

Fiber optic gigabit (1Gbps) was made for you. If you download large files, watch 4K video, play online games and you compete for bandwidth with several other people, then 100Mbps might not be enough. You are in a home full of power users.If you live in a home that has an active internet lifestyle, with several people routinely streaming video on their own devices, a plan that offers 100Mbps should serve you well. If you live alone or everyone shares the same device to watch movies or listen to music, a 30Mbps plan is adequate for your needs. If you mainly use your internet connection to check email and browser the web, you can be satisfied with a plan that delivers as little as 5Mbps. You can get a ballpark idea of what internet speed you need by comparing that list to things you usually do with your internet connection, and that’ll help you figure out which plan you need from your local internet provider.

If you’re talking about multiplayer gaming on traditional consoles or PCs, you can get by with a few megabits-the stability of your connection is more important here. But a cloud-based gaming console like Google Stadia will need at least 10Mbps for games in HD and 35Mbps for games in 4K. Bandwidth requirements vary dramatically depending upon what kind of gaming you’re doing and what the resolution is. 4K UHD video, on the other hand, can require at least 25Mbps. High definition (HD) video requires about 5Mbps. To stream audio like music and podcasts, devices tend to download at least 2Mbps.

Browsing the web doesn’t generally use a lot of bandwidth, but web sites can contain a lot of images, video and sound, which might require a faster connection to work properly-generally at least 3Mbps. These kinds of online activities require an almost inconsequential amount of speed.
