[3Mbps is] an absolute nightmare at home with 2 kids and the missus all battling for bandwidth
What on earth did we do in the days before the internet?
Oh, that's right, we talked, we read books, we watched telly together on the only TV in the house (and discussed the programmes over tea), we listened to the radio, we had time to practice hobbies (and annoy the neighbours with off-tune violins), we participated in or helped at Scouts or Girls Brigade or football club, we went for walks and we didn't feel the need to keep in constant touch with our schoolmates as soon as the bus had dropped us off, other than an occasional panic phonecall because we'd forgotten which homework had to be in the next day.
It's streaming that's the real problem, isn't it? Web pages and Twitter feeds and suchlike are very "bursty" and even if all four members of your family were shopping on Amazon at the same time (not renowned for being a "light" website) I doubt 10Mbps would seem very much "faster" than 3Mbps.
Not that I'm saying that 3Mbps is perfectly fine, but it really isn't the end of the world unless you are all online all of the time. 3Mbps will let you take part in pretty much all of the "digital economy", with the exception of better-than-SD streaming and a couple of very pretty websites that are best avoided.
I do get the feeling (please don't think I'm getting at you personally!) that some "families" are really no more than four or five individuals who happen to live in the same house and share a kettle but otherwise live in isolated bubbles, and I really, really don't think that's doing society an awful lot of good.
10Mbps is a good baseline figure for now and for the next few years at least, but my family of six has been managing just fine with speeds of around 5Mbps down (sustainable - sync is higher but throughput rarely matches sync) for a while now and, other than feeling that it would be nice to download OS updates or that programme from iPlayer a little bit quicker, I've no huge urge to upgrade until someone offers me a significant improvement in speed (uplink too) for pretty much the same monthly cost.
Don't think that'll happen any time soon!
M.