Table o’ Bandwidth Requirements (Download)
Bandwidth (per user) What it’s fast enough for…

<1 Mbps

  • Email
  • Instant Messaging
  • Frustrating Web Browsing
  • MUDs (those old text adventure games, remember?)

1-2 Mbps

  • Web Browsing
  • Audio Chat
  • Streaming Audio (i.e. Pandora)
  • Online Gaming
  • Facebook

3-4 Mbps

  • Video Chat
  • Streaming Video (YouTube, Netflix, etc.)
  • High Quality Photos
  • Peer to Peer File Sharing
  • Obsessive Facebook Use

5-9 Mbps

  • Streaming HD Video

10-20 Mbps

  • Digital Software Distribution
  • Hi-resolution 3-D movies (Avatar / CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon)

25 Mbps

  • Streaming 4-K video (about the highest quality video extant in 2017)

30-50 Mbps

  • Downloading very large files

50-100 Mbps

  • Useful for software professionals who work from home and wish to
    get an extremely large file from the office computer quickly.

100-200 Mbps

  • Huge households
  • Corporations
  • Impatient People

1000+ Mbps

  • Huge Corporations
  • Small Cities

Table o’ Bandwidth Requirements (Upload)
Bandwidth (per user) What it’s fast enough for…
< 256 Kbps

  • Email & Instant Messaging
  • Web Browsing
  • Audio/Video Streaming
  • SSH Server

512 Kbps

  • Audio Chat
  • Online Gaming
  • Remote Desktop

1 Mbps

  • Video Chat
  • Emailing tons of obnoxious photos
  • Hosting a network game (2-4 players)
  • Screen Sharing
  • BitTorrent

2 Mbps

  • Skype with more than 2 people
  • Hosting a network game (4-8 players)
  • Remote Backup
  • VPN
  • Web server for a small site

3-5 Mbps

  • Multicast Video Streaming
  • Web server for a mildly popular site
  • P2P Network Hub

10-50 Mbps

  • Running movie streaming service for small circle of friends.

50-100 Mbps

  • Useful for software professionals who work from home and wish to
    get an extremely  large file into the office computer quickly.

100+ Mbps

  • Running movie streaming service for large circle of friends.

The astute observer will notice that 50 Mbps will allow 3 Skype calls, 2 web-browsing sessions, one showing of Avatar(3D) and another showing of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon(3D), a showing of Gilligan’s Island and a showing of Breaking Bad all at the same time.

The question naturally arises, “So why would I ever need more than 50 Mbps?” There are a few operations (loading a particularly humoungous web page chock-full of graphics) which will take, say for example, only 3 seconds if your speed can momentarily shoot higher (or better yet, much higher) than 50 which might take 5 or 7 seconds at “only” 30 Mbps. It’s pretty hard to use more than 50 Mbps for more than a few seconds at a time.