have one computer on the internet at a time with your dongle, so this is not a good choice for families with several machines. But as an individual traveler, cellular is an excellent way to get online.
Satellite Internet
Speed
Down speed: 0.5 to 1 MbpsUp speed: less than 1 MbpsLatency: (less is better) 800 to 2500 ms, depending on your area
Cost
$100 to $250 per month, plus $300 to $1000 for the satellite dish, plus installation fees
Satellite is prohibitively expensive and should be the last choice for any private user. But if you live in a remote area with no cell phone coverage, a satellite may be your only choice. Satellite internet is available as a down-only connection (you can’t send emails or file share; you need to use a telephone modem to do that), or as a full two-way connection which is much more expensive. Installation of the satellite dish on your home will cost you over $1,000, plus the time and effort to do the install. And monthly subscription costs are often $100 to $250, depending on your provider. Down speeds with satellite internet are 0.5 to 1 megabit-per-second, and up speeds are much slower, meaning your VPN can’t be used to its full potential. Latency is very poor, often 800 ms and worse.
Fiber Internet
Speed and Cost
The speed of fiber appears in pairs. For example, you can get 250 MB/s downloads and 25 MB/s upload, or 1 GB/s download and 100 MB/s upload, or tiers within those ranges. Costs vary between $40 for lower-speed service to $200 or more for the fastest, unmetered service. Fiber internet is still percolating through the United States. Price and performance vary significantly by provider and market region, but in general, fiber is priced competitively with high-end cable and DSL connections, and it’s an order of magnitude faster. Many fiber connections offer true 1 gigabyte-per-second throughput, which is 10 times faster than the theoretical best speeds of DSL. While national coverage has gotten better over the last few years, fiber internet still isn’t everywhere.
