How much mbps do i need

Most plans have you pay for your internet speed and capacity, which prompts the question: How much internet speed do you really need? Most internet service providers usually have a guide on their websites, but guides like those will sometimes try to upsell you on the benefits of faster speeds you might not actually use.

We're here to help you understand just how much internet you need to be paying for. As with most services, your goal is to pay for what your unique usage needs require. An older couple who only need the internet to look things up from time to time and keep up with the grandkids probably doesn't need as much as an avid gamer or streamer, for instance. So let's break things down a bit and see how much home internet speed you really need.

The Federal Communications Commission defines anything faster than 25 megabits per second as " advanced service. In March, a bipartisan group of senators called on the FCC to raise the bar for broadband by setting minimum speeds at Mbps. At any rate, if you make use of the internet on an everyday basis, you'll want to aim for something a little higher than 25Mbps if you can. With smart home gadgets growing in prevalence and our media consumption increasingly driven by streaming, it makes sense to opt for something closer to Mbps if plans like those are available in your area and, frustratingly, in a lot places they still aren't.

Network congestion, poor router placement, interference from nearby networks and other factors can all slow things down. To find out whether your internet speed is truly to blame, check out our guide on how to test your connection. These days, with so many people working from home, a lot of us are using more internet than we're used to. Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us.

This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money. No one wants slow internet, but faster speeds can quickly get expensive.

You'll want to find a sweet spot between "still buffering" and "Comcast costs how much? Generally speaking, bandwidth is the maximum rate at which you can download data from the internet to your computer. Think about bandwidth like a water hose. Say you need to fill a gallon tank.

If your garden hose puts out only 5 gallons of water per minute, you'll be waiting 20 minutes to fill the tank. But a huge firehose that puts out a gallon of water every second will fill the tank in less than two minutes. Bandwidth is like the size of the hose.

Most experts recommend adding an extra 5 Mbps to your plan for every 10 smart devices, though some products, like cameras, will require much more. Though there's debate over how much internet speed you need, it's clear that ISPs benefit from your desire for faster internet speeds.

But they can also provide some insight into how much speed you really need by listing how many devices can connect to the network at any given time. If you listen to the above engineer, you can probably get away with the company's cheapest package, which offers download speeds of up to Mbps. According to the company, that should be enough to accommodate up to eight devices simultaneously connecting to the internet.

In many cases, choosing your internet connection speed means weighing how much you're hoping to get versus how much you're willing to pay. But you need to be ready for the possibility that you won't get what you want. Most ISPs offer internet packages with an important caveat: "up to. So, if you're paying for a Mbps package, you may get that speed if not more at times. But it's also possible that you'll get less.

But even if your ISP is delivering the speeds you want, the number of devices simultaneously connecting to your network could give you some trouble that could ultimately slow down your connection. With everything from laptops and smartphones to TVs and connected appliances relying on a steady stream of data, it's easy to underestimate your needs. Much like a car can go mph, but we rarely drive it that way. So, how can you tell if your network needs a boost? Lavoie said to look for "quality of experience" metrics, including load times, the number of connectivity glitches and connection drop-outs.

It's also important to use online speed-check tools, like the aforementioned Fast. If you're an avid gamer, playing online with friends might be one of the things you enjoy most. And having faster internet is really important for that. Over on its support forums, Microsoft offers a handy reference document to help you know how fast your internet speeds should be to accommodate online play.

According to the document, you'll want a download speed of 3 Mbps or better and an upload speed of 0. Your ping rate a measure of lag your Internet connection causes in online gaming should also be less than milliseconds. When it's time to stream games between friends on Twitch , you'll need faster connectivity, according to Microsoft and other game companies.

All those devices share the same bandwidth when they connect to the internet. Upload speeds matter, too. Until recently, most consumers only had to worry about download speeds, or how fast videos and web pages arrived in their homes. Recently, upload speeds have become more important because they affect video calls, including both teleconferencing calls with work and video chats with family and friends.

Most internet plans from cable and DSL providers offer upload speeds that are only a fraction of their download speeds; a 25 Mbps plan might have an upload speed of just 5 Mbps. Upload speeds also matter if you post a lot of YouTube or TikTok videos. With slower speeds, your videos will go through, but it will take longer. Which plan should you get? ISPs generally offer several plans, each promising a different range of speeds—the faster the connection, the more you pay.

The trick is finding a plan that supplies the speeds you need without paying more than necessary. Our broadband calculator might not include every factor that matters to you.