Understanding your choices when it comes to speed
While internet speeds don’t seem mean much at first glance, once you learn a bit more about them they are reasonably straightforward to understand.
The most common measurement of internet speed is Mbps, which stands for megabits per second. For reference, Mbps have largely replaced Kbps (kilobits per second) as the more commonplace measurement since the introduction of broadband. One Mbps equates to 1,024 kilobits, but to think of one Mbps as 1,000 times faster than one Kbps is accurate enough.
When looking for the right speed, one of the things you should think about is what you use the internet for. If you’re mainly consuming data (stream movies, shows, music and connect smart devices) download speeds could be important.
To stream Netflix in full HD for instance, you’ll usually need at least 5 Mbps. For Ultra HD or 4K quality, you should look at 15 Mbps. For music streaming – think Spotify, Amazon Music or Tidal – speeds between 125Kbps and 320Kbps will get you a high quality listening experience. For general web browsing and social scrolling, up to 5Mbps will usually suffice.
And if you’re working from home sharing or contributing to large files, upload speeds could be just as important.
