How many of each activity happen at the same time in your home?

Web browsing and email — about 3 Mbps each

Social media and short video — about 5 Mbps each

Music streaming — about 1 Mbps each

Standard-definition video — about 3 Mbps each

HD video streaming — about 8 Mbps each

4K / UHD video streaming — about 25 Mbps each

Standard video call — about 2 Mbps each

HD video call or conferencing — about 4 Mbps each

Online gaming — about 3 Mbps each

Game or software downloads — about 30 Mbps each

Large file uploads or cloud backup — about 0.5 Mbps each

Smart home devices and cameras — about 1 Mbps each

16Mbps at peak

This is the realistic simultaneous peak. Everything running flat out at once would be 18 Mbps, but households rarely do that.

Bandwidth demand by activity, download and upload
Activity	Number	Download	Upload
Web browsing and email	2	6 Mbps	2 Mbps
HD video streaming	1	8 Mbps	0.1 Mbps
HD video call or conferencing	1	4 Mbps	4 Mbps

What this assumes

Estimates a realistic simultaneous peak rather than adding every activity together, because households rarely do everything at once.
Includes about 20% spare capacity so the connection is not running at its limit whenever the house is busy.
Gaming and video calls depend more on latency and stability than on raw speed. A faster package does not fix high ping, jitter or packet loss.
Wi-Fi, not the broadband line, is the most common cause of slow speeds inside a home.

Method version 2026-07-27.1. How we work this out.

Where the demand actually comes from

The breakdown above shows what each activity contributes, so you can see which ones dominate. It is usually fewer than people expect: 4K video and large downloads account for most of the load, while browsing, email and music barely register.

The peak figure is lower than the total because it accounts for how likely activities are to overlap. Cloud backups and game downloads are greedy but bursty, and they yield to other traffic rather than competing with it in any meaningful way.

Download and upload behave differently

Streaming is almost entirely download. Video calls, cloud backup and sending files are upload-heavy, and upload capacity is typically a small fraction of download on UK packages. A household that looks comfortable on download can still be saturating its upload.

Scheduling costs nothing

If your connection struggles only at particular times, moving the heavy jobs is free. Large downloads and backups can usually run overnight. Many routers can also prioritise video calls over bulk transfers, which helps more than a modest speed increase would.

For a single recommended figure rather than the breakdown, see what broadband speed do I need.