For optimum quality,Netflix recommends speeds of at least 5Mbps for HD streaming ,and 25Mbps to stream in 4K. Netflix’s minimum speed requirement is 3Mbps for a single stream in standard definition (SD).
If you work or study from home (situations that often require more uploading), consider investing in a faster internet plan overall so you can get better upload speeds. They even offer symmetrical internet speeds where your upload speed matches your download speed. But you won’t really notice the slower rate unless you spend a lot of time uploading content-for example, by uploading lots of videos to social media or hosting frequent video meetings for work. Upload speeds are often a lot slower than download speeds. Most of the stuff we do on the internet involves downloading, so internet providers typically advertise download speeds as your primary speed. Upload speed refers to tasks such as uploading data on video call over Zoom or posting your latest dance video to TikTok.
You can find your internet speed with our free internet speed test.ĭownload speed measures the amount of Mbps it takes to download a piece of data, like when you download an attachment in an email or stream a movie on Netflix. The Federal Communications Commission defines high-speed, broadband internet as a connection with 25 Mbps download speeds and 3 Mbps upload speeds. The client connects to the server several times and tries to retrieve a tiny amount of data. The download speed test starts after the ping is completed. The roundtrip time is estimated in milliseconds in this test. Mbps is the range most internet speeds come in. The Speed Test sends a basic signal (a ping) to the test server after it has been set up, and the server reacts. Gbps, on the other hand, is way fast: most internet providers in America can barely hit 1 Gbps. Kbps is less than 1 Mbps, so it represents the slowest speeds possible: basically what you would have gotten over a dial-up connection in the 1990s. But how many bps are we talking about? Usually it’s broken down into three measurements: The abbreviation of “bps” refers to the number of bits that transfer between a network and a device (such as your computer or phone) in a second.ĭownloading, uploading, and bandwidth usually gets measured in bps. Internet speed is most commonly calculated in terms of megabits per second, or Mbps.Ī bit is the smallest unit of data in digital communications: your basic 1 or 0 in binary code.