Taiwanese’s criteria for choosing home network are changing: stability trumps speed

Multiple people and multiple devices are surfing the Internet, which further tests the stability of the home network. (Picture/Drawing by this newspaper)

The criteria for Taiwanese people to choose home networks are changing. In the past, the most common thing people compared was "how fast the download speed is." But now, what really matters is the stability of the network, whether there are dead spots in Wi-Fi, and whether there will be lags when multiple people and devices at home are surfing the Internet at the same time.

The Oriental Online Consumer Research Group recently released a household fixed-line broadband survey. Based on Taiwan's population structure, a total of 1,068 valid samples were collected to understand people's current Internet usage habits and satisfaction.

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Fast internet speed is not enough. Now I am even more worried about instability.

The results showed that among various network quality indicators, as many as 90.6% of users valued "network stability", which was higher than 86.9% of download speed and 78.3% of upload speed. This also reflects that as home network speeds generally increase, people's standards for measuring whether the network is good or not have also changed. Book speed is important, but whether it can maintain smoothness and stability during peak hours, when multiple devices are used at the same time, or when connected for a long time will directly affect the actual experience.

What I’m most afraid of is that my home Wi-Fi will have dead spots.

Another pain point that I feel very much is Wi-Fi. Nearly 70% of users who use home Wi-Fi to access the Internet have encountered connection problems. The most common ones are "poor signal coverage and many dead spots in the home", accounting for 34.3%; followed by "unstable connection" accounting for 20.3%, and "multiple devices used simultaneously causing speed reduction" accounting for 17.1%. In other words, no matter how fast the Internet speed is at home, as long as the Wi-Fi has blind spots and multiple people and multiple devices are using it at the same time, the actual experience will still be compromised. Therefore, signal coverage and connection stability are becoming increasingly important.

The increasing demand for cloud backup and smart homes has also made upload speed more and more important. (Picture/Drawing by this newspaper)

The AI era is here. Home network cannot be limited to downloads.

On the other hand, Taiwan’s home network continues to develop towards high speed. The survey shows that the proportion of users with download speeds above 300M at home has increased from 27.4% last year to 32.4%. Nearly 30% of all users have applied for two-way symmetrical bandwidth. This group of users is usually highly satisfied with network stability. In addition, 60% said they would consider applying for it in the future, which shows that the market demand for high-speed uploads and downloads continues to heat up.

Two-way symmetrical bandwidth means that download and upload speeds are maintained at similar levels. In the past, people paid more attention to download speed, but now they back up photos and videos to the cloud. Some people use remote monitors and smart home devices at home, and even upload files in large quantities. Therefore, the importance of upload speed has also increased. In addition, as generative AI tools become more and more popular, in the future everyone will judge whether the home network is good or not, not only whether it will be stuck while watching TV series, and whether it will download quickly, but also whether "running AI smoothly" will gradually become a new criterion.

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