The short answer
For a single person, 100 Mbps download is comfortable. For a busy household with multiple 4K streams, gamers and remote workers, aim for 300–500 Mbps. But raw download speed is only part of the story — upload speed and latency often matter more than the big number your ISP advertises.
Speed targets by activity
- Web browsing & email: 5–10 Mbps
- HD video streaming (1080p): 5–8 Mbps per stream
- 4K video streaming: 25 Mbps per stream
- Video calls (Zoom, Meet, Teams): 3–5 Mbps up and down
- Online gaming: 15–25 Mbps, but latency under 50 ms matters far more
- Large file uploads / cloud backup: 20+ Mbps upload
Why upload speed matters more than you think
Many cable and DSL plans are asymmetric — you might get 300 Mbps down but only 10–20 Mbps up. That is fine until several people join video calls, back up photos to the cloud, or upload video. If your work depends on the cloud, prioritise a plan with solid upload speed or switch to fibre, which is usually symmetric.
Latency, jitter and bufferbloat
Latency (ping) is how long a packet takes to make a round trip, measured in milliseconds. For gaming and video calls, low and stable latency beats high bandwidth every time. Jitter is the variation in that latency, and bufferbloat is the latency spike that happens when your connection is fully loaded. A connection can look fast on a speed test and still feel laggy if jitter and bufferbloat are high.
Rule of thumb
Under 20 ms latency is excellent, 20–50 ms is good, 50–100 ms is usable, and over 100 ms will feel sluggish for real-time apps.
How to check your own speed
Run a test on a wired connection first to see what your line is actually capable of, then test over Wi-Fi in the rooms you use most. If wired is fast but Wi-Fi is slow, the bottleneck is your router or placement — not your ISP.