Broadband
What speed do you actually need?
Less than the industry implies, and steadier than most people's Wi-Fi manages. The steadiness matters far more than the number.
The numbers
| Quality | Per stream | Comfortable line speed |
|---|---|---|
| SD | 2–4 Mbps | 10 Mbps |
| HD (720p/1080p) | 5–8 Mbps | 20 Mbps |
| Full HD, high bitrate | 8–12 Mbps | 30 Mbps |
| 4K | 20–25 Mbps | 50 Mbps |
| Two HD streams at once | 10–16 Mbps | 40 Mbps |
A typical modern UK connection clears every row of that table several times over. Which is exactly why the headline speed is so rarely the problem.
Why stability beats speed
Video needs a steady trickle, not a big burst. A 500 Mbps line that stalls for two seconds every minute is worse for watching television than a rock-steady 30 Mbps one. Speed tests report the burst and say nothing about the stalls, which is why they so often look fine while the picture does not.
Three tests worth ten minutes
- Speed test at the device — on the stick or the phone sitting where the television is, not on a laptop next to the router. That difference is often the whole story.
- Cable test. Plug the device into the router with Ethernet for one evening. If the problem vanishes, it is Wi-Fi and you now know what to fix.
- Peak-time test. Repeat at nine on a Saturday. Congestion at the exchange behaves nothing like a Tuesday morning.
Fixing Wi-Fi, cheapest first
- Move the router out of the cupboard and off the floor. Free, and often enough.
- Use the 5GHz band for the television if it is within range — far less congested than 2.4GHz.
- Powerline adaptors if you cannot run a cable. Imperfect, and usually a large improvement.
- A mesh point near the television. The proper fix for a big or awkward house.
- An Ethernet cable. Ugly. Perfect. Cheapest of the lot.
Things that quietly eat your line
A console downloading an update, a phone backing up photographs, a cloud sync working through a folder, someone else on a video call. Any of these will flatten a stream while a speed test taken five minutes later looks perfectly healthy.
What we cannot fix
Your line. If the connection is genuinely too slow or too unstable at peak, no subscription and no player will rescue it — and we would rather say that before you order than after. If you are unsure, tell us your speed test result at the device and we will give you an honest answer.
FAQ
Questions people ask
Is 4K worth it?
On a large screen with a solid connection, yes. On a 43-inch set across a room, most people cannot tell it from good HD, and the bandwidth cost is four times higher.
Does upload speed matter?
Barely. Watching is almost entirely download. Upload matters if you also video-call while someone watches.
Fibre or copper?
Fibre if it is available — not for the headline number but for the stability, which is the part that affects video.
My speed test says 200 Mbps and it still buffers.
Then the number is not the problem. Test at the device rather than at the router, and try a cable for one evening.
Want a subscription that just works?
Ours is set up with you on WhatsApp, with a written walkthrough for your device.