Question

WI-FI Bandwidth...

  • 2 October 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 609 views

Greetings,
I am setting up a whole house SONOS system with two (2) 5.1 setups plus Play 3s in a number of other rooms in a three story house. The only internet service I receive is a lower speed DSL service, but it seems fine for casual internet browsing. I do not intend to pull or stream music from streaming services, but will use my XM radio home dock connected to a CONNECT for music. My question is will my lack of internet bandwidth affect my plan to use SONOS throughout the house? My understanding is internet bandwidth is more important if you are streaming music from streaming services. I intent to use SONOS BOOST to stabilize my SONOS network.

SONOS seems a perfect solution to a log home such as this one, difficult, if not impossible to hardwire. Needless to say, setting up a whole house SONOS system is not cheap so I want to make sure or understand how a slower DSL connection might affect the system. Additionally, since I'll be using a SONOS surround sound (5.1) system with my home theater, I want to make sure I get great sound regardless of my internet speed. Of course the Playbar connected directly to the TVs one connect (Samsung) so technically I should always have sound from it even my internet service is interrupted, right?

I look forward to hearing from the experts before my huge investment.

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2 replies

[quote=framor My question is will my lack of internet bandwidth affect my plan to use SONOS throughout the house? My understanding is internet bandwidth is more important if you are streaming music from streaming services. I intent to use SONOS BOOST to stabilize my SONOS network.
[/quote]
Correct, as long as your home WiFi is stable, you should not have any problem, if you do not plan to access the net for music. Music isn't a bandwidth hog though and you may find that even with your service, internet music will be accessible as well.
The broadband connection bandwidth is only of relevance to Sonos when you're streaming radio or online music services. The most demanding online services stream lossless (FLAC), which according to the FAQs here requires 5Mbps for a single stream. This is IMO generous, presumably to allow for buffering bursts as the stream starts up, since a FLAC stream should require no more than 2Mbps steady-state.