Phones, apps & storage
Internet Speed Requirements Calculator
Broadband is sold by peak speed and used in parallel. What matters is the busiest moment of your week: everyone streaming, someone on a video call, a console patching in the background. Add up who does what at once and this returns the speed that covers it, with the margin real networks need.
Per-activity requirements
| Activity | Download | Upload | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4K video | 25 Mbps | — | Services quote 15–25; buffering headroom matters more than the average |
| HD video | 5 Mbps | — | 1080p on most platforms |
| SD video | 1.5 Mbps | — | 480p |
| Video call | 3 Mbps | 3 Mbps | Upload is the half that fails first, and it is what others see |
| Online gaming | 3 Mbps | 1 Mbps | Latency and jitter decide the experience, not bandwidth |
| Browsing | 2 Mbps | 0.3 Mbps | Bursty rather than sustained |
| Background download | 25 Mbps | — | Takes whatever is spare, which is exactly the problem |
| Security camera | — | 2–4 Mbps | Continuous upload, per camera |
Upload is the number that gets you
Cable plans commonly pair 300 Mbps down with 20 up, and that asymmetry is invisible until someone joins a video call while a phone backs up its photos. When the upload saturates, acknowledgement packets for every download queue behind it — so a full upload makes downloads feel broken too. If anyone in the house works remotely, upload speed deserves more attention than the headline figure.
Latency is not speed
A gigabit connection with 80 ms of latency feels worse for calls and gaming than a 50 Mbps line at 10 ms. Bandwidth is how much moves at once; latency is how long each round trip takes, and interactive applications live on latency. Fibre typically delivers 5–15 ms, cable 15–30, DSL 30–60, and satellite far more.
fq_codel or cake — fixes it, and
it is why an inexpensive router with good queue management often beats an expensive one
without.
Wi-Fi is usually the actual bottleneck
Above roughly 200 Mbps, most households are limited by their wireless network rather than their connection. A device two rooms from the router on a congested 2.4 GHz band will not see 500 Mbps no matter what you pay for. Before upgrading a plan, run a speed test wired into the router — that is the only figure that tells you what the line delivers.
Questions people ask about this
How much internet speed do I need?
Add up what runs simultaneously at your busiest hour, then add about 40% headroom. A household streaming one 4K and two HD videos while someone takes a video call needs roughly 40 Mbps of real throughput, so a 60–100 Mbps plan. Most homes need far less than they buy; the exception is households with several 4K streams or heavy uploads.
Is 100 Mbps enough for a family?
For most families, comfortably. It covers about three 4K streams, or one 4K plus several HD streams with calls and gaming alongside. It stops being enough when uploads matter — remote work, several security cameras, or large file syncing — because upload capacity, not download, is what runs out first on most plans.
Does gaming need fast internet?
No, it needs consistent internet. Online games use 1 to 3 Mbps — less than a video stream. What decides the experience is latency and jitter: 20 ms with no variation plays better than a gigabit line at 80 ms. The bandwidth is only needed for downloading the games, which is a different problem.
Why is my internet slow when the speed test says it is fast?
Usually Wi-Fi, latency or buffer bloat rather than bandwidth. A speed test measures a single sustained transfer to a nearby server, which is the easiest case. Real use is many small requests, often over a congested wireless band, competing with a background download that has filled the router's queue. Test wired into the router to separate the connection from the network in your house.
Where these numbers come from
Rates on this page were last checked against the published price lists on . Grading companies change fees and pause tiers without notice — confirm the total on the submission form before you pay.