The short answer: add up what you use at the same time
There is no single "right" broadband speed. What your home needs depends on what everyone does at the busiest moment of the day: perhaps one person watching a film, another on a video call and a games console downloading an update. That is why rules of thumb based on the number of people in a house often miss the mark.
The most reliable way to answer the question is a simple sum:
- List what happens at the same time in your busiest hour: each TV stream, each video call, any gaming, any big downloads or backups.
- Look up each service's own published speed. Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Zoom, Xbox, PlayStation and others publish these, and the main ones are in the tables below.
- Add up the download figures, and separately add up the upload figures. They are different numbers and both matter.
- Leave some headroom. BBC iPlayer, for example, says you need "a little more" bandwidth than its stream rate, and phones, laptops and smart devices use the connection in the background.
As a sense check, Ofcom uses three benchmarks in its Connected Nations 2025 report (published November 2025). Decent broadband is at least 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload, which Ofcom says is enough for an HD video call. Superfast is at least 30 Mbit/s, which Ofcom says is enough for one person streaming 4K (ultra high definition) video, and lets several devices work at the same time. Gigabit-capable means 1 Gbit/s (1,000 Mbit/s) or more. Our guide to superfast, ultrafast and gigabit broadband explains these labels.
Once you have a figure, enter your postcode in the comparison on our broadband deals page. It shows the packages available at your address, and you can filter the results by speed.
Download and upload: which one matters for what
Every broadband package has two speeds, and they do different jobs. As Openreach puts it, download speed is how fast you receive information and upload speed is how fast you send it. Streaming TV, loading web pages and downloading games all use download. Saving files to cloud storage, sending emails with attachments and posting videos use upload. Video calls use both, because you are sending your own picture and sound while receiving everyone else's.
Most connections are lopsided, with far less upload than download. Openreach's figures (checked October 2026) show the pattern:
Openreach technology | Download | Upload |
|---|---|---|
Copper broadband (ADSL) | Up to 21Mbps | Up to 1Mbps |
Part-fibre (FTTC, fibre to the street cabinet) | Up to 76Mbps | Up to 15Mbps |
Full fibre (FTTP, fibre to your home) | Up to 1,600Mbps | Not given on Openreach's page |
Openreach's full-fibre page quotes download only, so check the upload figure for each full-fibre package you compare. Some full-fibre networks sell symmetrical packages, where upload matches download: ISPreview reported in September 2026 that all Community Fibre packages include symmetric speeds. If your household uploads a lot, this is worth looking for; you can see what Community Fibre offers on our Community Fibre broadband deals page, though its network only covers some areas.
Upload is the figure people most often forget to check, and it is frequently the one that causes trouble on video calls. Our guide to download vs upload speed goes further into how each one affects you.
Speeds are quoted in megabits per second, written Mbps or Mbit/s (they mean the same thing), while file sizes are usually in megabytes or gigabytes; our guide to broadband speed units untangles bits and bytes.
Speed needed for streaming, service by service
Streaming is the biggest single user of speed in most homes. These are the figures each service publishes on its own help pages (checked October 2026). Note that the services word them differently: Netflix gives a recommended stable speed, YouTube a recommended sustained speed, and Prime Video gives minimums on its help page about live streams, the only speed figures we found it publishing.
Service | Lower quality | HD | 4K / UHD |
|---|---|---|---|
Netflix | Not listed | 3 Mbps (720p), 5 Mbps (1080p) | 15 Mbps |
BBC iPlayer | 1.5 Mbps (standard quality) | Up to 5 Mbps (high quality) | Not listed |
Prime Video | 1 Mbps (minimum, SD, from its live-streams help) | 5 Mbps (minimum, from its live-streams help) | No figure on Prime Video's help pages |
Disney+ | Not listed | 5 Mbps | 25 Mbps |
YouTube | 0.7 Mbps (360p), 1.1 Mbps (480p) | 2.5 Mbps (720p), 5 Mbps (1080p) | 20 Mbps |
BBC iPlayer adds some useful detail: its HD picture is at least 720p, encoded at 3.2 Mbps and rising to 5 Mbps for the best quality where your connection allows. YouTube's figures are its "Movie and TV show requirements": it says premium videos such as films, TV shows and live streams need a faster connection, and gives no separate figures there for everyday clips.
