Here’s the short answer: Online games don’t require much download speed. In fact, all you need is a 5Mbps connection or faster, even for the latest consoles. That’s it. Case closed.

But don’t leave us just yet. You still need a good connection to play online games, but there’s a bit more to it than signing up for the fastest internet plan on the planet. What you really need is a connection with low latency, as no amount of speed will eliminate laggy gameplay if your latency ranges into hundreds of milliseconds.

We’ve boiled down the most important points of a good internet speed for gaming online so you know exactly what kind of connection you need to get the most out of your online gameplay.

Our recommended connections for gaming online

Fiber internet from providers like AT&T , Google Fiber, and Verizon Home Internet is the best connection for playing games online. It has symmetrical speeds—great for livestreaming—and super-low latency.

Cable internet from Spectrum, Xfinity, and similar providers comes in at a close second. Go with cable before any other internet connection if fiber isn’t available to you.

DSL internet is your next best option if you can’t get fiber or cable. It uses telephone lines and generally introduces more latency, but is better for gaming than wireless connections.

Don’t have access to wired internet? 5G Home Internet is your next best option. It’s a new fixed wireless service boasting lower latency than any other wireless connection. The fastest plan you can get right now is 1,000Mbps, although the technology is capable of higher speeds.

Your carrier’s 5G mobile service would be your backup connection if 5G Home Internet isn’t available to you. The top speed is also 1,000Mbps, but your average real-world speed may be around 200Mbps if you’re lucky.

Finally, 4G and 4G LTE connections (mobile and fixed wireless) generally have much more lag than wired connections but are capable of reaching our recommended latency of below 100 ms.

What is Latency in Gaming

Latency can be downright evil. Latency can make the greatest gamer on the planet feel like a sloth at the controls. Chances are, you already know exactly what latency does to your elite skills. But if you’re new to the game, here’s why latency can be bad news.

So, what is latency exactly? Picture a racquetball bouncing off a wall—how long does that ball take to come back to you?

To answer this question, the ping utility throws a ball of data at a specific destination and records how long the data takes to bounce back. In other words, it pings the server. A low duration is good. A high duration causes delays in your gameplay. Not cool.

For example, you move a mouse and your game reports that movement to a remote server. The server acknowledges the movement and sends a response showing your movements along with all the other player movements. Your game renders the response, but because your latency is high, your movement appears delayed compared to the other players.

Latency is also referred to as ping rate. A low ping rate is good. A high ping rate is bad.

Factors that impact latency

Several factors impact latency. Here are a few:

Physical distance

Games with co-op and competitive multiplayer modes use regional servers because geolocation does matter, even if a server is just a few states away.

So, why does geolocation matter? Because your gaming data moves through multiple “hops” as it travels between you and the server. The more hops your data must traverse, the longer its journey takes—which translates to higher latency. Traffic congestion between you and the remote server can cause a slowdown, too, delaying your controller input.

Connection type

Some internet connections inherently have more latency than others.

For example, satellite internet has the highest latency because wireless transmissions travel up into space and back to reach a remote server. Insulated cable connections have lower latency than uninsulated phone lines, while fiber optic cables have lower latency than both.

Keep in mind that the speed at which your game and the remote server exchange data is different from your download speed. A movie downloads at a slower rate over a 5Mbps DSL connection than it does over a 50Mbps satellite connection.

But when you play games online, the DSL connection is much more responsive than satellite because the gaming data doesn’t launch into space and back. The high latency of the satellite connection causes so much lag that most fast-paced games aren’t even playable online.

How to reduce latency

If high latency causes lag when you play games online, you can take a few steps to help reduce latency and keep your online gameplay responsive and victorious.

Don’t use Wi-Fi if you can

Wi-Fi is convenient but finicky. It adds an extra translation step between your gaming devices and your internet connection, so there’s a bit more delay in your connection. Plus, you have all these other factors that can make Wi-Fi less than ideal for gameplay: radio noise, fluctuating speeds, local network congestion, your distance from the router—sometimes you’ll think the evil Wi-Fi wants you to lose.

To bypass all the wireless chaos, use an Ethernet cable to connect your gaming device to your router. You won’t see the latencies associated with Wi-Fi or the dramatic speed fluctuations, making your connection that much more responsive.

With the Nintendo Switch, we recommend you dock it and use a USB-based Ethernet adapter to connect it to your network. The Nintendo-approved Dual USB Playstand works with the Switch and Switch Lite.

You can use a similar adapter on a notebook or desktop that doesn’t have an Ethernet port.

If you absolutely positively must use Wi-Fi

Connect your wireless device to the 5 GHz band. In fact, use the higher, less used channels (149–161) if you can because everyone in your neighborhood is likely saturating the lower ones (36–48) right this moment. Also, use an 80 MHz channel width too, if possible—don’t bother with a 160 MHz wide channel unless you live far, far away from radar.

Use the 6 GHz band if it’s available to you and your gaming device supports it.

In both cases, be sure to stay close to your Wi-Fi router—within 30 feet or so, depending on the router. Also, keep a clear line of sight to the router with as few obstructions as possible for a better connection.

Power cycle network devices

You can power cycle your router and modem to improve their performance. Since very small differences in latency can make a big impact on your gameplay, it’s worth restarting your equipment.

To power cycle, press the Power button or unplug your modem or wireless gateway. After that, wait 30 seconds and then plug it back in. Do the same with a standalone router when your modem comes back online.

Update drivers and firmware

Hardware manufacturers release updates to improve device performance. Updates typically include security fixes, code optimizations, improved device compatibility, and increased stability. You should always keep your firmware and drivers current to prevent issues that can slam the brakes on your internet connection. Be sure to do the following:

• Update your computer’s drivers and operating system, especially the graphics drivers
• Update your console’s operating system
• Update the firmware for all controllers and peripherals
• Update your router’s firmware

Turn off unnecessary applications and devices

If your connection still struggles while you play games online, try to reduce the amount of traffic on your home network. Make sure someone isn’t streaming 4K video in another room when you’re about to start a new match.

You can also turn off smart devices and pause software and OS updates, so they don’t bog down your network while you play. Just remember to reactivate everything when you’re done.

Use the closest server

Distance is one of the biggest factors in latency. Even if every device on your connection runs at peak efficiency, it still takes time for a signal to travel to a remote location and back.

Games almost always connect you to the nearest server, but if you experience unexplained latency issues, double-check that you’re not connected to the European server if you play in North America. You may need to switch servers if the current one has issues causing lag.

Some gaming routers include tools that can filter out servers with a high ping. For example, NETGEAR’S Nighthawk XR1000 and Nighthawk XR500 routers have the Geo-Filter utility that filters out game servers based on location and ping.

Use port forwarding

Game networks like Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network encourage you to assign “static” IP addresses to your gaming devices and route incoming and outgoing traffic to those addresses. While routers typically assign dynamic addresses to your devices which change over time, a static address never changes.

When you assign a static IP address, you can tell the router to forward data to that address through specific ports. A port is merely a “dock” that handles a specific type of “ship” (data) arriving to and leaving from your router. Gaming networks typically send and receive internet data through specific ports.

