Support Articles
What Speed do I need?
- 4-1-2014
- Categorized in: Internet Questions
- Web pages
The average file size of the top 1000 webpages is around 5-20 MB with the majority of content being images. Using a 5 Mbps connection, you could expect the webpage to fully load within 8-30 seconds or less. Most browsers display content as soon as they receive it, so your experience will likely be considerably faster.
- Games
Online gaming, including console and PC titles, uses very little bandwidth in actuality. The key factor in “lag” is latency not throughput. Latency is largely affected by the location of the game server in relation to the client. The majority of titles are perfectly happy with a data rate of 1 to 3 Mbps. Fixed-wireless technology provides consistent and stable latency provided the connection maintains a clear line of site between the client side equipment and the tower. As well as minimizing the potential for wireless radio interference caused by home wireless networking equipment.
- Video
Video is the major consumer of data for a home internet service. The following data rates were calculated from information published from a popular video streaming service.
Quality | Data Usage | Transfer Rate |
---|---|---|
Low | .3 GB/hr | 716kbps |
Medium (SD) | .7 GB/hr | 1.67Mbps |
High | 1 GB/hr | 2.39Mbps |
HD | 2.8 GB/hr | 6.68Mbps |
As the quality of the video image rises, the transfer rate needed to maintain video playback rises rather quickly.
- File Downloads (Games and Movies)
Large file downloads like games and movies do not care about latency, but are very much affected by the download speed of your connection. As the size of downloads, like games, have increased exponentially in recent years so does the time it takes to download. Where you used to be able to download a game in a few hours, now games can take days if your connection is too slow. Typical modern Xbox/PS5 games are between 50-80GB. However, some popular games like Call of Duty can be 150GB or more.
File Size | Download Speed | Time to Download |
---|---|---|
50GB | 10Mbps | 12hrs |
50GB | 25Mbps | 4.75hrs |
50GB | 100Mbps | 1.25hrs |
50GB | 200Mbps |
35min |
150GB | 10Mbps | 33hrs |
150GB | 25Mbps | 14hrs |
150GB | 100Mbps | 3.5hrs |
150GB | 200Mbps | 1.75hrs |