How Much Internet Speed Does Your Family Actually Need?

Internet providers love to sell speed the way truck commercials sell horsepower — more is always better, right? The truth: most families are either paying for speed they never touch, or bottlenecked by a plan they outgrew. Here's how to figure out where you land.

What common activities actually use

Activity	Speed per device/stream
Browsing, email, social media	1–5 Mbps
Music streaming	1–2 Mbps
Video call (Zoom, FaceTime)	3–5 Mbps
HD video streaming	5–8 Mbps
4K video streaming	15–25 Mbps
Online gaming	3–10 Mbps (latency matters more)
Security cameras / smart home	1–4 Mbps each, running constantly

The trick is that these stack. Speed is like water pressure: one shower running is fine, but the question is what happens when the dishwasher, washing machine, and a second shower all kick on at once.

A quick rule of thumb

• Up to 18 Mbps — one or two people, everyday streaming and browsing, up to 4 devices. That's Essential Connect at $60/mo.
• Up to 50 Mbps — the sweet spot for most families: HD streaming on multiple TVs, work-from-home video calls, kids online at the same time. One of our customers runs four TVs at once on this tier with no issues. That's Standard Connect at $75/mo.
• Up to 100 Mbps — 4K streaming, serious gaming, big households, lots of smart-home gear. That's Performance Connect at $97/mo.
• Up to 500 Mbps — large households, several remote workers at once, heavy uploads and cloud backups. That's Ultra Connect at $107/mo — or Fiber Connect at $75/mo if fiber has reached your community.

All of those are month-to-month with no data caps. A one-time $150 installation and equipment fee applies to every plan.

The thing that matters more than speed for gamers

If someone in your house games online, latency — the delay before data starts moving — matters more than raw speed. A 25 Mbps connection with low latency beats a 200 Mbps connection with high latency every single time. This is exactly where fixed wireless shines over traditional satellite: our signal travels a few miles to a local tower, not to orbit and back.

Not sure? Don't guess — ask

Tell us how many people live in your house, what they do online, and how many TVs and cameras you run. We'll tell you straight which plan fits — including when the cheaper one is plenty. Every plan is month-to-month with unlimited data, so if your household changes, your plan can change with it. No penalties, no renegotiating, no promo-rate games.