Every stream needs its own share
Each service publishes a single figure, and none of the speed pages above says outright whether it is per stream. Netflix does give its data use per hour, per device, and the safe way to plan is the same: two TVs showing different programmes need two lots of speed. As an example using the services' own figures, two Netflix 4K streams come to 15 + 15 = 30 Mbps, and Disney+ 4K on one TV with Netflix 4K on another comes to 25 + 15 = 40 Mbps, before anything else is counted.
What happens when there isn't quite enough
A slightly slow connection rarely stops a stream dead. BBC iPlayer uses what it calls adaptive bit rate streaming: when the connection is slow or shared by several devices, it lowers the picture quality to fit rather than buffering. Prime Video similarly serves the highest quality your bandwidth allows. So the usual symptom of too little speed is a softer, blockier picture, or a 4K film that never quite looks like 4K.
If you do get buffering, BBC iPlayer's help page suggests: restart your router and the device you are watching on; disconnect or turn off other devices sharing the connection to see if that makes a difference; switch to standard definition, because HD needs more bandwidth; and try a wired connection, to rule out interference from another Wi-Fi network, or move the device closer to the router. If turning other devices off fixes it, your household's sum is probably bigger than your connection.
If TV is a big part of your use, our guide to TV over broadband explains how streamed TV services use your line, and our broadband and TV deals page lets you compare bundles at your postcode.
Video calls and working from home
Video calls are where upload speed matters most, because you are sending a live picture of yourself the whole time. Zoom publishes these figures (checked October 2026):
Zoom call type | Upload | Download |
|---|---|---|
1:1 call, high-quality video | 600 kbps | 600 kbps |
1:1 call, 720p HD | 1.2 Mbps | 1.2 Mbps |
1:1 call, 1080p HD | 3.8 Mbps | 3.0 Mbps |
Group call, high-quality video | 1.0 Mbps | 600 kbps |
Group call, 720p HD | 2.6 Mbps | 1.8 Mbps |
Group call, 1080p HD | 3.8 Mbps | 3.0 Mbps |
(kbps means kilobits per second; 1,000 kbps is 1 Mbps.)
Microsoft gives figures for Teams per device. For video meetings it lists a minimum of 150 kbps up and 200 kbps down, a recommended 2,500 kbps (2.5 Mbps) up and 4,000 kbps (4 Mbps) down, and 4 Mbps each way for the best performance. A one-to-one video call has a recommended 1.5 Mbps each way, and an audio-only call 58 kbps each way. Microsoft says Teams can deliver HD video in under 1.5 Mbps, and that it prioritises audio quality over video quality when there is not enough bandwidth.
Because Microsoft's figures are per device, someone who joins a meeting on both a laptop and a phone counts twice, and two people on video calls at the same time need two lots of upload.
This is where older connections struggle. Openreach's copper broadband offers up to 1Mbps upload, so it cannot carry a 1080p Zoom call at Zoom's figure of 3.8 Mbps upload, or even a 720p one-to-one call at 1.2 Mbps; only Zoom's lowest video settings, such as 600 kbps, fit under that ceiling. If the household relies on calls for work, check the upload speed of any package as carefully as the download. Our guide to broadband for working from home covers the rest of a home-working set-up.
Gaming, Remote Play and cloud gaming
Online gaming itself needs less speed than most people expect. Xbox recommends at least 3 Mbps download, 0.5 Mbps upload and a ping (the time a signal takes to get to a server and back) of under 150 milliseconds. For fast online play, ping often matters more than raw speed: our guide to latency, ping and jitter explains why.
Streaming games is a different matter, because the game is sent to you as live video:
- PS5 cloud streaming (part of PlayStation Plus Premium) needs at least 5 Mbps upload and download to start. PlayStation recommends 13 Mbps for 720p, 23 Mbps for 1080p, 38 Mbps for 1440p and 52 Mbps for 4K.
- PlayStation Portal: the same PlayStation page gives minimums of 7 Mbps for 720p and 13 Mbps for 1080p.
