Is 10 Mbps good? Where 10 Mbps stops being enough

10 Mbps is enough for one or two light users: one Full HD stream with browsing, or a video call, but not both comfortably at once. It's the UK's legal floor for "decent" broadband, at least 10 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. It's also a tenth of the FCC's 100 Mbps broadband benchmark. Any home with two people streaming at the same time will outgrow it.

What 10 Mbps runs

Keep about a quarter of the line free as a rule of thumb, and you have 7.5 Mbps to plan with. That fits:

• one Netflix Full HD stream at 5 Mbps, with room for phones and browsing;
• one YouTube TV HD stream at 7 Mbps, just about;
• a Zoom 1080p call at 3.0 Mbps down;
• music, including Spotify Lossless at about 1.5–2 Mbps.

These are estimates based on each service's published figure. Two of them at once is where trouble starts. A Full HD stream and a 1080p call add up to 8 Mbps, already past the comfortable margin.

Where 10 Mbps stops being enough

• A second screen. Two Full HD streams need 10 Mbps together, the whole line with nothing left. YouTube TV asks for 13 Mbps for reliable HD while other devices are in use.
• 4K. Netflix recommends 15 Mbps for a single 4K stream. A 4K TV may try to pull a higher quality than the line can sustain, then drop back and buffer. Setting the app to HD gives a steadier picture.
• Downloads. Updates and game downloads take every spare megabit, and at 10 Mbps they take a long time. The table at the top of this page shows how long. Anyone streaming while a console updates will notice.
• Cloud gaming. Xbox recommends at least 20 Mbps for Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The upload is probably the tighter limit

Plans around 10 Mbps down often come with very little upload. The UK minimum is only 1 Mbit/s. That matters for calls: Zoom asks for 1.2 Mbps up for a one-to-one 720p call and 3.8 Mbps for 1080p, so a 1 Mbps upload can't sustain even a 720p call. If your camera freezes while incoming video looks fine, check the upload figure on your result. The Zoom speed guide has the full breakdown.

Making 10 Mbps go further

• Set streaming apps to HD rather than "auto" or 4K on large TVs.
• Schedule game and system updates for overnight.
• Pause cloud photo and file backups during calls.
• Use Ethernet, or sit closer to the router, for whatever matters most. Wi-Fi losses are a bigger share of a small connection.
• Turn your camera off on calls when the picture freezes. Audio needs very little.

Where 10 Mbps comes from

Connections near 10 Mbps are usually older DSL lines, 4G home broadband, basic fixed wireless, or entry wireless plans. Verizon, for example, lists typical speeds of 10–25 Mbps for its Home Internet Lite plan, falling to 3–10 Mbps after the monthly data allowance.

If you're choosing a plan, compare one step down at 5 Mbps and one step up at 25 Mbps. If you'd like room for two people streaming and calling at once, look at 50 Mbps.

Check whether 10 Mbps is your plan or your Wi-Fi

If you pay for more than 10 Mbps and keep seeing about 10, the plan isn't the issue. Run a speed test on a wired device, then on Wi-Fi in the room where things are slow. Why your speed test is lower than advertised covers what to try next.