(Credit: James Martin/GettyImages/Vertigo3d)
How much speed do you actually need for an internet connection? Most of us don't necessarily need the fastest (and most expensive) tier of broadband service our providers offer, but the lowest and slowest tier often simply isn't enough. So, how exactly do you find a happy medium?
The short answer: For the average household in the US, roughly 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads should be more than adequate. That's fast enough to stream movies, play online games, and have all the Zoom and FaceTime calls you want, without any hiccups.
The long answer? It's complicated. The ideal amount of internet speed will vary from household to household. After all, there’s a massive difference between an apartment with a single computer on the web and a house filled from basement to attic with internet-connected laptops, smartphones, game consoles, tablets, smart home devices, and more.
You can use a few different methods to determine the exact bandwidth you need, or you can just take our advice. But in either case, let's examine internet speed history and basics to explain how we arrive at the numbers above.
Understanding the Basics: Megabits vs. Gigabits, Up vs. Down
If you know how internet speeds work, feel free to skip ahead.
Internet (and network) throughput (that’s the proper term, but everyone calls it “speed”) is measured in bits per second. That’s how many bits can travel from one point to another (say, from your PC to a web server). One favorite metaphor is to think of it like water. The bigger the “pipe,” the more liquid (bits) that can move through it per second, which means everything goes faster.
For years, the main unit of measure was kilobits per second (Kbps, or Kbit/s). After the invention of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the average speed online was only 14.4 Kbps. That’s how fast our modems were. The maximum speed that analog phone lines could reach at the time was 56Kbps.
But the internet required new tech to get up to speed. According to FutureTimeline.net, the global average internet speed hit 1 Megabit per second (Mbps) by the mid-2000s. That’s a thousand times as fast as 1 Kbps.
As of March 2026, according to Ookla, which operates the industry-standard SpeedTest.net, the median download speed globally is 120.52 Mbps on fixed broadband connections. (These are the internet connections involving a wire coming directly to your home.) Mobile data connections like you get with your phone provider are getting faster, too: Three years ago, they were at 50.0 Mbps, and today they're at 109.29 Mbps.
A thousand times faster than a Megabit is a Gigabit—that’s 1 billion bits. There are numerous ISPs worldwide, including many in the US, that support one Gigabit per second (Gbps, often simply referred to as a “gig”). Whether you can get gig internet from a provider depends on your location and the ISP's infrastructure in your area.
A handful of US fiber-based ISPs offer services that go to 5Gbps (AT&T Fiber), 8Gbps (Google Fiber), and even 10Gbps (California’s Sonic). One—Ziply Fiber in the Pacific Northwest—sells a 50-gig plan that costs as much as a monthly mortgage payment.
ISPs offering gig and multi-gig internet services do so via fiber to the home (FTTH). Most cable companies today are actually Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC), a mix of coaxial cable to the home, typically running to a node with a fiber backbone to the internet.
A tech called the “10G Platform” allows cable-based providers, such as Spectrum and Comcast’s Xfinity, to offer 10-gig speeds without upgrading to fiber, but the rollout is far from complete. Cox, Mediacom, Spectrum, Xfinity, and others are all working on it.
Don’t confuse the Gs of 5G wireless and the 10G Platform; in “5G,” it means “fifth generation,” while the G in the 10G Platform is for 10-gig speeds.
All of the speeds above are download speeds—how long it takes for information from the internet to reach your device(s). Upload speeds—data going from your device to or across the internet—are typically much slower. The Speedtest Global Index for fixed broadband indicates that, as of this writing, the median upload speed in the US is only 59.18 Mbps—just 19.55% of the US median download speed of 302.68 Mbps.
Arguably, most people can get by with slower uploads. That’s why the majority of tiers of service with an ISP have upload speeds that are so much less compared with downloads. The exception tends to be on fiber connections, where you’ll usually see symmetrical speeds down and up, full speed in both directions, because those light-based lines don’t have as much network overhead.
How Much Speed Do You Actually Need?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines “broadband”—the catchall term for high-speed internet, regardless of the technology used for the connection—as 100 Mbps for download speed and 20 Mbps for upload speed. The FCC offers a “broadband speed guide,” but it hasn't been updated since 2022. So we put together our own.
These numbers are the absolute minimum the average web user needs in 2026. That being said, what you need might be different. Your requirements depend, of course, on what you can afford, how many devices you have connected to the internet at any given time, and what those devices will be used for. It's a safe bet, though, that if you’re streaming video or music as a primary form of entertainment, you should shoot for the FCC’s minimum broadband number: 100 Mbps downloads. Almost every US ISP offers a tier that supports that, or a higher tier that's still (somewhat) affordable.
Even the notoriously slow satellite-based providers—which cover 100% of the country—offer 100 Mbps speed tiers. Just note that satellite providers tend to have other issues, in particular, high latency and lag times, but Starlink, in particular, is working on it. You can see that in our yearly coverage of the Best Gaming ISPs.
Few standard households will have much to complain about if they use a 100 Mbps download tier. At that speed, you can download (not even stream) a full 4K HD movie in about 60 to 100 seconds (an hour-long 4K video takes up 45 gigabytes of storage space). Anything over that, up to 500 Mbps, you’re in the sweet spot. According to listings on BroadbandNow, the average price for the 500 Mbps tier from major ISPs is approximately $70 per month; prices vary by ISP and location.
The more competition in the area, the lower the prices and the higher the speeds tend to be. This is why ISPs notoriously hate competing and try to prevent it.
Anything above 500 Mbps—including Gigabit or faster connections—is overkill for most homes. For now, at least. However, if your ISP offers it at an affordable price, it makes sense to future-proof your connection and take advantage of that speed. It's like buying a computer or phone: Get the fastest you can afford in order to put off an upgrade for as long as possible. Also, keep in mind that your ISP is likely to raise prices over time.
Calculate Your Bandwidth Needs
(Credit: Earthlink)Would you like a more specific target when ordering internet service? Try a bandwidth calculator. BroadbandNow offers one that asks about your devices, how often you video conference or play online games, and your geographic location. Using that information, it will suggest a provider and service tier that will most likely meet your needs.
Consumer Reports has a different kind of bandwidth calculator—it takes your specific devices and their usage into account. I told it that my house has 15 devices doing everything (streaming, browsing, emailing, sharing, gaming, video conferencing, and running surveillance cams/doorbells), and it pegged the requirement at 870 Mbps. Earthlink’s calculator is similar, but more conservative in its estimates.
Remember, if your internet feels slow or laggy, it may not be the ISP connection. Your household may have older network technology—an aging router, for example, that supports older Wi-Fi standards. That's a huge bottleneck. Consider updating your router to the latest version. You may also have freeloaders using your Wi-Fi; here’s how to find and boot them. Gamers should switch to using Ethernet connections. And if you can switch internet providers, look for one that's not only fast, but has an incredibly high-quality, low-latency connection.
Are you getting the throughput you're paying for? Test your internet speed now.
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.