Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking Ultimately, the number of people and devices under your roof will dictate which speed you need but even smaller households may opt for faster internet for more bandwidth-intensive online activities. To find that sweet spot, you’ll want to follow these steps: Don’t forget to count yourself when you tally up everyone who connects to your internet. Other potential internet users can include your partner or spouse, children, housemates, and even frequent visitors, like friends, grandkids, or siblings. Gamers also need an internet connection and router with low latency and good bandwidth—and preferable a good upload speed to top it off. Find out which ISPs we recommend for online gaming in our round-up of the best NBN internet plans available. You might only have two or three people using your internet, but each person can have multiple devices connected to your Wi-Fi at one time so this may take some thinking. There are so many smart devices that use your wireless network in today’s world. It’s easy to forget how many you have at home, but this list of common connected devices might help jog your memory: Each of these activities requires different speeds—otherwise you’ll run into laggy internet or that dreaded buffering icon. Here’s a quick look at the bare minimum internet speed you’ll need for a few common online activities. It’s more likely you’re a multitasking machine when it comes to doing things online. You’re streaming House of the Dragon on Binge while you check email, download an HD video to watch later tonight, and hop into an Overwatch 2 match. And your roommate, child, or partner is doing the same things at the same time that you are. This is why most broadband providers don’t offer internet plans with just 5Mbps—they’re offering you 50, 100, or even 1,000Mbps plans, so you can keep doing what you do best online without any interruptions. Download speed is how fast data is being transferred from the internet to your device. A bulk of most people’s internet usage relies on a fast download speed to load web pages, music, and streaming videos. We’ll start by going over our recommended baseline speed per person and device.
People: 25Mbps per person Devices (not 4K): 10Mbps per device Devices (4K): 25Mbps per 4K device
Okay, now let’s see how those recommended speeds add up with an example. Let’s say we have a home with two adults and two children who all use the internet. Here’s a list of the internet speeds each person gets, plus the internet speeds each of their devices gets.
People: 25Mbps x 4 = 100Mbps Desktop computer: 10Mbps x 2 = 20Mbps Laptop: 10Mbps Tablet: 10Mbps Mobile device: 10Mbps x 3 = 30Mbps Smart TV (4K): 25Mbps x 2 = 50Mbps Xbox gaming console: 10Mbps Wi-Fi printer: 10Mbps Home security system hub: 10Mbps Home security camera: 10Mbps x 2 = 20Mbps Total recommended speed: 270Mbps
The recommended internet speed for this family is 270Mbps. That may seem like a lot of speed, and you’re probably right. This recommendation assumes that every person and every wireless device is online at the same time. That’s where online activities can factor in. If the family knows they usually stream 4K videos on one of their TVs about once a week and in the evening when no one’s on their computers, gaming on the Xbox, or using the printer, they can probably knock this speed down a bit to 200Mbps. If the family knows no one uses the computers and tablet for working or studying from home, they might even be able to get away with 100 or 150Mbps. Enter your address, and we’ll pull up a full list of NBN plans available in your area. Then you can easily check what plans they have for you and how much each plan costs. Easy, peasy.
