How many Mbps does your home need?

How much internet speed do I need for streaming?

Netflix recommends 3 Mbps for 720p HD, 5 Mbps for 1080p and 15 Mbps for 4K, each "or higher". The FCC's Broadband Speed Guide, updated July 18, 2022, gives 3 to 4 Mbps for standard definition, 5 to 8 Mbps for HD and 25 Mbps for 4K. The two sources differ on 4K by 10 Mbps, so the page lets you switch between the Netflix and Zoom figures and the higher end of the FCC ranges. The FCC adds that its numbers are rough guidelines that are not based on surveys or experiments, and that they apply to one activity at a time.

How much speed does my household need with several people online?

Add up what runs at the same moment, then add headroom. A family with two 1080p streams, one 4K stream, one group video call at 720p and three phones or laptops browsing needs 30.6 Mbps by the service figures, or 38.3 Mbps with 25% headroom; with the higher FCC figures it is 46.6 Mbps, or 58.3 Mbps with headroom. The FCC's Household Broadband Guide says the same thing in words: one user with light use needs "basic" service of 3 to 8 Mbps, and four users or devices at a time with moderate or high use need "advanced" service, more than 25 Mbps. Medium service is 12 to 25 Mbps.

How much upload speed do I need for video calls?

Zoom's published figures are 1.2 Mbps up and down for a one-to-one call at 720p, and for a group call at 720p 2.6 Mbps down and 1.8 Mbps up; for a group call at 1080p 3.8 Mbps down and 3.0 Mbps up. Screen sharing alone is 50 to 75 kbps. With two people on separate group calls at 1080p, the upload need is 6 Mbps before headroom. Upload matters because a typical household connection has far less upload than download, and cloud backups or uploading video can use all of it. This calculator counts the upload only for the two Zoom lines, because the Netflix and FCC figures are for download.

What is a good internet speed overall?

For fixed broadband, the FCC's 2024 Section 706 report moved its benchmark from 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up to 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, adopted on March 14, 2024 (we read this in news reports, not the report). That is a policy benchmark for what counts as served, not a measure of what one home needs. A single person who streams HD and browses needs a small fraction of it, as the example below shows, while a busy family that works from home is closer to it.

Why is my real speed lower than my plan?

A plan is advertised as "up to" a speed, and what you get depends on the line, the time of day, your router and Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi in particular shares one radio among all the devices in the house and slows as you move away from the router, so tests over a cable give a truer number for the line. Netflix suggests testing with its own fast.com tool. If the result is far below the plan, test with a cable to the router, and then call the provider. For file transfers, see the download time calculator for how long a file takes at your measured speed.

Is Mbps the same as MB/s?

No. Mbps is megabits per second and MB/s is megabytes per second; a byte has eight bits, so 100 Mbps moves at most 12.5 MB/s. A game of 50 GB downloads in about 67 minutes at a steady 100 Mbps, and slower in practice. Streaming services and plans both use megabits.

How the total is built

Each activity has a download figure in Mbps and, for the two Zoom calls, an upload figure. The calculator multiplies each figure by the number you enter, adds them up, and multiplies the total by one plus the headroom. In the example family, two 1080p streams at 5 Mbps, one 4K stream at 15 Mbps, one Zoom call at 2.6 Mbps and three browsing devices at 1 Mbps come to 30.6 Mbps; with 25% headroom it is 38.3 Mbps down and 2.25 Mbps up. A lighter household with one 1080p stream and two browsing devices comes to 7.0 Mbps, or 8.8 Mbps with headroom.

Choosing the figures: service guidance or the FCC range

The first setting uses the numbers the services publish (Netflix, Zoom) and the low end of the FCC ranges. The second uses the top of the FCC ranges (8 Mbps for HD video, 25 Mbps for 4K). Use the second if you want to size the plan conservatively, or if your 4K streams come from services other than Netflix, whose bitrate may differ. The extra headroom covers things the figures do not: background updates, a cloud backup, a smart-home camera and a speed that falls in the evening. 25% is our default and is only a rule of thumb.

Limits of this method

The service figures are minimums advised for smooth playback of one stream; the actual bitrate varies with the title and the device. Netflix's page carries no date, and an older Sony support page dated 2020 asks for 25 Mbps for 4K where Netflix now says 15, so these numbers change. The FCC's guide is also dated: its table was last reviewed in July 2022 and it says its numbers are rough guidelines. Gaming needs a low latency as much as a high speed, and the FCC's 4 Mbps for online multiplayer says nothing about latency. And the total is a peak: if you never run everything at the same time, you need less. Finally, a speed measured over Wi-Fi in a far room can be well below what the line delivers, which says nothing about your plan.

Sources, read October 28, 2026: Netflix Help Center, “Internet connection speed recommendations” (help.netflix.com/en/node/306; the page has no date); Federal Communications Commission, “Broadband Speed Guide” and “Household Broadband Guide” (fcc.gov/consumers/guides, both last updated July 18, 2022); Zoom Support, bandwidth requirements for meetings (article KB0060748); the FCC 100/20 Mbps benchmark of March 14, 2024 from news reports (Benton Institute, The Register), the Section 706 report itself was not opened. The Netflix and Zoom figures are the services' own. Related: download time calculator, file size and bitrate calculator and TV size calculator. How we check our calculators.