What Internet Speeds Do You Actually Need?
Posted on: 10 September 2020
Signing up for a high-speed internet plan, but feel a bit overwhelmed by your speed options and don't want to spend too much money? If so, it will help to consider the following factors to figure out what your home needs.
Video Conferencing
Everyone working or learning from home these days seems to spend a lot of time doing online video conferencing. With all that video coming into your home, you may think you need the fastest download speeds possible to keep up with it all. Thankfully, that is not actually true when it comes to video conferencing. The nature of having a fixed webcam on your computer means that the video is fairly static and doesn't move that much, which keeps the video size low for all those streams coming into your computer.
If you were to look at Zoom, one of the most popular video conferencing services right now, they only recommend a minimum of a 2.5Mbps connection for group calls. If you multiply that number for each person doing simultaneous video conferencing in your home, you have the minimum speeds that you need for everyone's video conferencing to go smoothly. Have four people on Zoom all at once? You will need an Internet plan that supports at least 10 Mbps upload and download speeds.
Video Streaming
Another service that requires a high-speed connection is video streaming. You not only need to think about how many people will be streaming video at once, but what quality of video each person is watching at.
For example, a typical 1080p HD video stream only requires a 5 Mbps Internet connection. Have four people in your home streaming? that means you need 20 Mbps download speeds to keep up with it all. However, if those same four people are streaming at 4K video quality, the bandwidth requirement jumps up from 5 Mbps to 25 Mbps. This means a family of four all streaming their own video content would require a 100 Mbps Internet connection for everyone to get the 4K quality service that you are paying for.
File Transfers
Are you uploading a bunch of data for your job, and need it to go faster? Having faster upload speeds can make a huge difference, and it really depends on how long you want to wait. Use an online data calculator to estimate how long it would take at the different speed options, and ask yourself what is an acceptable amount of time. A 5GB file that is transferred at 5 Mbps can take a little bit over two hours to transfer. Select a plan that allows 25 Mbps file transfers for uploading, and that same file transfer will not take under half an hour. This can make a big difference when you are on a deadline and may be worth the costs for a faster plan.
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