To create a static IP address and open ports to that address, you must make the changes in your router or wireless gateway. Port forwarding works with any device—not just gaming consoles.

Use Quality of Service (QoS) controls if available

You may be able to adjust the QoS settings in your router or wireless gateway to allocate more bandwidth to your gaming devices. The router will consider this traffic as “critical” and will prioritize your gaming data over other applications, like Netflix and YouTube. Many routers include a gaming QoS mode you can assign to specific devices on your network.

On some routers, you can only establish one specific bandwidth amount and list the devices that can use that bandwidth. There are no means to prioritize specific traffic, like gaming or streaming.

Avoid peak hours

You may see a slowdown during peak hours when everyone in your home accesses the internet at the same time. Plus, a router is limited to how many wireless devices it can handle simultaneously before slowdowns occur. This heavy load is why we always suggest a router with four or more streams to better handle busy homes.

Peak hours are also associated with cable internet, but it’s no longer the case now that providers like Spectrum and Xfinity use fiber as their network backbone. Rural areas that are still 100% cable may continue to experience peak hour slowdowns, however.

We suggest that you play games later in the evening, or upgrade your router if it has less than four streams.

Check your connections

A slow or bad Ethernet cable can lead to gaming lag woes, whether it’s the cable connecting your router to your modem or fiber ONT, or the one tethering your wired gaming device to the network. Be sure that you have the right Ethernet cable for your plan—you don’t want a CAT 5 cable if your internet connection is faster than 100Mbps.

Also, check your modem’s internet connection, as a loose cable will cause lag-inducing instability.

Other factors to consider for gaming online

Online gameplay pushes the limits of your internet connection more than any other internet activity, but it’s not the only way games put a strain on your connection. We’ll go over more about other things you should consider, like downloads and livestreaming.

Downloads

Many modern games take up a lot of storage space on your computer or console. Game downloads from online distributors like Steam or the Microsoft Store can take a long time. They can also eat through monthly data caps in no time flat.

Game updates can be data hogs too. For example, Bethesda’s Atlantic City—Boardwalk Paradise update for Fallout 76 weighs a hefty 28.3GB when you download it on the Xbox consoles and 36.8GB when you get it through Steam. It’s a smaller update than The Pitt, but it’s still a sizable download.

Latency should still be your number one priority when you shop for internet, but a plan with unlimited data saves you a lot of headaches. Fast download speeds also help with those big new games. After all, extremely long download times on Day One aren’t much fun.

Livestreaming

Your internet needs become a bit more complicated if you stream games to Twitch or YouTube. Streaming has all the normal requirements for a low-latency connection for playing games online, plus the additional upload speed you need to keep a steady bitrate on your livestream.

For more information on what to look for in an internet connection for livestreaming, check out our guide to internet speed for live video game streaming. We also provide a guide on how to stream on Twitch that offers all the information you need.

Game streaming

From the cloud

Game streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming have servers dedicated to creating and streaming virtual machines (VMs) to your devices. Games install and play on these VMs in the cloud, eliminating all the hardware bottlenecks that prevent games from running at their highest quality on the devices you own.

In other words, you don’t need a $4,000 desktop or the latest console to play high-end games you can stream from the cloud. Instead, all you need is a browser or an app, depending on the platform, and a good Wi-Fi connection.

But there’s a dark, evil downside. Remote servers render these games and then stream them in HD to 4K resolution across the internet. And because these experiences are interactive and not passive (like Netflix and Hulu), input latency can be problematic.

To play these services without any major issues, you need a good internet connection. Here are the internet speed requirements for the three major game streaming services:

From a local device

You can also stream games directly from a game console or gaming PC to a compatible app or web browser, whether you’re on the local network or not. The internet speed requirements are mostly the same, but we highly suggest you connect your console or gaming PC to your network using a wired connection to give you the best performance when playing them remotely.

Note that Microsoft suggests an upload speed of at least 4.5Mbps for Xbox Remote Play. An upload speed of 9Mbps or more is ideal.

What about Steam Remote Play Together?

Steam Remote Play Together allows one Steam gamer to run a purchased multiplayer game locally on a PC and then invite four or more Steam friends to play remotely from outside the local network. It’s optimized to stream games to four other players at 1080p and 60 frames per second, so Valve suggests a connection of 10–30Mbps at the least.

A note about online games vs. playing games online

We spend a lot of time discussing games you can play online, which are games that target the single-player experience first and include secondary multiplayer components. These games include Doom Eternal, Pokemon Sapphire and Violet, Far Cry 6, and Halo Infinite. They can experience latency when you play them in co-op and multiplayer modes, especially when more than a few players move across the screen.

Online games, however, can be highly susceptible to latency. These include The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, Destiny 2, and similar MMOs. The player count is typically high, which means both the server and the client (your game) must keep track of every player. This can be a huge processing load even if you have the best connection available. Your frame rate may drop, and your input may feel slow.

The bottom line: keep your latency low

You don’t need a lot of speed to play games online. If anything, you need a decent upload speed to livestream your gameplay on Twitch or YouTube.

Your biggest concern is latency. You can have the fastest internet plan on the planet, but a high latency feels like you’re running through mud and makes the game unplayable online. No one wants to sit at the bottom of the scoreboard because mouse clicks and button presses become unresponsive.

We list the best internet providers for gaming based on latency to help you decide what’s best for your online gameplay needs. But you should also consider all your other non-gaming devices and online activities before you select a plan, like downloads, streaming services, at-home office work, schoolwork, and so on.

That said, we recommend one of the best gaming routers—paired with a great internet provider—to balance that load and keep your online gameplay lag-free.

Internet providers would simply love for you to sign up for their fastest plan available. But let’s get real here, folks: You don’t need Gigabit internet if all you do is check email and post pictures of your latest culinary efforts on social media. Heck, you definitely don’t need it in a household of five. Gigabit internet and faster is best for running a public web server, transferring large files to and from a remote network, or livestreaming gameplay to Twitch.

So, what’s the difference between megabits and gigabits? Is one internet speed faster than the other? We’ll break down the technical details as simply as possible so you can determine if you need gigabit internet speeds or a slower connection.

Mbps vs. Gbps: What’s the difference?

The difference between megabits per second (Mbps) and gigabits per second (Gbps) is the number of bits you can send and receive each second.

In the days of dial-up, modem speeds were usually measured in kilobits per second (Kbps), like 28.8k and 56k. Modern-day broadband speeds are now measured in Mbps or Gbps. Here’s how the bits stack up:

• 1,000 bits = 1 kilobit
• 1,000 kilobits = 1 megabit (or 1 million bits)
• 1,000 megabits = 1 gigabit (or 1 billion bits)

Internet speed in Mbps or Gbps doesn’t mean data travels at specific speeds like cars zooming down a freeway—all data on the same type of connection travels at the same speed. Internet speed is more about the amount of data sent along the line in any given second. The higher the bit count per second, the faster you can download a file.

Look at it this way. Imagine your internet connection is a faucet, and your provider cranks down on the knob. The water (data) trickles in a thin stream (1Mbps) into your sink. When your sink finally fills, you swear an entire decade has passed. That’s your slow-as-snails internet connection.

