Australian internet speeds have improved significantly in recent years and as of September, the latest consumer-grade NBN tiers can now stretch all the way to 2,000 Mbps in some areas. This potentially opens doors for ultimate AV enthusiasts who want to stream 8K video to their huge TVs or download massive, top-quality, uncompressed movie files (from boutique services such as Kaleidescape) to watch in their tricked-out home-screening rooms. But how much speed is ideal, and what networking kit do you require to ensure the best performance?
How much bandwidth does audio and video streaming use?
Broadband internet has been catering to demanding digital audio enthusiasts’ requirements for many years. Compressed music typically peaks around 320kbps while uncompressed music from a CD tops-out at 2.8Mbps. However, specialist hi-res streaming sites like Tidal or Qobuz can significantly up the ante, which reaches 18Mbps for its best (and most expensive) streams, and this kind of encoding can present a challenge to the slowest NBN plans.
When it comes to streaming video, the biggest names globally are Netflix and YouTube. A Full HD 1080p Netflix video consumes around 8Mbps, while 4K content ranges between 15 and 25Mbps. YouTube isn’t too different, hitting roughly 5Mbps for 1080p and 20Mbps for 4K, but it’s also one of the few platforms that’s capable of streaming 8K video, which ranges between 50 and 100Mbps, depending on encoding. However, its 8K content is still comparatively niche and tends to be limited to showreels and special events.
In terms of NBN tiers, even a lowly NBN 25 plan (maxing out at 25Mbps) will cater to the best audio streaming assuming there’s no other internet traffic, but you’d potentially encounter stuttering when it comes to 4K. It’s hard to see AV enthusiasts cheaping-out on such connections, though!
What’s also a factor, however, is that many homes will have multiple users and multiple devices sharing the same internet connection, so expect family, friends and housemates to all be streaming content at the same time... and even streaming to two or more screens (such as a TV and a phone, or several phones) simultaneously. In such an environment, even a 100Mbps connection could struggle at peak times.
Is NBN 500 good enough, or should you go faster?
While 500Mbps domestic connections could only be dreamed about in Australia 10 years ago – and is, to be sure, a considerable amount of bandwidth – it’s important to remember that the last decade has also seen everyone’s personal data usage ballooning to an even higher degree. There’s likewise also been an explosion in the popularity of smart devices on home networks and, while many only require tiny amounts of bandwidth, things can change quickly when devices like 4K security cameras enter the equation.
In such instances, you need to pay attention to the asynchronous upload speeds, too. A 500Mbps NBN tier can only upload at a maximum of 50Mbps and that may be an issue in some (extremely wired) smart homes. Households routinely uploading large files may need the 100Mbps and 200Mbps upload speeds that come with the 1Gbps and 2Gbps NBN tiers to avoid bottlenecks.
Are there any cases where faster than 100Mbps is useful?
Home theatre enthusiasts don’t just need to consider the internet requirements of housemates and smart devices, but the downloading of potentially colossal, uncompressed movie files from specialist sites like Kaleidescape. These files are too big to reliably stream, and as they require downloading in full before they can be watched, this is one area in which internet speed can make a big difference.
Over a 100Mbps connection, a 100GB movie file (which is quite common for movies over 2 hours in length) would take 2 hours 13 minutes to download on Kaleidescape, and that’s with exclusive access to the connection. A 500Mbps connection drops this to a much more reasonable 26 minutes, while 1,000Mbps halves that again to 13 minutes and (if you can get it) a 2,000Mbps connection to less-than 7 minutes. That’s a time range that stretches from serious planning to watching on a whim.
How important is the router in an AV enthusiast setup?
The launch of Wi-Fi 7 routers and widespread adoption of mesh systems has become transformative in the AV space. The new, more-powerful routers have significantly superior range and can transfer more data at higher speeds, and do so more efficiently.
If you’ve got Wi-Fi 7 equipment at both ends (so both the router and the client device), real-world transfer speeds can hit over 3,000Mbps. That’s more than a hardwired 5Gbps Ethernet connection can generally manage.
Furthermore, unlike previous Wi-Fi mesh generations, depending on the equipment there can be only a minimal hit to performance when connecting mesh nodes at a distance. Consequently, most premises simply won’t need network cables for media streaming anymore.
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