How Many Mbps Do I Need to Work From Home?

The internet has become a staple for work in every place around the world. Even when the job itself doesn’t require an active internet connection, communications are conducted through the internet. But many jobs do require the internet and have heavy network usage. 

Working from home has become more common. This means that using the internet for both communication and the job itself is essential. For this, a fast, reliable, and stable internet connection like fiber optic is the best. So let’s get into the details of how fast your internet needs to be to work from home.

Understanding Mbps and Your Internet Speed Needs

There are many ways to measure internet speed, but the most common and widely used is Mbps. Mbps translates to megabits per second, which is how many units of data per second get transferred across the internet from one device to another. 

You might get some variance from your Mbps depending on how many active users are on your network and how heavily they are using the internet. For instance, the recommended speed for streaming video calls is 50 Mbps.

A great way to test how well your internet connection is performing is by performing a speed test through any online tool like SpeedTest. However, there are many more ways to improve your internet speed.

Recommended Speeds for Common Remote Work Tasks

Video Conferencing

For 1-on-1 calls at lower-quality resolutions like 480p and 720p, a minimum of 0.6 Mbps is recommended. For higher resolutions like 1080p, a minimum of 1.5 Mbps is the ideal choice.

When going for group calls, faster speeds, starting at 2.5 Mbps, are recommended. However, the speed requirement will scale up with the group call video quality for each person as well as how many people are active on call at the same time.

Note that these speeds need to be symmetrical, meaning that you want 2.5 Mbps of both upload and download. Streaming video calls demands both, and fiber optics is usually the best for this since all of its speeds are symmetrical. 

File Sharing

When you need to share files, the necessary speeds for a solid connection and transfer speeds for small files like images and documents are 10 Mbps. For higher-quality images, videos, and large document files, speeds starting at 50 Mbps will be essential for daily work.

Any workload that requires constantly sharing and downloading files of many sizes can benefit from speeds starting at 100 Mbps. 

Web Browsing and Email

If you only need to do basic tasks like browsing the web and checking your email, 1 to 5 Mbps should cover your needs to browse anything without waiting for pages or emails to load. If you’re constantly checking websites with multiple multimedia contents, then 5 to 10 Mbps is best.

Multitasking with multiple browser tabs open at once or using heavy web applications might require higher speeds. 

Benefits of fiber internet for remote work

When working from home, joining video calls, or checking your email, having a stable and reliable internet connection is as important as having fast speeds. Luckily, fiber internet is both fast and reliable at all times. Fiber also offers the best whole-house WiFi coverage.

Fiber optic internet not only offers great symmetrical speeds but also works during power outages due to the technology not requiring electricity. Other types of internet, like cable and DSL, require electricity to work. While some devices might not work during power outages, if you have a laptop, you can use it normally with an internet connection, even when the power is out.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand how much internet speed you need in order to do your work reliably. Each task might require a different speed, so getting a fast internet connection to cover every possible case might be the best option.

For the most reliable and fast internet speeds, fiber internet is superior to other choices. Reach out to Fidium Fiber today and start working from home with security and stability!