Now your provider has turned up the knob, and your data flows like a waterfall (1,000Mbps). You’re using the same faucet, only the sink fills up faster with more water (data) going in, so you’ve only aged a few seconds versus ten long, agonizing years. That translates to a fast internet connection.

Do you need gigabit internet speeds?

Your need for gigabit internet speeds squarely depends on what you do online and how many devices you have accessing the internet at one time.

For now, Gigabit internet is probably overkill for most homes because the chances of all five family members streaming Netflix in 4K to their devices simultaneously—which adds up to only 125Mbps anyway—is rare at best. You definitely don’t need Gigabit internet if all you do is check email and browse the internet.

If anything, Gigabit internet is nice to have if you need to download large files fast, like full digital games and their chunky updates. The type of internet connection matters, too, as livestreamers get more upload bandwidth using fiber than they do with cable internet.

Here are some online activities where you won’t notice much of a difference with Gigabit internet and some where you will.

Streaming video

Streaming high-resolution video is one of the most bandwidth-intensive things you can do online. If you have people streaming on multiple devices in your home, the speed requirements can add up fast. Take a look:

To help, video services like Netflix and Hulu have a lot of tricks for keeping your viewing experience smooth, such as preloading (buffering) video in the background and lowering the video quality if your connection can’t handle the load. But even Netflix can’t help much if too many people try to stream at the same time.

Theoretically, Gigabit internet has enough bandwidth for 20 people to stream 4K content at the same time—and use only half of the available bandwidth. This is why Gigabit internet is overkill for most homes until 8K content streaming becomes the norm.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty details of speed requirements for video services, see how much speed you need to stream video.

Video chat

Video chat requires a decent amount of speed, just like streaming 4K video. The big difference is that while Netflix needs a fast download speed, video chat needs both its upload and download speeds to be fast. This is where the type of connection becomes more important.

Gigabit cable internet has enough upload speed for a stable video call, but a Gigabit fiber connection runs at gigabit speeds both ways. This makes it ideal for video chat like Zoom and Skype, as well as livestreaming on sites like Twitch.

If you want to find out more, check out what makes a good download and upload speed.

Gaming online

Gaming online doesn’t require a lot of bandwidth. Speed is still important for having your game play smoothly, but it’s latency, rather than bandwidth, that is most important. The higher your latency, the more lag you will experience when playing. Most gigabit connections (especially fiber) have really low latency—but you can often get the low-latency connection you need for online games without splurging on the fastest plan available.

Streaming games

Game streaming is different from online gaming. Services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna stream games to your devices from the cloud, similar to how movies and TV shows stream from Netflix and Hulu. However, because games are interactive, you need good download and upload speeds for smooth gameplay.

Xbox Cloud Gaming, for instance, requires a constant download speed of at least 10Mbps on smartphones and 20Mbps on tablets, consoles, and computers. That’s less than what you need to stream Netflix on 4K, but you’ll probably see issues on a 100Mbps connection if other household members are using the internet, too.

To find out more about Gigabit internet, check out the consumer’s guide to internet speed.

Which providers offer Gigabit internet and faster?

“Gigabit” internet plans are 940Mbps or 1,000Mbps, depending on the provider and the hardware they use. Nearly all cable and fiber internet providers offer gigabit speeds.

There’s no official name for speeds between 1,001–1,999Mbps (Intel calls it Gig+), although these speeds are generally associated with multi-gig internet. For now, the fastest cable internet plan you can get today is 1,500Mbps and upload speeds typically reach up to 50Mbps.

The fastest fiber internet plan you can get is 10,000Mbps, but some major internet providers like Google Fiber and Optimum only top out at 8,000Mbps for now—AT&T at 5,000Mbps. Fiber connections generally have identical download and upload speeds, although we’ve seen a few instances where providers are still working to match their upload speeds with their downloads.

Bits vs. Bytes: What’s the difference?

Although internet speed is generally measured in bits per second, you might also see terms like “megabytes” and “gigabytes.” Bits and bytes are both units of data, but they’re used in different circumstances.

• 1 bit = a single unit of data that is either a “1” or a “0”
• 1 byte = 8 bits

The term “bit” is typically associated with hardware and software. For instance, a 64-bit processor can handle a single data unit containing 64 bits. The term “byte” is typically associated with file size and storage because 100GB is easier to remember and shorter to write than 800,000Mb.

The bottom line is:

• Internet speed is measured in bits: megabits (Mb) and gigabits (Gb)
• Storage and file size are measured in bytes: megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB).

Note the use of the lower-case “b” for speed and the upper-case “B” for size.

If you want to know more, check out our article on the difference between bits and bytes.

How to convert between Mbps and Gbps

Because data rates are metric, converting between data rates is pretty easy. To move from one metric prefix to the next, you multiply or divide by 1,000. In other words, you just have to add or remove three zeros at the end of the number (or shift the decimal point by three places).

For example, to find how fast a 1,200Mbps internet connection is in kbps, you would multiply by 1,000:

1,200 × 1,000 = 1,200,000kbps

To convert this same speed to gigabits per second, you would divide by 1,000:

1,200 ÷ 1,000 = 1.2Gbps

You don’t normally have to convert between bits and bytes (unless you’re trying to manually estimate how long a download would take), but to do so, just multiply the number of bytes by eight or divide the number of bytes by eight.

150MB × 8 = 1,200Mb

1,200Mb ÷ 8 = 150MB

The verdict: Gigabit internet is overkill for most homes

You don’t need a gigabit connection if all you do is surf the internet, check your email, and stream low-quality music. Gigabit plans aren’t exactly cheap, so there’s no need for the added expense if you’ll never utilize the boost in speed.

Consider your online activities before taking the gigabit plunge. Livestreaming and lossless audio streaming require a wider data pipeline than watching cat videos on YouTube. Knowing the difference between megabits and gigabits is a great tool for gauging what you need against all the hype surrounding gigabit connectivity—now that you know, you can pay for gigabit internet only if you truly need it.

Related content

• Cable vs. Fiber: Which Internet Type Is Right for You?
• Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi: Is It Really Better to Go Wireless?
• Is My Wi-Fi Slow Because of My Router or My ISP?
• What Is a Good Download and Upload Speed?
• How to Choose an Internet Service Provider

FAQ about Gigabit internet

Our pick: Which web browser is best?

Google Chrome is our pick for the most well-rounded web browser you can get. It’s fast and synchronizes across every device you use. You can perform a search within the address bar, group your browser tabs, and more. Want to go dark? Chrome supports themes, too.

We spent many hours comparing the best web browsers in terms of speed using a handful of tests on Windows and Mac. We provide the results in our Methodology section to show which is the fastest web browser on your favorite desktop platform.

The 6 best web browsers

• Best overall: Google Chrome
• Best for security: Mozilla Firefox
• Best for customization: Vivaldi
• Best for social media: Opera
• Best for Mac: Apple Safari
• Best for Windows: Microsoft Edge

Compare web browser features

What should you look for in a web browser?

The best web browser should be fast and clean to give you the best browsing experience. You don’t want excessive bloat that can bog down your device and cause web pages to load at a dial-up pace.

And while speed is great, security should also be a high priority. Internet browsers should protect users from trackers, hackers, and pesky internet eavesdroppers.

