# How does my Internet speed compare?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 11, 2026, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296 "2026-08-11T15:36:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/21 "2026-08-11T20:10:01Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#):
>
> Fiber came to my neighborhood a couple years ago and it was a godsend. My cable internet was flaky and a real problem at times for my remote work. Now I’m locked in at 965 Mbps down and 971 up.
I wanted to kiss the installer when I saw the Frontier trucks in my neighborhood. Similar number to yours. Cox can rot in Hell.
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### Author:  [@SDWC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SDWC)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/22 "2026-08-11T20:15:07Z")
There’s a lot of variation here. Won’t the answers vary depending on the particular test that you use? Verizon Fios will tell you point blank if you don’t use theirs you’re not measuring their speed accurately.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/23 "2026-08-11T20:18:32Z")
Up until 6 months ago, I had Xfinity Cable, with about 300 Mbps down, and 30-40 up. But I was sick with dealing with them, so I went with Fiber (T-Mobile in this case) when it hit my area, with a 500 Mbps speed (bi-directional).
In general, I’ve gotten within 5Mbps (either over or under) in both directions, with single digit Pings and mid-teens for latency.
300 Mbps was probably plenty, though both my wife and I are often gaming online (and sometimes a third!) while streaming movies as background noise (more SD than HQ or 4k though). 500 Mbps fiber was the slowest offered though - we could have gone with 1k or even 2k, but didn’t see the need.
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### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/24 "2026-08-11T20:20:35Z")
215/24 using WIFI on my laptop (near the router)
477/333 if I log into tenants fast system downstairs (they do a lot of gaming, so pay for more speed)
24/18 at a cabin on an island, where the only option is a “rural hub” that grabs a signal off a cell tower. This low amount is still enough to stream Netflix or do a zoom call. But not both at the same time.
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### Author:  [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/25 "2026-08-11T21:50:52Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Up until 6 months ago, I had Xfinity Cable, with about 300 Mbps down, and 30-40 up. But I was sick with dealing with them, so I went with Fiber (T-Mobile in this case) when it hit my area, with a 500 Mbps speed (bi-directional).
Exact same here, but T-Mobile (for me) is really a local company (with a national presence) called Intrepid, but the official name of the ISP for technical internet matters is BIF IV, which is a reference to Brookfield Corporation, a Canadian investment management company that owns Intrepid. So the reverse DNS of my IP is `intrepid.com` the whois of that address is BIF IV, and the bill comes from T-Mobile.
I have the 2GB/2GB setup and testing against the Intrepid server I get 2069.48 Mbps down and 1903.91 Mbps with a 2-3ms ping. Testing against Comcast and CenturyLink servers I get very similar numbers, which makes me think the servers and the point of presence of the three networks are probaby in the same building.
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> This push for 1GB is silly, at least for now
“Silly” is too extreme. I’d say “those speeds are possibly a luxury, but don’t be an apologist for the monopolistic broadband industry; 1GB+ speeds _should_ be useful for everyone.”
For download, someplace around 200MB is probably good enough for all the streaming and browsing a household will do. Faster is nice for big download days, but is a luxury. Up that is faster than the typical cable 25Mb speed is extremely important for anyone who wants to protect their data. 25Mb will handle a few Zoom calls, but means offsite backups can take days.
At 2GB upload speed even 100GB+ backups become trivial.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/26 "2026-08-11T22:23:23Z")
> [@echoreply](#):
>
> Up that is faster than the typical cable 25Mb speed is extremely important for anyone who wants to protect their data. 25Mb will handle a few Zoom calls, but means offsite backups can take days.
I have Backblaze. It’s always backing up. Rarely do I add 100GB worth of new data in a day. I don’t like how low my upload speed is now (I could have sworn it used to be higher.) but that’s more for other uses than backup. Trickle backup is very nice.
Similarly, I’ve never watched a 4k stream of anything. I don’t have any 4k screens. Most video I watch maxes out at 1080p anyway, and 1080p gaming lets me not have to spend so much on GPU stuff.
It just feels like to me that most of the time the bandwidth I’d be paying for would be wasted, and I’d feel a need to justify it if I paid more. And then there’s the whole issue of data caps which do not seem to scale with higher bandwidth. So ultimately, on a month to month basis, I still get about the same amount of Internet either way.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/27 "2026-08-11T23:37:14Z")
About 850mb/s down, 30 up. Spectrum, but I have a business account. I needed much faster upload speeds until recently. AT&T is installing (partly) underground fiber in my neighborhood, and has better prices. As soon as they get us hooked up, I plan to switch (or at least lean on Spectrum for a discount). After the teaser promo expired, Spectrum’s fee became outrageous, and I don’t need that much speed anymore.
