How Much Internet Speed Do I Need?

Internet is a must-have utility for most renters and homeowners, with most of the population regularly getting online. But as much as consumers rely on having fast internet access, they also want to find the best deal to keep their bills low.

(TWC) is one of the most popular internet providers, offering several affordable cable Internet plans for a variety of needs. If you’re looking for more speed than DSL but a lower price tag than a fiber-optic connection, read on to learn more about TWC’s inexpensive internet options.

What Is TWC’s cheapest package?

Cable Internet from TWC starts at just $14.99 per month for speeds up to 2 Mbps. 2 Mbps is sufficient for light internet use, including web browsing, emailing and minimal music streaming. This speed will take significantly longer to handle large file transfers, video streams, or online gaming.

Will the cheapest package work for me?

If you only use the internet sparingly, the cheapest internet package may suffice. However, it’s not the best option for all consumers. If you’ve recently cut the cord, for example, you won’t be able to enjoy streaming services very easily. Your connection will also exponentially slow down if you have multiple household members using the internet at the same time. So before you opt for the cheapest plan, it’s a good idea to assess exactly what you really need.

Are there better TWC deals?

If you’re only looking for internet, the package that offers both speed and affordability is the Turbo Internet package, which provides speeds up to 20 Mbps for just $44.99 per month for 12 months. That’s 10 times the speed of the lowest package for just three times the price. With that, most users can accomplish what they want online — whether they’re downloading large files, streaming movies or gaming with friends — without worrying about lag or the number of connected users.

What if I want cable TV too? 

For an even better deal, bundling multiple services with TWC usually results in substantial savings. The Double Play bundle, for instance, which runs just $114.99 per month for 12 months, offers Internet speeds and cable TV channels that suit most consumer needs. With this package, you get up to 20 Mbps of download speed — just like the Turbo Internet package — and more than 200 cable TV channels and 18,000 On Demand titles.

Even better, the Double Play package also includes DVR capabilities and access to select premium channels like HBO®, Showtime® and Starz® free for 12 months. The savings from the DVR services alone give this plan an edge over other cable and Internet provider offerings. Paired with the additional savings on premium channels, this is one of the better deals on the market.

Time Warner Cable offers plenty of cable Internet and bundled packages. As you make your choice, however, don’t just opt for low prices — check to see which package offers the features you need to comfortably use the Internet at home. And if Time Warner Cable isn’t available in your area, search for another internet provider that offers the service you need.

*Pricing and speeds are current as of writing. Pricing and speeds are subject to change. Not all offers available in all areas.

You’ve probably heard ISPs promoting a bandwidth tier as “fast enough for online gaming.” There’s no doubt you need a faster connection for gaming than you do for basic browsing, email and social media, but how fast is fast enough?

Getting playable, let alone enjoyable, online gaming speeds isn’t all about download bandwidth. Upload speeds and especially latency play a big part, as does the kinds of games that you play; multiplayer games have specific demands that may not be satisfied by simply upgrading to a more costly tier.

The Ups and Downs of Bandwidth

Don’t get the idea that download speeds aren’t important. With more bandwidth comes faster loading, especially of graphical and map elements. If you’re playing Counter-Strike or Ultima Online, nearly any broadband connection is going to give you plenty of bandwidth to spare. But with modern games like Call of Duty: Ghosts or even World of Warcraft, a lot of background data has to be sent and updated throughout the course of a gaming session. And keep in mind that your ISP’s quote is for maximum (i.e., not guaranteed) bandwidth — a 5 Mbps connection may seem like plenty of bandwidth, but in practice you may be regularly getting half of that, or less. So with Xbox Live recommending at least 3 Mbps, you can be sure that a 3 Mbps connection will always be too slow, and your 5-6 Mbps connection may struggle just to reach the minimum.

Most Internet connections are asymmetrical, meaning that the download bandwidth is much greater than the upload bandwidth. On average, upload speed is about half of download speed, chiefly because consumer Internet technology was developed to serve a “passive” market — one that was far more interested in getting stuff off the Internet than getting things onto it. That was fine when text chat was the only communication option in multiplayer games, but modern multiplayer gaming usually requires constant and reliable real-time digital audio communication. So don’t neglect upload speeds when shopping for a gaming ISP.

Latency, Lag, Ping

Bandwidth is important, but it’s only half of the speed equation. Latency and lag refer to the time that it takes for your input to register. Latency is the central concern for anybody who plays fast-paced FPS games, whether it’s Counter-Strike or Battlefield 4. Lag is also of major importance for real-time strategy games like StarCraft II and MMORPGS like Warcraft and Knights of the Old Republic. The only genres not much affected by latency are turn-based strategy games and RPGs, but these only make up a small percentage of online multiplayer games.

You get some local lag from your gaming setup, including controller lag (from gamepads, keyboards and mice) and lag from Wi-Fi networks, long Ethernet connections, HDTV video processing, or possibly a PC in need of fine-tuning or upgrade. However, Internet-based latency is of much wider concern, partly because you have so little control over it; gamers can minimize local lag by fine-tuning their setup, but there’s only so much you can do to reduce the latency that shows up in that “first hop” between your home and the closest ISP node. For example, satellite connections are notoriously laggy — every button or key that you press has to make a 22,000 mile trip into space and back, and no amount of bandwidth is going to make it any faster.

Checking your latency on that “first hop” is easy — a networking utility called “ping” is built into nearly every network-connected device to check the response time between your machine and any given IP address. Although the words have technically distinct definitions, ping has become functionally synonymous with “lag” and “latency” (e.g., “what’s your ping?”). Windows and Linux users can simply open a command box to run a quick ping test, while Mac users and console gamers need to delve more deeply into their utilities menus to find the ping function.

What’s an acceptable latency? There are no hard and fast rules. The human nervous system is thought to be sensitive to response times as low as 10 – 20ms, with 50ms being the generally accepted threshold of responses seeming “instantaneous” to the online player. Most sources agree that latency of 80ms or lower is ideal, and that gameplay becomes tangibly frustrating somewhere between 150 – 200ms.

Xbox Live recommends a minimum of 3 Mbps bandwidth down (0.5 Mbps up), and a maximum lag of 150 ms. Microsoft admits that these numbers are a bottom-line minimum for a “certified” experience, and frankly anything above 150 ms will make you a multiplayer liability in a fast-paced game. Xbox Live, like many online services, dynamically adjusts server response times to compensate for different player latencies — which sounds nice, but what it actually means is that the entire team is forced to game at the speed of the player with the biggest lag. If everybody else is hopping with 50-80 ms and you jump on with 100-150ms, they’ll definitely notice the slowdown.

If you’re looking for a provider or Internet plan that will best serve your online multiplayer gaming needs, your best bet is to look at the minimum recommendations for the games that you want to play. Don’t worry too much about the download speeds, as you can always upgrade them, but as long as you can measure your connection in Megabits per second, your primary focus should be on latency. A bit of research and comparison with fellow players in your area will pay off in smooth frame rates, fluid communications, and uninterrupted fragging.

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