Ultimately, a browser should be your interactive window looking out into the World Wide Web—a picture frame that should never distract you from the view at hand.

Which web browsers are the fastest?

To determine the fastest browser on our list, we ran four different tests three times per browser, determined the average, and compared the results.

On Windows, Chrome tested as the fastest browser, followed by Microsoft Edge.

On Mac, Safari and Chrome shared the top spot as the fastest browser, followed by Microsoft Edge.

In all tests, Firefox was the slowest browser on our list.

See the complete test results in the Methodology section.

Compatibility

The best browser should be compatible with the latest internet standards, like HTML5 and WebGL. A good way to benchmark a browser’s compatibility is to use the HTML5 Test website or AnTuTu’s HTML5 Test online utility. Plus, you don’t want to install a browser that can’t access all the modern functions of a website, like web apps.

Easy navigation

While customization is great, you want a browser that’s easy to use. Most browsers we list here are just that, with the address bar headlining your window to the internet. Menus should be tucked away and easily accessible. Settings should be just a click away, and bookmarks should be easy to save and load.

Microsoft Windows

We use a Lenovo ThinkPad with Intel’s Core i7-10850H 6-core processor, 16GB of system memory, and a 500GB SSD for these tests.

Chrome is our biggest performer, taking the top spot in three out of four tests. Microsoft Edge always comes in at a close second, save for one test where it switches seats with Chrome. Firefox is our lowest performer of the browser batch.

JetStream 2

This test measures how fast a browser loads data and how quickly it executes code—higher numbers are better.

Speedometer

This test measures the responsiveness of web applications by simulating user input.

Basemark Web 3.0

This tool performs 20 tests—map scaling, drawing, and so on—in one sitting. It’s also popular for testing a laptop’s battery life, as it loops through all tests until the battery dies.

MotionMark 1.2

This test benchmarks the browser’s capability to render and animate complex scenes within a set frame rate.

Apple macOS

We use a 2018 MacBook Air (A1392) with Intel’s Core i5-8210Y 2-core CPU, 8GB of system memory, and a 128GB SSD for these tests. There’s a huge processor difference between this machine and the Lenovo notebook, so we rerun the benchmarks to compare Safari against the competition on the same Core i5 CPU.

Overall, Safari and Chrome go head to head for the fastest browser. Safari grabs the top spot in two tests, while Chrome dominates in the other two. Microsoft Edge is the best alternative to Safari and Chrome, while Firefox has the lowest performance of the six.

JetStream 2

This test measures how fast a browser loads data and how quickly it executes code—higher numbers are better.

Speedometer

This test measures the responsiveness of web applications by simulating user input.

Basemark Web 3.0

This tool performs 20 tests—map scaling, drawing, and so on—in one sitting.

MotionMark 1.2

This test benchmarks the browser’s capability to render and animate complex scenes within a set frame rate.

FAQ about the best web browsers

What download speed do I need to watch YouTube?

YouTube has been around since 2005, and while it has kept up with the times by continually offering higher quality video for those with newer devices, it still also offers lower resolutions made for the days of dial-up internet.

The highest video quality available on YouTube is currently 8K, which is a fairly new addition and higher resolution than most videos on the site. As such, YouTube doesn’t have an official recommended speed yet, but we suggest having a connection with at least 100 Mbps download speed and unlimited data.

If you want to watch YouTube videos in 4K resolution, you’re going to need an internet connection that can sustain a speed of 20Mbps. Although this means that you could get by on a 20Mbps connection, you might experience pauses or drops in quality if your internet connection fluctuates at all or if other devices on your network are competing for that bandwidth. To get a smooth viewing experience, we recommend having a slightly higher speed than is required for the resolution you’re watching in order to let the video stream buffer.

Although faster internet connections are very helpful in watching online video, YouTube can deliver good quality, even on relatively slow connections. For example, you can watch HD video in 720p with a bandwidth of just 2.5Mbps. Even slower DSL connections shouldn’t have a problem with that.

If you don’t have a fast connection, no worries. While YouTube offers resolution up to 4K, you can reduce the resolution of your videos all the way down to 144p. For reference, that’s smaller than the resolution of the original Nintendo.

YouTube doesn’t give specific speed recommendations for its lowest resolutions (they’re pretty low quality), but it lists 500Kbps as the minimum speed requirement for using the site. It also previously listed these lower resolutions as good options for 56Kbps dial-up connections (though it admits that you might have to wait a bit for the video to load). That means no matter how slow your connection is, there’s probably a way to make YouTube videos work on your device.

How do I control my resolution?

By default, YouTube sets your resolution to Auto, which automatically uses the highest resolution that it can playback smoothly. The Auto setting will also change the resolution of the video on the fly if the speed of your connection fluctuates, so most of the time, you don’t have to do anything to get the highest quality video possible.

If you want to see a video in a specific resolution, or if you just don’t like your video quality going up and down, you can select the playback resolution by opening the video’s settings.

To open the video’s settings, click on the gear icon in the bottom right of the video. Then select Quality to see the available video resolutions. Just remember that if you select a resolution that requires a higher download speed than your internet connection can maintain, your video will have to pause to buffer anytime your bandwidth can’t keep up.

Are you getting enough speed from your connection to watch high-quality video?

Find out how much speed your connection actually has by taking our speed test.

Download speed is fairly consistent across devices, which means that it doesn’t matter if you’re watching on a TV, a smartphone, or a computer—you still need the same speed to watch higher quality videos. If some of your devices are having trouble at higher resolutions and others aren’t, it might be a problem with the device or a problem with your Wi-Fi network.

What else do I need to watch YouTube?

Download speed is the most important requirement for watching YouTube videos, but there are also software and operating system requirements for using the site. If you’re watching YouTube on a mobile device or a smart TV, the easiest way to watch is to simply use the appropriate YouTube app on your device. You can also watch YouTube using a mobile browser, though the app usually works better.

Officially, the site supports the following browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Firefox
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari
• Opera

This will allow you to watch most content on the site; however, YouTube notes that some “premium” videos like movies, TV shows, and livestreams require faster connections and have additional requirements, such as specific operating systems:

• Windows 7 or higher
• Mac OS X 10.7 or higher
• Ubuntu 10 or higher

The Opera browser is also notably absent from the list of browsers required for premium content.

One other important note is that if you’re watching YouTube videos in a browser, 4K and 8K playback is unavailable unless you’re using Google Chrome. YouTube officially says that Chrome is required for watching all HD content in a browser, but we were able to watch 1080p in Firefox without any issues, so it seems that only 4K and 8K require Chrome. Both YouTube and the Chrome browser are owned by Google.

What upload speed do I need to make YouTube content?

If you’re a content creator, you have to worry about your upload speed in addition to your download speed. If you plan on livestreaming on YouTube, you probably want upload speeds of at least 20Mbps .

Fortunately, you have a lot more flexibility if you’re not streaming live. The site has lots of handy tools for uploading, so while a faster upload speed will get your videos on YouTube faster, you can still be a YouTube creator with a slow upload speed.

