How much broadband speed do you need?

Start with your busiest moment

Your connection has to cope with your busiest realistic time, not an average day. For a home that is often the evening, when everyone is streaming, gaming or on video calls. For a business it might be Monday morning, or a lunchtime rush when the till, card machine and customer WiFi are all busy.

Count how many people and devices are online at that moment, and what each one is doing.

Download and upload

Download is data coming to you: streaming, web pages, downloads and updates. Upload is data going from you: your side of a video call, sending files, cloud backups and security cameras. Many connections have much less upload than download, so if you work from home, create content or back up to the cloud, look closely at the upload speed too. Our guide to symmetric and asymmetric broadband explains more.

What uses the most

• Light: email, browsing, online banking, messaging, card machines and smart speakers. Even several at once use very little.
• Moderate: HD streaming, video calls, online gaming, music streaming and cloud apps. These add up when several people do them together.
• Heavy: 4K streaming on several screens, large game downloads, sending or receiving big files, cloud backup and remote viewing of CCTV.

A rough guide for homes

• One or two people who browse, stream and make the odd video call need only a modest speed. Reliability matters more than raw speed.
• A family streaming on several screens at once, with gaming and video calls, should look at a faster package so evenings stay smooth.
• A busy household with people working from home, gamers downloading large games and 4K streaming should choose one of the faster packages, with good upload.

A rough guide for businesses

• Shops, cafés and salons using card payments, a till and bookings need little speed, but customer WiFi and streaming music add more. Keep customer WiFi separate from your business network.
• Small offices using cloud apps and regular video calls need comfortable upload, especially if your phones run over the internet.
• Creative and technical businesses moving large files every day need strong upload and consistency. A leased line may suit you better.

Our guide on how much speed a business needs goes into more detail.

Leave some headroom

Choose a package with a little room to spare for busy days, new devices and growth. You do not need the fastest package if your use is light, but avoid one that is only just enough today.

Check that speed is really the problem

If things feel slow, the cause is often WiFi rather than the broadband itself. Thick walls, several floors or a router in a cupboard can all weaken the signal. Try our speed test on a computer plugged into the router, then over WiFi. If the wired result is good but WiFi is not, mesh WiFi may help more than a faster package.