A map of the house, not the advert

A household is not a device count. It is a set of overlapping evenings. Two 4K streams, a games console, a homework call and a cloud backup are a shape. Forty idle smart bulbs are not. Retailers will try to sell you the second story. Buy the first.

Put the range into preferences as a minimum speed, then sort Recommended. If the top cards are 150–300 Mbps with decent upload, believe them. If you have to be talked into 1.8 Gbps, ask who is doing the talking.

Map 8pm, not the drawer

The drawer of gadgets is a retailer’s favourite counting rhyme. The 8pm overlap is the product: two streams, a console, a homework call, a backup that should have finished at 3am. Add those bitrates. Add a margin. Stop. That number is often 80–300 Mbps down and a non-trivial up. It is rarely 1.8 Gbps.

The point of a map is to stop

Once the overlap is priced, more megabits are a hobby. A ranking that still tries to sell you 1.8 Gbps after you described homework and a single 4K set is not being helpful. It is being a van. Our overkill penalty exists so that “enough” can win. Use it.

Two callers is a map

A household is overlapping evenings and, increasingly, overlapping 9:30s. Two video calls want upload plus headroom, not a gigabit poster. Draw the map at the hour you invoice. If the pair cannot, the map is a plant change. If the pair can and one desk dies, the map is a cable. Staggering meetings is a dated stopgap, not a personality.