If your uploads are taking too long, you can try the following:

• Reduce the file size of your video by using a different video format.
• Upload during off hours when there’s less internet traffic.
• Choose a lower resolution for your video.
• Upgrade your internet connection to get more upload speed.

If you want to upgrade your internet connection to get more upload speed, the easiest way is to choose an internet connection that has symmetrical upload and download speeds, like fiber.

Read disclaimers.

Millions of netizens take HighSpeedInternet.com’s speed test each year, and the results give us a comprehensive view of how internet speeds have been shaped by industry developments, technological advancements, and the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In this report, we draw on our speed test results to highlight the fastest internet providers in the United States in 2023. We also draw on our data to look at how many US-based internet users get speeds of 100Mbps or faster on their home internet. With those insights, our report shines a light on whether America is ready for a new benchmark for broadband performance proposed by the Federal Communications Commission.

We’ve broken up this report into two sections. Each section addresses a key question:

1. What are the fastest internet providers in the United States?
2. Is it time to update federal broadband internet standards to 100Mbps?

Part 1: What are the fastest internet providers right now?

The section below looks at which internet providers deliver the fastest speeds and just how fast those speeds are.

Google Fiber is the fastest internet provider, followed by Verizon and Xfinity

Let’s get right to the point: Google Fiber is the fastest internet provider in the United States.

Among national internet providers (which we define as serving five states or more), Google Fiber delivers the fastest average speeds to its customers on the most consistent basis, earning an integrated speed score (ISS) of 176.07. Google Fiber offers maximum advertised speeds up to 8,000Mbps and reached average download speeds of 176.11Mbps over the past 12 months.

Though it’s available in only 19 cities, Google’s flagship fiber service has been the fastest internet provider since 2018, handily beating out all competitors every year. Recently Google rolled out 2 new plans offering 5,000Mbps and 8,000Mbps speeds.

But other providers have also shown impressive scores. Verizon is the second-fastest internet provider, with max advertised speeds up to 1,200Mbps and an ISS of 162.55. Xfinity, Cox, and Optimum take third, fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Fastest national internet providers, October 2022–October 2023

*Data effective 11/2/2023. Data taken from internet user results conducted on HighSpeedInternet.com’s speed test between October 1, 2022 and October 1, 2023. Not all speeds and packages available in all areas and are subject to change. The weighted speed score is not an actual internet speed.

Altamaha Fiber takes the lead among regional internet providers

While major providers like Verizon Fios and Xfinity bubbled to the top of the list of fastest nationwide providers, several regional and local providers also distinguished themselves with fast speeds.

Over the past 12 months, the fastest regional provider (meaning any provider that serves fewer than five states) is Altamaha Fiber. That’s according to results from our speed test tool taken between October 1, 2022, and October 1, 2023.

Based out of Lyons, Ga., Altamaha is a fiber internet provider that serves several counties in eastern Georgia. The other providers on this list are member-owned internet cooperatives that serve populations in rural and smaller urban areas in parts of the South and Southwest.

Fastest regional internet providers, October 1, 2022–October 1, 2023

The impressively high scores of all these providers makes clear that local and regional internet providers are fast becoming important players in the internet world. While larger internet providers may be able to deliver lower prices and more promos, local internet companies increasingly have a footprint in underserved areas, delivering faster speeds along with personalized customer service.

Pro tip:

Take our speed test to see what kind of bandwidth you have at home. You might be better off with a faster plan.

Looking for an easy way to test and track your internet speed on your phone?

Download our free, easy-to-use speed test app for quick and reliable results.

Which internet providers advertise the fastest speeds?

A growing number of fiber and cable internet providers have boosted their internet plans to new multigigabit speeds—including speed tiers reaching all the way up to 5,000Mbps.

Here’s a breakdown of which providers unveiled multi-gig plans and when:

• Xfinity first introduced a 2,000Mbps Gigabit Pro plan in 2015. The provider upped its Gigabit Pro plan to 3,000Mbps in November 2021.
• Google Fiber announced a trial run for its 2,000Mbps speed tier in September 2020. It will introduce 5,000Mbps and 8,000Mbps plans in early 2023.
• AT&T and Ziply Fiber both unveiled 2,000Mbps and 5,000Mbps plans in the first months of 2022.
• Frontier introduced a 2,000Mbps plan in early 2022. It announced a 5,000Mbps plan in January 2023.
• Ziply Fiber bumped its top speed to 10,000Mbps in April 2023, then announced a 50,000Mbps plan in November 2023.

Of course, most internet users don’t get gigabit speeds, most people don’t need those kinds of speeds. In fact, your home Wi-Fi doesn’t often reach the top speeds advertised by your internet plan. We discuss this issue further in the next section of this report.

Ziply sets a new record for internet speed with a 50Gbps plan

The fiber internet provider Ziply appeared to set a new record for internet speed in November 2023 when it announced that it would offer a 50Gbps plan to customers. The plan costs $900 a month and requires a $600 installation fee. Included with the package is a special fiber-optic transceiver capable of handling speeds this fast, but customers also have to use a router and computer that can deliver 50Gbps bandwidth.

The plan is 50 times faster than gigabit internet, which just a few years ago represented the gold standard for fiber and cable performance. Do you need internet this fast? No, not really. But it lets Ziply show off its fiber capabilities and also serves as a yardstick for future internet goals. With more and more Americans relying on the internet for a range of activities, there might eventually come a time when 50Gbps looks like a more standardized speed.

Pro tip:

Sometimes you don’t need the fastest internet connection just because you can get it. Take a look at our “How Much Internet Speed Do I Need?” tool to get an idea of how much bandwidth is right for your household.

FAQ

How do I get the fastest internet possible?

You can get the fastest internet possible by ordering an internet plan from Google Fiber, Verizon, Xfinity, Cox, or Metronet. They are the five fastest internet providers in the United States, according to our speed-test data, and deliver excellent speeds on a consistent basis.

Which provider has the fastest internet?

Google Fiber has the fastest internet out of all the major internet providers. With max advertised speeds of 2,000Mbps and average download speeds of 176.19Mbps, it gets an integrated speed score of 176.16—the highest score out of all major U.S. internet providers.

Which provider has the cheapest, fastest internet service?

Metronet and Xfinity have the cheapest, fastest internet service. Metronet’s fiber-optic internet plans start at just $29.95 and give you symmetrical speeds and excellent reliability. Xfinity’s lowest-priced internet plan costs just $25.00 per month but delivers solid speeds of 200Mbps, which can handle the bandwidth needs of a small to midsized household.

Is 1,000Mbps fast?

A speed of 1,000Mbps is extremely fast. Up until recently, this was the fastest internet plan you could get from any provider in the country. When you have gigabit speeds (as 1,000Mbps or up speeds are known) you can tackle pretty much any task you throw at it without worrying about buffering or slowdowns. You can also support 10 or more Wi-Fi devices that are all working simultaneously. Although you can find faster speeds now, 1,000Mbps is the fastest internet that most people reasonably need.

Part 2: Is it time to update the FCC’s broadband standards to a minimum speed of 100Mbps?

With the internet increasingly a key part of everyday life, the federal government has pushed for internet service providers to do better. In the summer of 2022, Jessica Rosenworcel—the chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission—put out an official call to raise the federal speed minimums for broadband internet.

