Reading Time: 3 mins
Posted on: November 15, 2023
Firstly, the general rule of thumb is to add 30 Mbps for every person in the house who wants to stream, download files, or play games simultaneously. This means a family of four will need speeds of no less than 120 Mbps, so you can browse, conference call, stream, and do homework all at the same time!
That’s for the basics. If you’ve a gamer in your midst, or you regularly download large files, you’re going to need an even faster connection. For households with gamers, we’d recommend looking at internet packages with anything between 300 and 1000Mbps. This is now full fibre broadband and it’ll deliver downloads in minutes instead of hours, and ensure the rest of the family can go online without having to negotiate timings. Or argue about who needs the internet most!
You’re welcome.
It’s not just the speeds that you sign up to that will give you a new experience, but it’s the quality of your internet connection too. For instance, if you’re not on full fibre, which is 100% fibre, then you could be paying for internet on a network that includes some copper. If this is the case then your download speeds will depend on how far away from the local cabinet you are (usually these are green boxes at the end of your road).
For those families in rural areas, you can be a lot further away from these green boxes, and that will have a big impact on the speeds you receive compared to the speeds you signed up for.
You can use our speed tester here to find out how many Mbps you’re currently getting. That will basically tell you how reliable your internet is – the more Mbps you have, the more reliable your internet and the faster your download and upload speeds are.
In summary, the amount of broadband speed you need for your home depends on a number of things, including the number of people in your household, the types of online activities you do, and the quality of your internet connection. If you’ve bought speeds of 150Mbps but you’re not receiving them, then perhaps it’s time to consider going full fibre?
Share this post
