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Lots of ISPs now only offer fibre broadband, although some providers still include an ADSL connection in their basic packages. In contrast to the standard ADSL connection, which uses the traditional copper telephone to relay data, fibre broadband sends that information via optic cables that are faster and more reliable. Do I need fibre broadband?įibre broadband was introduced to the UK in 2008 and is now the prevalent form of internet connection. That’s the subject of a whole other article, but we’ll say that gamers searching for peace of mind will need a connection speed of around 30Mbps. With these ultra-fast, reflex-driven games, lag-free gameplay is vital, and it relies on all participating players having a low ‘ping rate’. More draining on your broadband still are FPS games (first-person shooters), the most popular example being Call of Duty. In these games, often thousands of players connect to the service, which is more taxing on your connection speed. But online gaming is growing far more complex, especially with the rise of MMO (massive multiplayer online) games like World of Warcraft.
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Most solo player online gaming requires a fairly meagre bandwidth of 3Mbps or thereabouts. This is a real rabbit-hole of a question. We know that a portion of our readers are avid gamers: the results of our survey indicate that 28% of participants use their home broadband for gaming, with 27% having a console connected to the wi-fi. What broadband speed do I need for gaming?
#What download speed do i need tv#
There’s going to be nothing more annoying than being forced to downscale the picture quality of whatever you’re watching on your 4K TV because it won’t buffer properly. Don’t forget that many leading smartphones now can stream in 4K – and that’s a trend that’s only going in one direction. That’s a lot of bandwidth, but after all, Ultra High Definition offers you a lot of picture detail – to find out more, read our what is 4K TV explainer.Ĭertainly, if there’s more than one 4K-ready device under your roof, we would steer you in the direction of most ISP's (internet service provider's) mid-range packages. Here’s where much more is asked of your broadband – to stream uninterrupted 4K TV, you’ll need a connection speed of around 25Mbps. Choosing between a standard and mid-range broadband connection speed will probably boil down to how many people you think will be streaming at the same time in your household. Broadband speed for streaming in HDĪs mentioned, connection speeds of 2.5 to 5Mbps should be fine for streaming HD content. If you want to stream content, but you don’t own a smart TV, you can always pick up an Amazon Fire TV Stick or Roku Express. Since you can adjust the resolution you stream in from your TV, there’s no set optimum connection speed for using a smart television. Each TV brand uses a different smart platform, and some come with more features than others – to find out more, you can take a look at our what is a smart TV article. Broadband speed for a smart TVĪ smart television is simply one that can be connected to your home’s Wi-Fi and turned into a device that can browse internet content, and stream from all the usual apps. But 4K is a different matter entirely – we’ll dive into that in a bit. This is good news for people who live alone, or couples who don’t do much multiple streaming – the cheaper packages should have you covered. If you have a smart television you can connect to your home broadband, you’re almost definitely granted access to all the big-hitter services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus.įor non-HD content, these services typically need anywhere between 1.5 and 3Mbps of bandwidth, and for HD, around 2.5 to 5Mbps. Broadband speed for Netflix, NOW TV and more And is anyone working on a laptop or home computer? It all stacks up. But think about how many people in the home own a smartphone: don’t forget that these are streaming devices. Say you only have the one television in the house, and you watch non-4K content – you might think you’ll only need a basic package. A crucial part of choosing the right broadband speed is being able to guess how much internet activity is going on at the same time in your house.Ĭonsider the number of occupants in your house. When we list the required Mbps for an activity, we’re talking about the bandwidth needed for this standalone activity. We’ll go into how many megabits per second (Mbps) you’ll need for each of them in just a second – firstly, though, an important disclaimer.
#What download speed do i need full#
Well, this is all about which format you like to stream your content, which can range from anything between Standard Definition, HD, Full HD and 4K.