Is gigabit internet worth it?

300 vs 500 vs 1000 Mbps, side by side

The table assumes 85% of the plan is usable, which allows for overhead and other traffic, and uses our per-activity figures: 20 Mbps per 4K stream (YouTube), 5 Mbps per 1080p stream (Netflix) and 45 Mbps per 4K cloud-gaming session (NVIDIA GeForce NOW).

Streams at once = floor(plan × 0.85 ÷ Mbps per stream). Download time = 100 × 8,000 ÷ plan Mbps seconds, at the full plan speed and before overhead.

Even a 300 Mbps plan carries a dozen 4K streams at once. What gigabit changes is the last column: a 100 GB game arrives in about 13 minutes instead of about 44. Enter any plan in what can my speed handle to see the same figures for calls and uploads too.

What typical households actually need

These are the household presets from our internet speed calculator, each describing the busiest moment, with 30% headroom added:

None of them comes close to 300 Mbps, let alone 1000. The family of four is a good example: two 1080p calls, a 4K stream, a 1080p stream, a gamer, two people browsing and ten idle devices come to 38.6 Mbps down at peak. Note the creator: download is modest, but upload is what decides the plan.

When gigabit does make sense

• Large, frequent downloads. If several people download big games or project files every week, gigabit saves real time. Each 100 GB arrives about 31 minutes sooner than on 300 Mbps (13 min 20 s against 44 min 27 s).
• Several cloud gamers at once. 4K cloud gaming uses 45 Mbps per player. Five sessions fit in 300 Mbps at 85% usable; a busy household with streams running at the same time can run out.
• Upload, on fiber. Gigabit fiber plans are often symmetrical. For someone who backs up large video files, the upload is the real upgrade: 50 GB takes 1 h 6 min 40 s at 100 Mbps up and 6 min 40 s at 1000 Mbps up.
• The price gap is small. If gigabit costs little more than the tier you need, faster downloads are a reasonable thing to pay a little for. Just don't expect streaming or calls to improve.

Why you may not see 1000 Mbps

• Ethernet overhead. A gigabit Ethernet port carries 1,000 Mbps of raw signal, but packet headers and framing take a share, so a wired test typically tops out around 940 Mbps. At that rate the 100 GB game takes about 14 min 11 s.
• Wi-Fi. Wireless speed depends on the router, the device, distance and walls. Many phones and laptops don't reach gigabit over Wi-Fi even in the same room.
• Plans above 1 Gbps. A 2 Gbps plan needs multi-gig ports (such as 2.5 Gb Ethernet) on the router and the computer; with ordinary gigabit ports you still see about 940 Mbps. Converting between the two scales is easy with the Mbps to Gbps converter.
• The other end. A download is only as fast as the server sending it.

If you already pay for a fast plan and Wi-Fi tests come in far below it, a faster plan won't help. Test on a cable first and compare the two with the speed test checker.

A quick way to decide

1. Work out your busiest moment in the internet speed calculator.
2. Check the suggested tier's upload as well as its download.
3. Decide how much a faster big download is worth to you, using the download-time column above.
4. Check that your router and devices can use the extra speed.