Speed - The Ups and Downs

The one requirement that I need besides my laptop to work from home efficiently is ~~good~~ no GREAT internet speed. If I don’t have that… I can’t run my business. We have just moved this month and now have 2 homes (one in Sneads Ferry, Nc and one in Virginia Beach, VA) because of Ralph being stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC and I will be doing alot of commuting back and forth every other weekend for the next 3 years.

So, first things first when we moved. Get internet installed… Not so easy when you are moving to a rural area! You have one choice here and that choice is Charter. Unfortunately, Verizon FiOS is not available here.

Check to see if Verizon FiOS is available in your area: http://www.verizon.com/home/fios/#can_i_get_it

Disclosure: As a member of a great group of Verizon influencers, I occasionally receive cool products to test drive and share my honest thoughts on. No additional compensation is provided, neither were any favorable comments promised. All opinions are my own.

Internet doesn’t = Internet no matter where you go. Internet is measured in speed which is how the data and content travels to your computer, tablet or phone. The speed is measured by megabits per second (mbps). Download and upload speeds are measured differently. Download is measured how fast information travels from online to your computer while upload is measured how fast data is transferred from your computer to the internet. Every internet provider offers different internet packages and when selecting a provider you need analyze what you are using internet for.

How many of each type of device are trying to connect to your home network?
How many people use the internet at your home?
How often do you video chat?
How often do you play online games?
How often are you streaming video?
How often are you downloading large files?

We got the package of 60 mbps download/3 mbps upload. For the most part this is good enough for Ralph’s every day needs… we enjoy watching movies at night and for basic internet usage. We can browse and download quickly. We had at one point 7 people in the house for several days all of which had at least one device connected to our wifi. However, where I noticed the big change is the upload speed. I do video blogs, alot of uploading photos, and blogging to various websites for my work. For the first time in my life…I think I was panicking at how long the upload was taking.

For a basic 1 minute video it took several HOURS to upload. I did check speedtest and the upload speed was less than 1mbps!

When I tried to upload 3 minute video ( it was 4k) it took 48 HOURS… It would have been faster for me to drive to Virginia Beach – 4 hours away, upload the video with my Verizon FiOS, and drive back to Sneads Ferry and still beat the time it took to upload on Charter internet at our home here.

Let’s compare the two:

Charter Internet speed at Sneads Ferry home while plugged into the router.