Is 400 Mbps fast?
Grade 6 of 7: Elite
Elite, apparently. I have checked twice. Do not spoil it by using Wi-Fi from the garden.
400 Mbps download is grade 6 of 7 on the Speed Roast scale: Elite. It streams 16 4K pictures at once, handles a busy household, and downloads a full game in 22 minutes.
What 400 Mbps can do
- HD streamingYes
Around 80 HD streams at once before anything stutters.
- 4K streamingYes
About 16 4K streams at the same time.
- Video callsYes
Group calls in HD with other things running are fine. Upload speed matters more than download here.
- Online gamingYes
Playing needs very little bandwidth; what matters is ping. Game downloads and updates are where this speed shows.
- Working from homeYes
Calls, cloud documents, screen sharing and a colleague streaming in the next room, all at once.
Who it serves
Anything a home can throw at it. The limit is far more likely to be Wi-Fi, an old router or the far end of the connection.
How long downloads take
| A song (5 MB) | under a second |
| A one-hour HD episode (2 GB) | 44 seconds |
| A film in 4K (15 GB) | 6 minutes |
| A modern console game (60 GB) | 22 minutes |
Assumes the connection delivers about nine-tenths of 400 Mbps for the whole transfer, which a good line does and a busy one does not.
If your test said 400 Mbps
- At this speed the bottleneck is rarely the line. If pages still feel slow, look at the Wi-Fi band, the router's age, or the device.
- Test on a cable if you can. Wi-Fi routinely halves a connection, and a test over Wi-Fi measures the router as much as the line.
- Upload speed is now the thing to look at, especially for calls, backups and anyone who uploads video.
Questions people ask
Is 400 Mbps good for streaming?
Yes for HD: about 80 streams at once. For 4K, roughly 16 at a time.
Is 400 Mbps good for gaming?
Yes. Playing online uses very little bandwidth; ping is what decides whether a game feels laggy. Downloads and updates are where the speed shows.
How many people can share 400 Mbps?
Anything a home can throw at it. The limit is far more likely to be Wi-Fi, an old router or the far end of the connection.
How long does a 60 GB game take to download at 400 Mbps?
About 22 minutes, assuming the connection actually delivers 400 Mbps for the whole download.
The grades are mine, applied to download speed. Streaming figures use the services’ published minimums with a margin. See how I work.