How to find the fastest internet provider near you
High-speed internet is quickly becoming the norm. If your household has multiple users who stream high-quality 4K video, attend Zoom meetings or play games online — sometimes all at the same time — you likely already know the value of fast internet.
Fast home internet makes it possible for multiple users to access internet and streaming services with less lag, latency or choppy video. You can watch Netflix while your teenager plays online games or improve video and sound clarity during your video conference call for work while your kids are attending online school.
If your household members compete for bandwidth and everyone groans any time someone downloads a large file, it might be time to upgrade to a more optimal/faster internet plan. This article will cover the ins and outs of fast internet plans and help you pick one of the fastest internet providers in your area.
How internet speeds work
Most internet service providers offer several options for the speed of your internet plan. Generally, internet speeds are measured in megabits per second (Mbps). A higher Mbps service means faster internet. These speeds depend not just on your ISP but can also be affected by your choice of router or modem and the number of your connected devices.
Mbps explained
As mentioned, Mbps means “megabits per second.” Mbps tells you how many megabits — or how many millions of bits — of information you can download or upload each second over your internet connection. It’s the speed at which data flows in or out of your home network.
“Bps” means bits per second. “Kbps” means kilobits per second, “Gbps” means gigabits per second, where “giga” means 1 billion. People often abbreviate these terms even more, referring to how many “megs” or “gigs” of internet they have.
Speed, bandwidth and broadband
Internet speed is often also called internet bandwidth, although they don’t always refer to the same thing. In general, when an ISP says their bandwidth or speed is 50 Mbps, they are telling you that you may receive 50 megabits of data each second (depending on your equipment, network and other factors). The higher the Mbps, the more data you can receive each second, which means you can use more internet at one time. Your current internet speed can be determined by performing an internet speed test, which will tell you your Mbps download and upload speeds and the time it takes to ping or reach an internet host.
The term “broadband” refers to high bandwidth internet connections. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has even created a broadband map to help people find high-speed internet in their area.
Speed refers to how fast data travels while bandwidth refers to how much data moves through the connection each second. If you think of data flowing through wires as water flowing through pipes, the speed is how fast the water is flowing (or how many water molecules move past a given point per unit time). In this analogy, the bandwidth is a measure of the width of the pipe and indicates the total number of water molecules that flow past a cross-section of the pipe per unit of time.
How much internet speed do you need?
When determining how fast your internet access should be, you need to know the actual speeds needed to support your typical usage. The following is a rough indication of ideal internet speeds for various activities:
- 5 to 10 Mbps: This is sufficient for checking email, searching the internet or streaming music on one device at a time.
- 15 to 50 Mbps: This works for streaming video, video conferencing or online gaming for one or two devices at a time.
- 50 to 100 Mbps: In this range, you can stream HD video on a few devices, participate in multiplayer online gaming and download files fairly rapidly.
- 100 to 500 Mbps: These fast speeds enable multiple internet users to stream UHD videos, download and upload quickly and participate in online gaming.
- >500 Mbps: At the highest speeds, you can do almost anything with multiple users on your network without experiencing reduced quality.
