Here’s what you need to know:

How bandwidth do you actually need to get your job done?  You dont need the fastest Wi-Fi speeds available but you need fast enough Wi-Fi. To make sure that you are able to successfully work from home, without much of an expense.

The first step is to consider what is absolutely necessary for your work:

  • Do you need to download large files quickly? What about uploading?
  • Will you need to use Skype, Zoom, GoToMeeting or other HD video call platforms?
  • Do you need to watch videos?
  • Do you only need to answer emails and use Slack, Teams or another messaging platform?

Depending on your answers from above, here’s an outline of how many megabits-per-second (Mbps) you really need to work from home. Each Wi-Fi speed tier is based on how many devices you have connected to your internet and your activity:

Up to 25 Mbps recommended for:

  • 1-2 devices connected to the internet
  • Surfing the web
  • Email
  • Social networking
  • Moderate video use

50 – 100 Mbps recommended for:

  • 3-5 devices connected to the internet
  • Surfing the web
  • Email
  • Social networking
  • Online multiplayer gaming
  • 4K video streaming

150 – 200 Mbps recommended for:

  • 5 or more devices
  • Surfing the web
  • Email
  • Social networking
  • Online multiplayer gaming
  • 4K video streaming
  • Sharing large files
  • Live streaming video

Depending on the work you need to do, you can make a decision from the WiFi speeds above about how fast your Wi-Fi needs to be.

How to Increase your Wi-Fi speeds to work from home

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have talked to your ISP to get Wi-Fi setup. If your Wi-Fi is all set up, but you need to boost it, there are 5 things you can do right away.

Here’s what you can do to make sure that your Wi-Fi speeds are fast enough to handle working from home:

  1. Check your router placement – is it centrally located and away from obstacles. Walls, metal objects and floors interfere with Wi-Fi signals and can reduce the signal strength drastically
  2. Boost your Wi-Fi signal – a strong signal means faster Wi-Fi.
  3. Check if updates are available for your router – an updated and protected router performs best.
  4. Extend your Wi-Fi range to every corner of your home – no more dead spots.
  5. Invest in a router with high range Wi-Fi like dualband gigabit routers.

We’ve compiled a few internet speed recommendations for common internet activities below. Note that these recommendations are listed per device.

Type Recommended
Email 1 Mbps
Web browsing 5 Mbps
Social media 10 Mbps
Streaming SD video 5 Mbps
Streaming HD video 10 Mbps
Streaming 4K video 35 Mbps
Online gaming 25 Mbps
Streaming music 1 Mbps
One-on-one video calls 5 Mbps
Video conference calls 10 Mbps

How many people use your internet connection?

The second thing you need to consider is how many people and devices will be connected to the internet at any one time. Don’t forget about devices that are connected in the background, like smart home tech. With multiple devices being connected on a single router, the best option would be dual band routers with 2.4Ghz and 5GHz bands. Connect with 5GHz/2.4GHz as per the requirement. If your device is close to the router, you can plug in to the LAN port for full bandwidth and almost zero loses in strength

Streaming info

In general, to stream most videos in standard definition, you’ll need internet speeds of at least 3 Mbps. You need at least 25 Mbps for 4K streaming video on your computer or Ultra HD enabled devices. Some streaming services suggest faster speeds, such as Fubo TV which suggests minimum speeds of 40 Mbps. Buffering can occur when your internet connection cannot download enough data in time to keep a video playing moothly. Buffering can also be caused by the streaming service not sending your device the data it needs quickly enough

Example you have an 100mbps connections, and 5 people are connected to the Wi-Fi or LAN in your connection you may face issues in streaming as the 100 mbps connection bandwidths will get divided between the 5 users.

Buffering : Research shows that two key factors determine whether a user plays and watches a video, or discards it — the time to load, and how seamlessly it plays without buffering. Viewers prefer their videos to begin playing in under four seconds A  report that compared the performance of the top 10 OTT players in India demonstrates that while network speeds below 5Mbps greatly impacted how fast a video would start when clicked, there was a minimal improvement at higher speeds. They discovered that for videos to play in four seconds or less, and for a rebuffering rate lower than 4 per cent, operators needed to deliver a Minimum Operating Threshold or MOT speed of 14 mbps.

Routers explained

How can 802.11n technology claim up to 150/300 Mbps of data throughput if every single Wireless-N Access Point and Router that has a 100BASE-T (up to 100 Mbps 10/100 input port) Ethernet port to communicate through internet The claim is actually That N150/N300
print on router box denotes the maximum theoretical local peer to peer data transfer speed (for e.g. transferring data between 2 laptops connected to the same router wirelessly).

Your router will not give you more than 100 Mbps of INTERNET SPEED whatsoever because wan port itself supports upto 100Mbps only but you will get 150/300 Mbps for local data transfers. Along with the local data transfer if you also want your Internet speed to reach more than 100Mbps you will have to get yourself a gigabit router! It really doesn’t matter if you buy a N450 or N600 or even 802.11AC routers, unless they have a gigabit WAN port, you will never get more than 100Mbps Internet speed. Gigabit WAN input will have 1000BASE-T (10/100/1000 input port) capable of support upto 1000 mbps.

The maximum bandwidth of a wireless connection depends on some other technological factors like interfering equipment’s frequencies, solid walls etc. A device closer to the router experiences a higher bandwidth than a device farther from the router.

Most ISP can deliver desired bandwidth to the LAN point connection to the router. For example, an 100 mbps connection, you will get 100 mbps at LAN point, Wi-fi output depends on the router capacity, input adapter, wi-fi range and bands.

Also, very important point to note is most standard equipment’s, PC’s, Laptops, mobiles, routers etc. have inbuilt only 10/100 receiving adaptors till recently. These equipment are designed to support a maximum of 100mbps bandwidth. So in order to experience the true bandwidth of anything above 100mbps, kindly check the existing equipment for its specifications and upgrade to gigabit (10/100/1000) input router/LAN adapter