Currently, the FCC (the federal agency tasked with regulating internet policy) defines broadband internet as any connection with a minimum of 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps upload speeds. But in July 2022, citing the increased demand for fast internet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rosenworcel called to raise that minimum to 100Mbps download speeds and 20Mbps upload speeds.¹

Are American internet providers prepared to consistently deliver on those proposed benchmarks? We took a look at five years’ worth of speed-test data to see.

Average download speeds in 2022 were over 100Mbps for the first time

In 2022, the average download speed for internet users in the United States was 111.2Mbps, according to our speed test.

That’s a massive jump from five years ago, when average download speeds were at 41.5Mbps. That means download speeds have gone up by 168% in just five years, with more netizens getting 100Mbps speeds or faster than ever before.

How much have internet speeds improved since 2018?

But only one out of three US-based internet users gets 100Mbps speeds or faster

Despite the major gains that internet providers have made in recent years, the majority of Americans still don’t get speeds of 100Mbps or faster. According to our speed test data, 32% of users get download speeds of 100Mbps or faster.

That’s three times more users than in 2018, when just over 10% of internet users got speeds that fast on our speed test. Clearly there is still a lot of room for internet providers to improve their speeds before most Americans meet the proposed FCC benchmarks.

Interestingly, as the chart below shows, our data suggests that a large number of users are still coping with download speeds of 25Mbps or slower. However, enough users get speeds close to 100 Mbps or over that number that it drives up the average. Also, while very few internet users get speeds of 500Mbps or faster, those cases also bring up the overall average.

How many internet users get 100Mbps speeds or faster?

According to our data, users saw a particularly drastic rise in speeds between the years of 2018–2019 and 2019–2020. These figures aren’t surprising, considering the pandemic was in full swing by March 2020, requiring an unprecedented number of internet users to seek out faster speeds to support remote work and school.

The rise in the number of users with 100Mbps or faster speeds tapered off in 2021 and 2022. But if you filter the data by specific providers, the rise of users with 100Mbps speeds in much more drastic terms.

Which internet providers deliver 100Mbps+ speeds to the most customers?

*14.72% in 2019 (the first year T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is available)

Our speed test results suggest that fiber internet providers have seen some of the biggest gains in speeds. Windstream and Frontier—which both offer a mix of DSL and fiber-optic internet services—saw the biggest increase in users with 100Mbps speeds between 2018 and 2022. These higher numbers reflect how fiber internet providers in general have pivoted away from antiquated services like DSL in favor of building up their fiber networks.

Cable providers like Mediacom and Cox have also shown drastic rises in the number of users with 100Mbps speeds or faster.

More notably, T-Mobile showed an increase of 173% between 2019 and 2022. T-Mobile launched its 5G Home Internet service in 2019, and availability has vastly expanded since then—a development that has earned the provider top ratings in our annual customer satisfaction survey.

Interestingly, some fiber internet providers (notably Google Fiber, MetroNet, and AT&T) showed much smaller gains. However, that’s because these carriers were already delivering 100Mbps speeds or faster to a large number of users to begin with. In 2018, well over a third of Google Fiber and AT&T’s speed tests were showing speeds of 100Mbps or greater. Those numbers have only grown in the years since, with as much as 60% of the providers’ speed-test users now getting speeds in that range.

100Mbps+ speeds—satellite internet providers

*Starlink launched its beta service in 2020, so that was the first year Starlink data was available on our speed test

Satellite internet providers are a different story. On the whole, very few satellite internet users get speeds of 100Mbps or faster because satellite bandwidth itself is extremely limited.

Starlink, the much-talked-about satellite internet service run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, gets the highest number of users with 100Mbps download speeds or faster. Tellingly, though, Starlink actually saw a decrease in the number of users getting these speeds between 2020 and 2022—possibly due to the fact that the provider is expanding its availability and facing new challenges in serving more users.

Do you really need 100Mbps speeds? For many, the answer is yes

While you can do a lot of things online with a tiny amount of bandwidth, most internet users end up needing 100Mbps speeds or more to serve as a buffer as they multitask online and share their Wi-Fi connection with others. The more devices, activities, and users you have going at once, the faster your speeds need to be.

A 100Mbps internet plan isn’t the fastest you can get—it’s pretty much the average. But for many users, 100Mbps download speeds provide a sufficient amount of breathing room to handle bandwidth-taxing tasks with minimal slowdowns or technical glitches. By comparison, 25Mbps download speeds are better suited for someone who lives alone or in a small household and spends less time streaming or making video calls.

What can you do with 100Mbps that you can’t do with 25Mbps?

• Comfortably share the same Wi-Fi with three or more users
• Make video calls and stream movies on four or more Wi-Fi devices at once
• Stream video in 4K/UHD on multiple screens
• Download or upload a 1.5GB file in two minutes
• Host livestreams

You should also consider the fact that most internet plans that advertise 100Mbps speeds tend to deliver slower speeds on a daily basis, due to limitations of your modem and router, the number of users on your Wi-Fi, and a range of other factors. So even if you’re paying for what you think is a 100Mbps plan, you likely are getting less out of your connection.

What’s the fastest internet plan you should buy?

The fastest internet plan you should buy is 1,000Mbps. Anything faster isn’t necessary for the majority of internet users—and high prices and limited availability make some of these plans out of reach anyway. Take a look at our “How much internet speed do I need?” tool to get a proper idea of the bandwidth you want at home.

According to our data, most people have much slower download speeds than 1,000Mbps. On our speed test in 2022, only 3% of users saw download speeds of 500Mbps or faster.

How many internet users get 500Mbps download speeds or faster?

How to choose a fast internet plan

Download speed is the most important factor when looking for a speedy internet plan. Most internet plans advertise the download speeds plainly in Megabits Per Second (Mbps), but sometimes you may see speeds advertised as a range. These advertised speeds are almost always an estimate of the maximum speed over a wired connection. Wi-Fi speeds are often a bit slower than a plan’s advertised max speed.

How much internet speed do you really need?

Your average household can get by on 200-400Mbps speeds. The number of people in the home as well as the type of online activity have a big impact on what speeds are required for a smooth experience, but the top end of that range (400Mbps) is fairly difficult for your average customer to exceed. For some perspective, with 400Mbps speeds, you could have eight simultaneous 4K video streams playing and still have half of your bandwidth available for other tasks.

Of course, every household has different needs. That’s why we created our nifty How Much Internet Speed Do I Need? tool. Give it a spin to find the ideal internet speed for your home; it’s super quick and super free.

Choosing the fastest type of internet service

Fiber is the fastest type of internet service you can get (in more ways than one). First off, fiber internet dramatically outpaces all other connection types when it comes to bandwidth (how much data can be processed per second). There are fiber internet plans in the US with speeds as fast as 50Gbps.

Second, fiber internet has lower latency, which measures how long it takes your internet connection to send a message to a server and receive a response. Low latency means a smoother experience for time-sensitive applications like gaming and video calls.

Finally, fiber internet is the most reliable type of internet service; It runs on some of the newest telecommunications infrastructure. Additionally, fiber-optic signals require less boosting than other internet types, which can result in fewer points of failure within a network.