- PlayStation Remote Play needs at least 5 Mbps upload and download, and PlayStation recommends at least 15 Mbps each way for the best performance. Because the console streams the game to another device, upload counts as much as download here.
Game downloads are the other heavy load. PlayStation notes that downloads for big PS5 games often exceed 100GB. A big download running in the evening also takes a share of the connection from everyone else.
For a fuller look at consoles, PC gaming and what to ask a provider, see our guide to broadband for online gaming.
Worked example: adding it up for your household
Here is how the sum works in practice. This is an illustrative example, not a recommendation: the figures are simply the services' own published numbers added together.
Example: on a weekday evening, one person watches Netflix in 4K on the living-room TV, another watches a film on YouTube in 1080p on a laptop, and a third is in a Teams video meeting.
Activity | Download | Upload |
|---|---|---|
Netflix in 4K (Netflix's recommended figure) | 15 Mbps | Not needed |
Film on YouTube at 1080p (YouTube's figure for films and TV shows) | 5 Mbps | Not needed |
Teams video meeting (Microsoft's recommended figure) | 4 Mbps | 2.5 Mbps |
Total | 24 Mbps | 2.5 Mbps |
On top of that, allow headroom for phones syncing photos, updates and other background use. If a second TV switched to Disney+ in 4K, the download total would rise by another 25 Mbps, to 49 Mbps. If two people were on video calls, the upload total would double.
A few tips for doing your own version:
- Check the quality people actually watch at. A TV set to 4K uses 4K figures; a phone on the bus does not use your home broadband at all.
- Compare your total with the speed you are likely to get at peak time, not just the headline figure (more on this below).
- Think a year or two ahead. Most contracts run for a fixed term, so a new 4K TV or a teenager who games online can change the sum before the contract ends.
Our guide to broadband for families looks at busy households in more detail, and how to choose a broadband package covers the other things to weigh up besides speed, such as contract length and bundles.
Downloads, data use and why faster speeds still help
Adding up streams gives the minimum that keeps everything smooth; extra speed mostly shows up as shorter waits. Ofcom's Connected Nations 2025 report gives some examples:
- A one-hour HD TV episode (about 1 GB) takes almost 15 minutes to download at 10 Mbit/s and under four and a half minutes at 30 Mbit/s.
- On a gigabit-capable connection, the same episode takes about eight seconds, and a 4K film of 100 GB can download in under 15 minutes.
Homes are also using more data. Ofcom reported average monthly use of 583 GB per fixed broadband connection in July 2025, and 738 GB on full-fibre connections. Our guide to home broadband data usage covers what uses the most and whether data limits are anything to worry about.
It is also worth knowing that most full-fibre customers do not buy the top tier. In July 2025, Ofcom found that only 21% of full-fibre customers were on packages of 900 Mbit/s or more, while 55% were on packages of 300 Mbit/s or less. So a mid-range package that covers your sum with headroom is a common choice; faster tiers make most sense where people regularly download big files, upload a lot, or simply want to stop thinking about speed. You can compare full-fibre packages by speed on our fibre broadband deals page.
Advertised speed vs the speed you actually get
Once you know what you need, the next job is to check what a package will really deliver at your address.
What the advertised speed means
Under advertising rules, broadband adverts must show the average speed that at least half of customers receive between 8pm and 10pm, the busiest time on the network. That is useful, but it is an average across many customers, not a promise for your line.
What the speeds code gives you
Providers that have signed up to Ofcom's broadband speeds code of practice must tell you, before you buy, the speed you are likely to get at busy times (8pm to 10pm for home services) and a minimum guaranteed speed. If your speed falls below that minimum, the problem is on the provider's network and it cannot fix it within 30 days, Ofcom says you must be offered the right to leave without paying an early exit fee. That right also covers products linked to the broadband in a bundle; if you are on a rolling monthly contract the process does not apply, but you can give notice (usually a month) to leave anyway. Ofcom's list of signatories (page captured September 2026) is BT, EE, NOW Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media and Zen Internet, so if your provider is not on it, ask what it offers instead. Our guide to the broadband minimum speed guarantee explains how to use this.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What download and upload speed can I expect at my address between 8pm and 10pm?
