What Is a Good Internet Speed?
A good internet speed for most homes is about 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload. That is the benchmark the US FCC uses for high-speed fixed broadband. One or two people who browse, stream HD video and make video calls can manage well on 25 Mbps download. A busy household that streams 4K on several screens, games and works from home will want 100 Mbps or more.
What counts as “good” depends on what you do online and how many people share the connection. This guide covers the official figures for each activity, the upload speed you need, and why ping matters as much as speed. To see where you stand, run our free internet speed test. It shows your download, upload, ping and jitter in under a minute.
Good internet speed at a glance
| How you use the internet | Good download speed | Good upload speed |
|---|---|---|
| One person: email, browsing, social media | 10 to 25 Mbps | 3 Mbps or more |
| One or two people: HD streaming and video calls | 25 to 50 Mbps | 5 to 10 Mbps |
| Family: 4K streaming, gaming, working from home | 100 Mbps or more | 20 Mbps or more |
| Large uploads, livestreaming, many devices | 300 Mbps or more | 50 Mbps or more |
These bands are our summary of the official figures below. The two firm reference points are the FCC benchmark of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, adopted on 14 March 2024, and the UK’s legal minimum for “decent” broadband, which is 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload, according to Ofcom’s statement on the broadband universal service. The UK figure is a safety net, not a target for a busy home.
How much speed each activity needs
The FCC publishes a Broadband Speed Guide with the minimum download speed for common activities, one activity at a time. The FCC says these are rough guidelines, not test results.
| Activity | Minimum download speed (FCC) |
|---|---|
| Browsing, email, social media | 1 Mbps |
| Online radio, VoIP calls | Less than 0.5 Mbps |
| Standard definition video | 3 to 4 Mbps |
| HD video | 5 to 8 Mbps |
| 4K Ultra HD video | 25 Mbps |
| HD video conferencing | 6 Mbps |
| Online multiplayer gaming | 4 Mbps |
| Student or working from home | 5 to 25 Mbps |
Streaming services publish their own figures. Netflix recommends 3 Mbps for 720p, 5 Mbps for 1080p and 15 Mbps for 4K on each screen.
Add the numbers together for your household. The FCC’s Household Broadband Guide puts it this way: one person doing basic things needs “basic” service (3 to 8 Mbps). Three or four people or devices with one demanding activity each, such as HD streaming, gaming or video calls, need “advanced” service, which means more than 25 Mbps. Two 4K Netflix streams (15 Mbps each) and an HD video conference (6 Mbps) at the same time already need about 36 Mbps, before anyone downloads a game update.
What is a good upload speed?
Upload speed is how fast you send data. It matters for video calls, sending large files, cloud backups, posting videos and livestreaming. Most plans give far less upload than download, so upload is often what runs out first in a busy home.
Microsoft publishes the bandwidth Teams uses per person (source):
| Teams activity | Recommended upload | Best quality upload |
|---|---|---|
| One-to-one video call | 1.5 Mbps | 4 Mbps |
| Video meeting | 2.5 Mbps | 4 Mbps |
| Audio call | 0.058 Mbps | 0.076 Mbps |
So a single video call needs only a few megabits. 5 Mbps upload covers one person on calls. Two people on calls while a phone backs up photos is where 10 to 20 Mbps starts to matter. If you upload large videos or stream live, aim higher. Our guide to what a good upload speed is covers livestreaming and backups in detail.
Speed is not everything: ping and jitter
Download speed tells you how much data can arrive each second. Ping (latency) is how long one small message takes to reach a server and come back, in milliseconds (ms). Jitter is how much that time jumps around.
For video calls, Microsoft’s requirement from your device to its network is a round-trip time under 100 ms and jitter under 30 ms (source). For fast online games, lower is better. A 500 Mbps line with a slow, jumpy ping can feel worse in a game than a 50 Mbps line with a steady one. Our guide to what a good ping is explains this in detail.
How to check your internet speed
- Open our Internet Speed Test on the device you want to check.
- Pause other downloads, streams and games on your network, so they do not share the line during the test.
- Press Start speed test. It measures ping first, then download, then upload.
- Read the summary under your results. It compares your download speed with Netflix’s figures and the FCC benchmark, and shows how much your ping rises when the line is busy.
- Test again at a different time of day, and once with a cable plugged into your router if you can. Wi-Fi is often the slowest link.
A real example: what our own results mean
We ran our tool three times on 11 November 2026 on the same home connection, over Wi-Fi:
| Test | Download | Upload | Ping | Jitter | Ping while busy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10.5 Mbps | 7.0 Mbps | 39 ms | 9 ms | up to 151 ms |
| 2 | 5.5 Mbps | 10.4 Mbps | 42 ms | 68 ms | up to 70 ms |
| 3 | 6.5 Mbps | 10.0 Mbps | 31 ms | 12 ms | up to 83 ms |
What this tells us:
- Download (5.5 to 10.5 Mbps) is in the FCC’s “basic” range. That is enough for one 1080p Netflix stream (5 Mbps), but not for 4K (15 Mbps), and not for several people at once.
- Upload (7 to 10 Mbps) is more than Teams recommends for a video meeting (2.5 Mbps), so calls should be fine on their own.
- Ping (31 to 42 ms) is well inside Microsoft’s 100 ms limit. But in test 2, jitter reached 68 ms, more than double Microsoft’s 30 ms limit, so a call at that moment could have stuttered.
- Ping while busy rose to 151 ms in test 1. A game or call would lag whenever someone else on the network was downloading.
- The results also varied a lot between runs, even a few minutes apart. That is why a single test is not the full story.
Overall, this connection is below the FCC’s 100/20 benchmark. It is fine for one person, but not a good speed for a family.
Why your speed may be lower than your plan
- Wi-Fi. Distance, walls and older devices all cut speed. Test with a cable to see what the line itself delivers.
- Other devices. Phones updating apps and TVs streaming in another room all share the connection.
- Busy times. Evenings are often slower, when more people in your area are online.
- VPNs. They add a detour, which lowers speed and raises ping.
- “Up to” speeds. Advertised speeds are usually the best case, not a promise.
Also check you are reading the right unit. Speed tests and providers use megabits per second (Mbps), but downloads usually show megabytes per second (MB/s), which is eight times smaller. Our guide to Mbps vs MBps explains the difference.
Summary
- 25 Mbps download is enough for one or two people browsing, streaming HD and making calls.
- 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload is a good target for most family homes. It is the FCC’s benchmark for high-speed broadband.
- Upload matters for calls and backups. 5 Mbps covers one person on video calls.
- Ping under 100 ms and jitter under 30 ms keep video calls smooth. Games need lower.
Ready to see where you stand? Test your internet speed now. It is free, with no ads and no sign-up.