After fiber, we recommend seeking a cable or 5G fixed-wireless internet plan.

Methodology: How HighSpeedInternet.com made the Fastest Internet Providers report

We measure providers’ internet speeds using our own internet speed test. Millions of internet users take our test each year, and we recalculate the results every three months to generate an integrated speed score (ISS) for the top-performing internet providers.

We calculate the ISS by adding 90% of a provider’s average download speed to 10% of the provider’s average upload speed, a blend that reflects the relative importance of these different speeds to a user’s needs.

Most internet providers advertise only download speed as the standard-bearer for internet speed as a whole. We factor in upload speeds as well because they’re important to consider as internet users increasingly depend on upload bandwidth for Zoom, livestreams, and social media.

For this edition of our report, we also pulled data from 17 major internet service providers going back to 2018 in order to analyze internet speed trends over time. For each year, we looked at the number of tests that fell into specific speed ranges—25–99Mbps, 100–499Mbps, 500–999Mbps, and 1,000Mbps and faster.

Fastest internet providers—the raw data

The tables below offer a sampling of some of the raw data we used to calculate the fastest internet providers. There are a lot of ways to look at the fastest internet providers—and we chose these data points to show an accurate picture of how speed works, rather than simply relying on advertised numbers from providers.

Fastest average download speeds, major internet providers, January 9, 2022–January 9, 2023

Fastest average download speeds, regional internet providers, January 9, 2022–January 9, 2023

We used these average download speeds to help generate the integrated speed scores for the above sections on the fastest national internet providers and the fastest regional internet providers of the past 12 months. Some of the providers ended up ranking higher because we also factored in average upload speeds to generate our integrated speed score.

Percentage of internet users with speeds of 100 Mbps or faster

The terms “speed” and “bandwidth” are often used interchangeably, but they’re technically different. “Bandwidth” is the set limit of data that flows across a wired or wireless medium, while “speed” is more about how fast you can download or upload a file from start to finish. But for simplicity’s sake, internet providers always use “speed” to describe a plan’s total bandwidth.

Keep reading for a clear breakdown of the differences between internet speed and internet bandwidth—and for recommendations on internet providers with the best bandwidth for your dollar.

There’s a quick and easy way to figure out your internet speed—run a speed test! This gives you a precise reading of your current download speed, upload speed, and latency.

Download our speed-test app below to run speed tests anywhere while on your mobile phone.

Explaining internet bandwidth vs. speed—the bucket analogy

The best way to explain the difference between speed and bandwidth is to use the bucket analogy.

First, picture bandwidth as a water pipe. We’ll use a wide one for fiber, a medium-sized one for cable, and a narrow one for DSL. Underneath each pipe is a huge bucket—this is your device, ready to download.

Now picture internet data as a flow of digital water, which travels at one specific speed down the pipe. An internet provider can reduce the amount of water you receive, resulting in a trickle of water no matter what pipe you use. At this rate, the bucket takes forever and a day to fill. This example represents a slow download speed, like 50 megabits per second (Mbps).

But if the internet provider increases the water to its maximum flow, the pipe determines how fast your bucket fills up with water. So, the widest pipe (fiber) fills your bucket faster than the narrowest one (DSL).

Of course, there are issues that can prevent you from filling that bucket at the rate you expect. A clogged line or a faulty pipe can reduce the flow—you name it. Similar problems apply to an internet connection, reducing your speed.

Bottom line—Bandwidth determines your speed

Internet providers advertise bandwidth as speed. A fiber connection with a 5,000Mbps bandwidth allows a single device to download a large file faster than a connection with a 140Mbps bandwidth. The more bandwidth you have, the more devices you can use simultaneously on a single internet connection.

Why are speed and bandwidth important?

Internet speed and bandwidth are important because they set the parameters for what you can do online.

Having faster speeds and higher bandwidth means you can do more online with ease, vastly reducing the chance of buffering, long load times, and other connection issues. This makes gaming, streaming, and other online activities a whole lot easier.

High bandwidth also facilitates multitasking on multiple Wi-Fi devices. It means you can efficiently support a lot of users and devices at the same time while maintaining consistent speeds and performance.

What you get with higher internet bandwidth/speeds

• Shorter load times and less buffering
• Consistent speeds across multiple internet-connected devices
• Smoother connection when streaming and playing online games

What you get with lower internet bandwidth/speeds

• Longer load times and more buffering
• Clunkier streaming, especially in HD or 4K video resolution
• Higher likelihood of speed slowdowns when multiple Wi-Fi devices are in use

How can you measure your internet speed and bandwidth?

When you sign up for an internet plan, your provider gives you a max speed that your plan can hit. That’s your bandwidth. It represents what you can accomplish when your Wi-Fi is firing on all cylinders.

Speed test results aren’t static the same way bandwidth is—the numbers tend to vary day to day based on a range of factors, including your internet connection type, your router, the number of people on your Wi-Fi, and even the location of your router in your home.

Which types of internet have the most bandwidth?

The type of internet you have plays a central role in determining the amount of bandwidth you can get from your internet plan. Different types of internet providers have certain technical limits on the amount of throughput they can deliver.

It’s likely you can get relatively fast download and upload speeds from your internet provider—our own speed-test data shows that internet speeds have been going up since the pandemic started in 2020. Still, some internet types remain relatively sluggish, especially in rural areas.

Take a look below to see how different internet types rate in terms of speed and bandwidth.

Comparing bandwidth for different internet types

Fiber-optic internet gives you the most bandwidth and the fastest internet speeds, with internet plans topping out at a ridiculous 10,000 Mbps. Nobody really needs internet that fast (not yet, at least), but fiber also speeds ahead of other internet types because it has symmetrical upload speeds.

Symmetrical uploads mean you can get up to gigabit-speed throughput on uploads as well as downloads, vastly boosting your ability to hold video calls, upload large files to the internet, and post to social media.

Cable internet is often just as fast as fiber internet, at least for download speeds. Cable internet has much slower upload speeds compared to fiber, and it also can’t deliver impressive (albeit unnecessary) multigigabit speeds. But for most people, it’s as good as it gets for bandwidth.

5G internet doesn’t have the same impressive bandwidth as fiber or cable, but it’s much faster than more antiquated internet types like DSL. A relatively new technology, 5G can be found mostly in urban areas through cellular providers Verizon and T-Mobile.

The internet connection draws entirely from 5G wireless networks, which makes it very fast but also slightly unstable—so your speeds can vary considerably throughout the day, and you may experience occasional disconnects.

DSL internet is a somewhat outdated internet service that seems slower and slower as cable and fiber providers increasingly raise their speeds. DSL maxes out at 140 Mbps, but many DSL users experience much slower speeds due to the technical limitations of a DSL connection.

DSL’s copper wire connections deteriorate in strength as the user gets farther away from a central server, which makes for particularly slow connections in rural areas, suburbs, and the outskirts of cities.

Satellite internet is the slowest type of internet you can get. A satellite connection draws from a signal literally beaming down from space, which makes for much higher latency and vastly limits the amount of bandwidth you can get.

However, Starlink’s emerging satellite service has much faster speeds than traditional satellite providers HughesNet and Viasat. That’s because Starlink relies on a larger number of satellites, which orbit at a lower altitude.

