How does your speed compare
Know your speed
As mentioned, if your Broadband is rated at 1 Mbps or lower, it would be considered very slow by UK standards. Here is a ‘Tier List’ of Broadband speeds, ranking from ‘S-Tier’ down to ‘F-Tier’ depending on how slow it is.
It’s important to keep in mind your personal circumstances when looking at the list, if you live alone and you don’t use the internet all that much you really don’t need a broadband speed more than ~11mbps; but you’ll need exponentially more depending on how many people live in the household and what the households data usage is. There is also normally a big gap in capabilities between urban broadband speeds and rural broadband speeds, so what’s considered ‘good’ can vary a lot even within the same country!
500+ mbps
S-Tier
If you have 500 or more mbps Broadband speed, you’ve got the fastest commercially available broadband around! You really don’t need this kind of speed unless you live in a very large and data hungry household or work a very data-intensive job.
111-499 mbps
A-Tier
If your Broadband lands between these figures, you have a Broadband speed that qualifies as ‘Ultrafast’. A-Tier is quite a broad range as it can change a lot depending on circumstance. Live alone? Having something in the region 111 mbps is beyond overkill for most people if that’s the case, this is a tier meant for the very data-hungry.
65-110 mbps
B-Tier
The B-Tier range is the ‘Superfast’ speed range that is considered ‘good’ for a household of 5 or more people that use the internet regularly, and it is perfectly suitable broadband speed for online gaming and 4k TV streaming; provided the household doesn’t do it frequently or that it’s only one person who is a gamer. It’s not the fastest, not by far, but who cares when it still lets you do what you want to do?
38-64 mbps
C-Tier
This is the ‘Fast’ broadband range. Your average family of 3 or 4 people will be more than happy to land in this bracket, as even the lower end of C-Tier is still rated as ‘good’ for a family of 3 or 4. However, at this level, online gaming and 4k streaming are no longer really practical; but anything short of that should be plenty fast enough.
10-37 mbps
D-Tier
Just because it’s D-Tier doesn’t mean it’s ‘bad’. 10-11 mbps is still considered ‘good’ for most people who don’t use the internet a lot, but if you own a console like an Xbox or Playstation? Then you will start to see serious slow downs in this tier bracket, D-Tier is not a suitable place to be for gamers, but these speeds can still support occasional streaming.
2-9 mbps
E-Tier
If you’ve landed down here, your internet is slow, and there is probably something wrong with your network. Basic things are still possible, but downloads will be painfully slow and streaming will be practically impossible.
1 mbps or less
F-Tier
Either your machine is truly ancient or you have effectively lost internet connection. Having a Broadband measured in kbps is the true abyss of modern broadband speeds, it would be very hard to go any lower.