Is 500 Mbps fast?
Grade 6 of 7: Elite
Elite. A connection that gets things done before you have finished asking. I am almost pleased.
500 Mbps download is grade 6 of 7 on the Speed Roast scale: Elite. It streams 20 4K pictures at once, handles a busy household, and downloads a full game in 18 minutes.
What 500 Mbps can do
- HD streamingYes
Around 100 HD streams at once before anything stutters.
- 4K streamingYes
About 20 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) | 36 seconds |
| A film in 4K (15 GB) | 4 minutes |
| A modern console game (60 GB) | 18 minutes |
Assumes the connection delivers about nine-tenths of 500 Mbps for the whole transfer, which a good line does and a busy one does not.
If your test said 500 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 500 Mbps good for streaming?
Yes for HD: about 100 streams at once. For 4K, roughly 20 at a time.
Is 500 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 500 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 500 Mbps?
About 18 minutes, assuming the connection actually delivers 500 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.