When searching for a good internet package for households, one of the most common questions that appear is “which is the best speed for me?”. Although many will conclude the best home internet and phone bundles are going to include the highest Mbps speeds available on the market, such as 1 gigabit internet service, in most cases a more standard internet plan would do the work.  

In fact, it is normal that with the increased number of fast internet connection offers available, consumers tend to think they lose something if they do not keep up with the service evolution. And sometimes there is a truth behind this belief, as some types of technologies become outdated within time.  

However, when it comes to choosing a good internet speed, one must be truly rational. Therefore, the most important questions to be made are:  

What is my type of internet?  

Wi fi, satellite systems, cable tv + networks play differently in various aspects, and each of them usually offer a limited spectrum of speeds. This will first set a perspective of what is possible to reach in terms of velocity for your broadband.  

How many people will use it? 

Defining regular network users and their peak time will help a lot to define the best plan.  

What are the main activities? 

Browsing, emailing, watching video, etc. Set a list of what you do the most. This data usage profile can be drawn with the help of online charts, blog contents available online, tutorial videos and other free contents.  

Upload and Download Speeds 

These are the two different types of speeds that come with each internet service technical information. As the own name says, the first defines how fast information can be sent from your device to the internet, while download speeds will determine how fast they will travel from the internet to your fixed location.

When you look for the most common downloading and uploading activities you and other residents usually do, you will have a more measured idea of the perfect internet speed match for your house. 

A good download speed for most houses is 10Mbps per user. But this does not include heavy internet users, or people that usually deal with large files and engage in bandwidth-intense activities like video streaming services.  

For upload speeds, 5 Mbps per person will usually be enough. Not counting regular uses for homework and home-schooling activities, that would ask for 25-50 Mbps speeds in general.  

Average Speeds 

Specialists and people in general tend to disagree about what a good average speed means. But, between the least advanced speed, which ranges from 0-5 Mbps to the ultra-fast velocities that reaches more than 1 gigabit per second, it is possible to say that a 100 Mbps internet would be a good enough choice for most customer cases.  

Why? Because it is a high-speed internet service that can support 4k streaming, multiple devices, online gaming, basic activities such as emailing and browsing, and it is not a super difficult option to find on the internet service market.  

To have a general idea, U.S.’s residents download speeds vary from 12 to 25 Mbps, in most cases. 

However, download speeds can be divided in three basic categories: 

• Basic: 3 - 8 Mbps  
• Moderate: 12 - 25 Mbps  
• Advanced or Fast Speeds (According to FCC): more than 25 Mbps