A guide for customers on IPSTAR Broadband standard Sky Muster plans who chose 12/1 Mbps for their household

 

Choosing 12/1 Mbps as the internet speed for your home can be a great decision. As the slowest speed available, it’s also the cheapest speed you can get. For many, it’s all they need and by choosing it, it has one major benefit and that’s saving money each month. Who wouldn’t want that? However, at times you might want to consider upgrading to a faster speed depending on your usage.

When is 12/1 Mbps the right choice?

If saving money is your primary objective and you want an internet plan that will get the basics done and aren’t too concerned with anything too demanding, then 12/1 Mbps is great.

We recommend choosing this speed in households which have only 1 or 2 people inside and use the internet mainly for the basics. Downloading music or a game and even watching a video stream on Netflix in HD is achievable with a speed of 12/1 Mbps, especially if you have unlimited data. It will just take a little longer than the faster speeds and you should be okay to handle 1 Netflix video stream while doing internet browsing at the same time.

For many households who have ample time to wait for downloads to finish and are okay with not having too many devices downloading something at the same time, they can get by with 12/1 Mbps. They can save money each month, but it does come at a cost, which is their time.

When is 12/1 Mbps not the right choice?

For households that are 2 or more people, 12/1 Mbps may be a little difficult to deal with. If you had 3 people, with one in each room trying to watch Netflix at the same time, with each of those people also browsing the web on their phones while they watch, things are going to get tough quickly.

With a speed of 12/1 Mbps, your home can handle up to two simultaneous Netflix streams at a time. Netflix requires 5 Mbps per stream on HD video quality. If you have a home with 3 people trying to watch a stream, then you need 15 Mbps to do that, if this is the case in your home then it’s time for an upgrade.

Another reason to consider upgrading from 12/1 Mbps to a faster speed is for those who are working from home or have students studying from home. When you work from home, the chances are, you’re going to be doing a lot of video calling on Zoom or Microsoft teams. When video calling you need a good upload speed and with a speed of 12/1 Mbps, you only have 1 Mbps dedicated to uploading content.

Both Zoom and Microsoft Teams recommend that you have 1.2 Mbps for video calling at 720p and 1.5 Mbps for video calling at 1080p. This means that with a 12/1 Mbps, you simply don’t have enough speed for even just 1 person in your household to make a quality video call to someone they work or study with. If this is the case for you, then it’s time for an upgrade.

If you are on an IPSTAR Broadband standard Sky Muster Plan, for an extra $5 per month, you could upgrade to a 25/5 Mbps plan with IPSTAR Broadband. With up to 5 Mbps upload data, you could video call anyone you work or study with in HD. You can also achieve up to 5 simultaneous Netflix streams at once.

To view available plans and prices from IPSTAR Broadband for standard Sky Muster click here and to view plans and prices for IPSTAR Broadband Sky Muster Plus click here.