- What is the minimum guaranteed speed, and what happens if I fall below it?
- Is this full fibre, part fibre, cable or copper? Since September 2024 Ofcom guidance has required providers to describe the technology in plain terms like these at the point of sale and in contract documents, rather than using "fibre" on its own.
- What is the upload speed? It is often less prominent than the download figure.
Things in your home that can hold speed back
The speed arriving at your router is not always the speed your devices see. thinkbroadband points out that a device plugged into a 100Mbps Ethernet port cannot benefit from a 300Mbps+ service, and that older routers and slow Wi-Fi devices can hold back the whole network. Speeds can also dip in the evening peak, because capacity is shared; our guide to why broadband slows down in the evening explains why.
To see what you are getting now, use our broadband speed test. Ofcom advises testing on a device connected to the router by an Ethernet cable, because Wi-Fi can slow the signal; if a wired test is fine but Wi-Fi is slow, a faster package may not help, and our guide on how to improve your Wi-Fi signal is a better place to start.
If you can't get decent broadband
Most homes now have plenty of choice: in Ofcom's Spring 2026 update (January 2026 data, as reported by ISPreview), superfast broadband was available to 98% of UK homes and gigabit-capable broadband to 89%. But about 39,000 premises (0.1% of the UK) still could not get a decent 10Mbps service, even counting wireless options.
If yours is one of them, the broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) may help. Its legal specification is a connection with a download sync speed of at least 10Mbit/s and an upload sync speed of at least 1Mbit/s, latency good enough for voice calls, a contention ratio (how many users share capacity) no higher than 50:1, and capacity for at least 100GB of data a month. Our guide to the broadband Universal Service Obligation explains who qualifies and how to ask.
Other routes include fixed wireless, 4G and 5G home broadband and satellite. Our guides to rural broadband options and whether 4G or 5G can replace fixed broadband compare them, and our broadband deals by area pages show what is offered locally.
Broadband speed FAQs
What broadband speed do I need for Netflix in 4K?
Netflix recommends a stable connection of 15 Mbps or higher for Ultra HD (4K) (checked October 2026). If two TVs are streaming different programmes in 4K, plan for that figure twice, 30 Mbps between them, plus headroom for anything else in use. Netflix also says 4K uses up to 7 GB of data an hour per device. Disney+ asks for more speed, recommending 25 Mbps for 4K.
Is 10Mbps broadband enough?
For light use, often yes. Ofcom calls 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload "decent" broadband and says it is enough for an HD video call. But it will not carry a single Disney+ 4K stream at Disney+'s recommended 25 Mbps, and big downloads will be slow, so add up what your household uses at the same time before deciding.
What upload speed do I need for Zoom or Teams calls?
Zoom lists 3.8 Mbps upload for a 1080p HD call and 1.2 Mbps upload for a 720p one-to-one call. Microsoft recommends 2.5 Mbps upload per device for a Teams video meeting. Two people on calls at the same time need two lots of upload, so check a package's upload figure, not just its download.
What broadband speed do I need for online gaming?
Playing online needs little speed: Xbox recommends at least 3 Mbps download, 0.5 Mbps upload and a ping under 150 milliseconds. Streaming games needs much more. PlayStation recommends 52 Mbps for PS5 cloud streaming in 4K and at least 15 Mbps each way for Remote Play, and big PS5 game downloads often exceed 100GB.
Is a gigabit broadband package worth it?
Mostly it buys shorter waits. Ofcom says a 1 GB HD episode takes under four and a half minutes at 30 Mbit/s and about eight seconds on gigabit. In July 2025 only 21% of full-fibre customers were on 900 Mbit/s or more, so a package that covers your household sum with headroom is often enough.
Why is my broadband slower than the advertised speed?
Advertised speeds are an average that at least half of customers get between 8pm and 10pm, so many lines get less, and Wi-Fi, older routers or 100Mbps Ethernet ports can hold speed back at home. Test on a wired device and, if your provider is a speeds code signatory, compare the result with its minimum guaranteed speed.