What internet activities use the most bandwidth?

Most online activities take up only a small amount of bandwidth. But you use a lot more bandwidth to make video calls, stream video, or host livestreams. And all of these demands on your internet speed really start to add up if you’re sharing an internet connection with other users.

To play it safe, we recommend setting aside at least 25 Mbps worth of bandwidth for every internet user in your household. So if you live with three other people, then an internet plan with max speeds of 100 Mbps should be fine.

However, definitely consider a faster plan—say, 50 Mbps per person—if you regularly do high-bandwidth activities like streaming movies in 4K or hosting livestreams on Twitch.

More on internet speed and bandwidth

• Is 100 Mbps Fast? 
• What Is a Good Download and Upload Speed?
• How Much Speed Do I Need for Online Gaming?
• How Much Speed Do I Need to Stream Video? 
• This Is the Internet Speed You Need for Zoom

Sources

1. OpenVault, “Broadband Insights Report—Q4 2021,” March 2022. Accessed March 2, 2022.

Disclaimers

Megabits. Megabytes. Whew! What a mega headache. There’s more jargon associated with computing, networking, and the internet than you can shake a stick at. And you’ll likely bring out the hecklers if you jump on a forum and type the wrong “b” as you complain about your internet speed. Sigh.

But here’s the skinny: neither term has anything to do with biting into a cookie. Instead, they describe a digital amount. We’ll dive into a deeper explanation if you want to know more about how these two measurements differ.

How many megabits per second (Mbps) does your internet plan deliver?

To find out, run our speed test from a wired connection and compare the results to your plan’s advertised speed. If you’re on Wi-Fi, move next to the router (if you can) to get the best results from our test.

To find out, install our mobile app, run our speed test next to the router or gateway to get the best results, and then check your numbers against your plan’s advertised speed. For the most accurate speed readings, run the test from a wired connection instead.

Jump to: The quick comparison | Bits vs. bytes | Using bits and bytes | Why the difference matters | Why the difference doesn’t matter | Our verdict

Jump to:

• The quick comparison
• Bits vs. bytes
• Using bits and bytes
• Why the difference matters
• Why the difference doesn’t matter
• Our verdict

Megabits vs. Megabytes: the quick comparison

The term “megabits” is almost always used to show how much data you can transfer across a network in a second, abbreviated as Mbps. For example, an internet connection may have a bandwidth (or speed) of up to 940Mbps.

The term “megabytes” is almost always used to show how much data a storage device can transfer in a second, abbreviated as MBps (or MB/s). For example, a USB thumb drive may store up to 500MB of data, but it can only transfer data at 3MB per second to your computer.

Did you catch that? The capitalization of the “b” does make a difference. Technically, the internet connection moves data faster than the USB thumb drive, but we explain more about that later on.

So, there’s your quick answer to the difference between these two measurements. If you’re interested, we’ll take a deep dive into the difference between a bit and a byte in the next section.

Bits vs. bytes: What is the difference?

Yes, it’s true: the digital universe is made of nothing but ones and zeroes. In fact, the term bit is short for binary digit, the smallest unit of data. The value is either a “1” or a “0,” although the two values can signify “on” and “off” states or something similar.

So, what is a byte? It’s not what you do when you grab a piece of chicken—that’s a wholly different word. A byte is a group of eight bits, but we also use the term to describe the smallest unit of storage—we’ll explain more about that later.

Keep in mind that any measurement written in bytes is eight times larger than the corresponding unit measured in bits. In other words:

1 megabyte (1MB) = 8 megabits (8Mb)

1 gigabyte (1GB) = 8 gigabits (8Gb)

With us so far?

What are bits and bytes used for?

So, let’s do a quick recap:

• Bit – a single unit of data represented as a one or a zero.
• Byte – a combination of eight bits, like 11001100.

Simple enough, right? Now, let’s look at how we use the two terms.

Bit

Uses: networking and computing

We typically use bits to define the amount of data you can transfer in one second. Why? Because measuring data in motion (downloading and streaming) is trickier than measuring data at rest (files, programs, etc.).

For instance, everything you download—websites, pictures, emails, software, cat videos, and so on—divides into packets and transmits in several different directions, often arriving on your device out of order (and then reorganized). This erratic flow of data isn’t always easy to divide into bytes, so we use bits instead.

So, what does Mbps mean?

Bits per second (bps) is the number of bits moving between two points in a single second. Data transfer rates, upload speeds, download speeds, and bandwidth are almost always measured this way.

Bits per second can have metric prefixes too. Here are a few examples:

1 kilobit per second (kbps) = 1,000 bits per second.

1 megabit per second (Mbps) = 1,000,000 bits per second.

1 gigabit per second (Gbps) = 1,000,000,000 bits per second.

So, we obviously don’t want to say or write that our internet connection is 500,000,000 bits per second—500Mbps per second is far shorter.

When we apply this measurement to an internet connection, the most you can download at any given second from a 500Mbps plan is 500 megabits. Plus, we generally think of this number as our top speed, but it’s really the full bandwidth set by your internet provider.

Byte

Uses: storage and software

A byte is the smallest storage unit. Hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks, and system memory have almost always listed their maximum capacity, read and write speeds, and transfer speeds in bytes. It’s a far shorter number to print on the label than advertising a capacity in bits.

Software size is also measured in bytes. One standard character requires a single byte of storage, so storing the word “hello” needs five bytes, one for each letter. This is why all forms of device storage—from RAM to hard drives—are generally measured in bytes.

So, what does MBps mean?

Generally, megabits per second describe the data transfer rate between an internal component and its parent device. For example, a WD Black SSD may have a set storage capacity, but the specifications also list a transfer rate of up to 7,300MB per second. If we wrote that in megabits, the number would be a longer 58,400Mbps, so manufacturers list the shorter number.

You can technically measure speed in bytes per second simply by taking the speed in bits per second and dividing by eight. For example, a 1,000Mbps internet speed converts to 125MB/s. But network speed is almost never measured in bytes, so if you see a speed listed for an internet connection, it’s safe to say that it’s using bits per second.

Megabits vs. megabytes: Why it matters

These subtle differences in units make it easy to flub your math when dealing with your internet speed. If you happen to get them mixed up, your calculations will be off. Way off.

For example, let’s say you want to download a 500MB file, and you have a 100Mbps internet connection. If you don’t notice the capital B in the file size, you might estimate that this download would take five seconds. However, the units don’t match up. The file size is measured in megabytes, while the connection speed is measured in megabits. Since the file size is eight times larger than you originally estimated, it actually takes eight times as long to download—40 seconds.

Now, waiting 35 seconds longer than you expected isn’t too bad, but waiting an extra 35 minutes on a download that was supposed to take only five is more of an inconvenience. This can also be frustrating if you realize you’re paying for an internet connection that gives you a lot less speed than you thought.

Megabits vs. megabytes: Why it doesn’t matter

If you’re having trouble keeping track of all these numbers, relax. Take a deep breath, and get yourself a snack. While it’s important to know the difference between bits and bytes (and to know that there is a difference), you don’t have to worry about making an expensive blunder.