Download speed your household needs, from the FCC guides and streaming services’ own figures
Updated October 2026
The calculator does two things. It looks up your household in the FCC’s Household Broadband Guide table (1 to 4 devices at a time, light, moderate or high use), and it adds the per-activity speeds of everything running at once: each 4K stream, HD stream, video call, large download and browsing device. Example (the default): one 4K stream at 25 Mbps, two HD streams at 8 Mbps, one Zoom call at 3.0 Mbps and two phones at 1 Mbps add to 46 Mbps, comfortably inside the Advanced tier and the 100 Mbps benchmark. With Netflix’s own figures the same mix needs 30 Mbps; with YouTube’s, 35 Mbps.
| Activity | FCC minimum (Mbps) | Provider figure (Mbps) |
|---|---|---|
| Browsing, email, social media | 1 | – |
| Streaming radio, VoIP calls | under 0.5 | – |
| SD video | 3–4 | Netflix 720p: 3; YouTube 720p: 2.5; 480p: 1.1 |
| HD video | 5–8 | Netflix 1080p: 5; YouTube 1080p: 5 |
| 4K video | 25 | Netflix: 15; YouTube: 20 |
| Video call | – | Zoom group 720p: 1.8 down, 2.6 up; 1080p: 3.0 down, 3.8 up |
| Telecommuting, student | 5–25 | – |
| File downloading | 10 | – |
The FCC calls these minimums for adequate performance and notes that more speed may help. The calculator uses the top of each FCC range so a busy evening does not fall short.
The FCC sorts households into Basic (3–8 Mbps), Medium (12–25 Mbps) and Advanced (more than 25 Mbps) service. Light use is email, browsing, basic video, VoIP and internet radio; moderate adds one high-demand application such as HD streaming or multiparty video conferencing; high means more than one at the same time. One or two light users need Basic; four high users need Advanced. The table stops at four devices, so larger households should rely on the activity total.
| Household | FCC tier | Total, FCC figures (Mbps) | Total, Netflix figures (Mbps) | Within 100/20? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family of 4: one 4K stream, two HD streams, one video call, two phones browsing (default) | Advanced | 46 | 30 | Yes |
| Two 4K streams at once (FCC 25 Mbps each) | Medium | 50 | 30 | Yes |
| Remote worker on Zoom plus a student streaming HD and browsing | Medium/Advanced | 13 | 10 | Yes |
| Single person, one HD stream and a phone | Basic | 9 | 6 | Yes |
| Gaming download, two HD streams and a video call | Advanced | 30 | 24 | Yes |
| Busy home: 15 devices browsing at 1 Mbps each, one HD stream | Advanced | 23 | 20 | Yes |
Download speed carries streaming, browsing and downloads; upload carries your own video on calls, cloud backups and posting large files. Zoom lists 3.8 Mbps up for a 1080p group call, so three people on HD calls at once use about 11.4 Mbps of upload. Many cable plans pair a fast download with a much slower upload, which is why the FCC raised its benchmark to 20 Mbps up as well as 100 down in March 2024.
The figures are rough guidelines for one activity performing adequately, not for a good experience while everything else runs. Streaming services adjust quality to the connection, so a stream may play at a lower resolution rather than stop. Background traffic (updates, backups, cameras) is not in the guides.
The plan speed is what reaches your modem. Wi-Fi through walls, older routers and devices, and distance can deliver much less to a given room, so a slow room is often a Wi-Fi problem rather than a plan problem. Plug a computer into the router with a cable to see what the plan itself delivers.
Run a speed test at busy times, on a wired connection and again over Wi-Fi where you use it most. If the wired result is close to the plan speed but Wi-Fi is not, improve the Wi-Fi before paying for a faster plan.
It does not measure latency (delay), which matters more than raw speed for online gaming and calls, or data caps; the streaming data usage calculator estimates monthly gigabytes. It does not check what plans are available at your address.
Counting people instead of streams. Two people on one TV are one stream; one person with a call and a download is two activities.
Confusing megabits and megabytes. Plans are sold in megabits per second (Mbps); divide by 8 for megabytes per second.
Ignoring upload. A household of video callers can run out of upload long before download.