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How Much Internet Speed Do You Need?

By pps-DUEditor
June 16, 2020
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Good internet speed allows you to do anything you want to online, without any limitations. The average speed that works well for most people is 30 megabits per second (Mbps). Your requirement mainly depends on two factors:

How You Use the Internet

Different online activities require different internet bandwidths to work smoothly. Although internet speed and bandwidth are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same.  To understand the meaning of bandwidth, imagine the internet is a road, data the cars, and bandwidth the number of open lanes. If you have 100 data cars going at the same speed, they’ll travel faster if there are five-lane highways than if there’s only a one-lane back road. The table below enlists some common online activities and the internet speed recommendations for each of them.
Activity Minimum speed Recommended speed
Streaming music 1 Mbps 1 Mbps
Email 1 Mbps 1 Mbps
One-on-one video calls 1 Mbps 5 Mbps
Video conference calls 2 Mbps 10 Mbps
Web browsing 3 Mbps 5 Mbps
Social media 3 Mbps 10 Mbps
Streaming SD video 3 Mbps 5 Mbps
Online gaming 3–6 Mbps 25 Mbps
Streaming HD video 5 Mbps 10 Mbps
Streaming 4K video 25 Mbps 35 Mbps

The Number of People Using the Internet Connection

The number of people and the devices connected to the internet connection at any time also play a role in figuring out the internet speed right for you. Take into account the devices connected in the background too, such as smart home tech. For instance, you live with a roommate, and both of you have a smartphone, laptop, and gaming console each. If all six devices are ever connected to the internet at the same time, you’d require enough bandwidth for all the devices to function without any lags. If it’s more likely that only two of them will be in use simultaneously, a slower internet speed would work as well. While determining which internet speed will suffice, check the upload and download speed (the speed required for sending data to and receiving data from the internet respectively), and the latency (the amount of time a piece of information takes to travel from your computer to the network server and back) offered by the internet provider. Latency is measured in milliseconds. The lower the latency, the lesser the lags.  
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