Besides, AT&T’s service is symmetrical, so their upload speed is 100% of download. Spectrum’s ratio is typically upload only 4% of download, and it has been that way for 20 years. Monopolies will do that.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/28 "2026-08-12T01:34:24Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> I didn’t find any recent threads on this so I’d just like to see how good my connection is.
>
> I get about 50mbps download and 20 mbps upload.
>
> Over to you…
50 down and 20 up as your max isn’t very fast in 2026, especially if you have a family and multiple people live in the same household.
The old FCC definition of broadband was 25 down, 3 up. But it was changed in 2024 to 100 down, 20 up. So technically you don’t have broadband according to the government.
I have fiber with speeds of up to 1Gbps up and down. However my speeds vary. Sometimes I get 900 up and 900 down, sometimes I get 300 up and 5 down. It depends on the time of day.
However I live alone, and I almost never use those kinds of speed. The server has to be sending me data that fast for me to use it, and aside from occasionally downloading a video game I don’t use those speeds. I recently upgraded from 400 down/400 up to 1 Gbps up/down and haven’t noticed any improvements since there no servers I need to download data from that fast.
> [@echoreply](#):
>
> For download, someplace around 200MB is probably good enough for all the streaming and browsing a household will do.
You could get by with less than that. Even 4k streaming only takes about 20 Mbps download speed. 1080p streaming is closer to 6 Mbps and most people use that.
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### Author:  [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/29 "2026-08-12T03:02:15Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Rarely do I add 100GB worth of new data in a day
It doesn’t have to happen often, but when it does, it can cause a big backlog. The other problem with slow upload is that it can cause downloads to slow down, too. If the upstream side is full, acknowledgement packets and requests get delayed. Traffic shaping and QoS can go a long way to ameliorate this, but as they say, there’s no replacement for displacement. When I moved from 25Mb to 2000Mb upload, I turned off all of the traffic shaping stuff.
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> You could get by with less than that
I was aiming higher than “get by” towards “good enough”. A household with multiple people would have trouble saturating 200Mb with just streaming, which is the point. Adequate overhead to cover even the occasional outlier events.
Supposedly Google Fiber is coming to my neighborhood, and will be offering 8GB/8GB connections. I really don’t know if it would be possible for a single household to use that. Great for a whole apartment building or something.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/30 "2026-08-12T04:09:49Z")
402Mb-download, 421Mb-upload.
Xfinity cable internet, would be higher but three people are on the interweb right now.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/31 "2026-08-12T04:24:52Z")
My Metronet is at 743.3Mbps down, and 928.2Mbps Up.
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### Author:  [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/32 "2026-08-12T06:53:40Z")
I just switched to T-Fiber and get 1G up and down. Very pleased.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/33 "2026-08-12T07:21:31Z")
Australia has had a tumultuous relationship with Internet speeds, especially when our plans for world-beating Fibre were completely derailed by a subsequent Govt. We are slowly creeping back up to a decent standard.
Mine is currently 540Mbps down, 50Mbps up. Faster than I need for my typical uses, but I appreciate it anyway.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/34 "2026-08-12T08:35:47Z")
I’m on an old grandfathered service that was supposed to be 150 Mbps down, 30 Mbps up. It’s probably officially increased by now, but it doesn’t matter, because my cable modem is obsolete and they don’t control it any more, so it just goes flat-out as fast as it can. Typically this is 600 to 700 Mbps down and around 70 Mbps up.
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### Author:  [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/35 "2026-08-12T10:18:07Z")
1713Mb down, 1082Mb up. I’m using Bell Canada FTTH.
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### Author:  [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/36 "2026-08-12T10:32:50Z")
CarolinaConnect FiOS, currently 952 down and 949 up.
And that’s with the main connector and the firewall set up in a building about 90 ft from the house and a line run between.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/37 "2026-08-12T17:12:00Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> The old FCC definition of broadband was 25 down, 3 up. But it was changed in 2024 to 100 down, 20 up. So technically you don’t have broadband according to the government.
glee isn’t in the US.
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/38 "2026-08-12T17:28:04Z")
Yes, I’m in England. 🧐
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/39 "2026-08-12T17:51:11Z")
Xfinity cable (though not for much longer) 879 down, 24 up.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2026, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-my-internet-speed-compare/1032296/40 "2026-08-13T01:00:09Z")
67 down, 11 up. It comes with the TV cable (Videotron, a Montreal company) but we have had three people using it simultaneously and no one reported a problem. The only time it mattered to me was when I installed TeX on a new computer and it took several hours. It would much faster if I switched to Bell Canada, but then I would have to deal with that horrible company. And I see no reason I need faster.
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