No one wants slow internet, but faster speeds can quickly get expensive. You'll want to find a sweet spot between "still buffering" and "Comcast costs how much? Generally speaking, bandwidth is the maximum rate at which you can download data from the internet to your computer. Think about bandwidth like a water hose. Say you need to fill a gallon tank. If your garden hose puts out only 5 gallons of water per minute, you'll be waiting 20 minutes to fill the tank.
But a huge firehose that puts out a gallon of water every second will fill the tank in less than two minutes. Bandwidth is like the size of the hose. The larger it is, the more data you can pull down in a given time. Bandwidth is measured in bits per second.
Note that bits are different than bytes, the common measure of file size. One byte equals 8 bits, so 1 megabyte MB equals 8 megabits. If you have a 1 megabit-per-second connection, a 1MB file will take eight seconds to download. Consumer Reports is working on making internet service more affordable and widely accessible.
To learn more, check out our Broadband Together project. Andy is the director of design and data at CR. Follow him on Twitter: dubly. I've been a tech journalist for more years than I'm willing to admit. In my spare time I build and play guitars and bass, ride motorcycles, and like to sail—hobbies I've not yet figured out how to safely combine.
We respect your privacy. All email addresses you provide will be used just for sending this story. July 13, By Andy Bergmann, James K. Andy Bergmann Andy is the director of design and data at CR. We're here to help you understand just how much internet you need to be paying for.
As with most services, your goal is to pay for what your unique usage needs require. An older couple who only need the internet to look things up from time to time and keep up with the grandkids probably doesn't need as much as an avid gamer or streamer, for instance. So let's break things down a bit and see how much home internet speed you really need. The Federal Communications Commission defines anything faster than 25 megabits per second as " advanced service.
In March, a bipartisan group of senators called on the FCC to raise the bar for broadband by setting minimum speeds at Mbps. At any rate, if you make use of the internet on an everyday basis, you'll want to aim for something a little higher than 25Mbps if you can. With smart home gadgets growing in prevalence and our media consumption increasingly driven by streaming, it makes sense to opt for something closer to Mbps if plans like those are available in your area and, frustratingly, in a lot places they still aren't.
Network congestion, poor router placement, interference from nearby networks and other factors can all slow things down.
To find out whether your internet speed is truly to blame, check out our guide on how to test your connection. These days, with so many people working from home, a lot of us are using more internet than we're used to. However, that isn't the case for everyone, which you'll want to keep in mind as you're shopping for an internet plan. If you work from home, stream lots of high-resolution videos or regularly play games online, you'll likely need more internet speed than someone who casually goes on social media platforms and gets their TV from a cable provider.
Research both download and upload speeds to figure out your best option. For reference, the FCC sets the minimum upload speed for fast internet at just 3 Mbps.
Upload speeds usually range from 1 Mbps to 15 Mbps. To figure out which what sort of internet speeds you'll need, you need to be aware of how you're using the internet, and how that breaks down in the grand scheme of things:. Light use: You only use the internet for basic things like email, reading news, basic video, voice calls, and music streaming. Moderate use: You use all the things included in the "Light" use category, as well as one of the following — streaming HD video, multi-party video conferencing, online gaming, or telecommuting.
High use: You do all of the things included in the "Light" use category, and more than one of the "Moderate" uses. If you plan on moderate use, you're likely going to want to go with those average speeds in the 12 to 25 Mbps range.
If your household consists of a single user on one device at a time, and you fall into the moderate use category, you could probably get away with basic service speeds. On the other hand, if you have four or more users or devices at a time, or you frequently stream 4K video or transfer large files, you'd probably want to upgrade to advanced service speeds.
But even if you stick to a particular usage category, you may still wish to go for more speed to gain more freedom in the way you use the internet. The larger your download speeds, the more noticeable the change in your experience will be.
So if you're stuck between two options that are only a difference of say, 10 Mbps, you probably won't see much difference between the two.
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