Black Friday and Cyber Week sales highlight the need for faster broadband speeds

Black Friday and Cyber Week broadband shoppers showed a marked preference for faster broadband speeds. Along with the supposed screaming deals offered by retailers, both online and at brick and mortar locations, some internet service providers were also serving up discounts after Thanksgiving. IMA Research looked at more than 10,000 orders that were fulfilled by ISPs during that time frame and found that 35% of the consumers picked speeds of 100 Mbps or higher, indicating the need for speed for ultra-high definition TV and gaming. On the other end, fewer than 10% opted for tiers with speeds slower than 10 Mbps. The most popular broadband speed tier was 25 Mbps at 22% followed in order by 100 Mbps (15%) and 50 Mbps (12%.) All told, those three speeds accounted for half of the orders that IMA Research analyzed. The three next most-popular speeds made up nearly a quarter of the orders: 300 Mbps (12 %), 1,000 Mbps (6%) and 18 Mbps (6%).