Yes, 50 Mbps is fast enough internet speed in 2024. With it, you can perform all the possible activities. Be it basic ones like browsing web pages, surfing social media, or bandwidth-intensive activities like HD streaming and online gaming.
Also, 3-4 people can share the internet speed of 50 Mbps, provided you have a capable wireless router and a good cable modem paired with it.
But is 50 Mbps internet fast for everyone? How many devices can it support? To answer all such queries, I ran multiple tests on the Xfinity Starter plan and shared my findings in the article below.
How Fast is 50 Mbps?
To understand the capabilities of 50 megabits per second speed, I've prepared a table of bandwidth requirements for different internet activities.
Check what activities a 50 Mbps connection can support.
| Activities | Required Download Speed | Required Upload Speed | Can 50 Mbps support it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Media | 500 - 2000 Kbps | 200 - 300 Kbps | Yes |
| Messaging & Email | 100 Kbps | 12.5 Kbps | Yes |
| Web Browsing | 100 - 1000 Kbps | 12.5 - 125 Kbps | Yes |
| WhatsApp Voice Call | 100 Kbps | 12.5 Kbps | Yes |
| WhatsApp Video Call | 2-3 Mbps | 250-300 Kbps | Yes |
| Skype HD Call | 1-3 Mbps | 125 - 300 Kbps | Yes |
| Skype Group HD Call | 4-5 Mbps | 500 - 600 Kbps | Yes |
| Zoom HD Call | 3.5-4 Mbps | 400 - 500 Kbps | Yes |
| Zoom Group HD Call | 4-5 Mbps | 500 - 600 Kbps | Yes |
| Watching YouTube Videos [480p] | 500 - 1000 Kbps | 200 Kbps | Yes |
| Watching YouTube Videos [1080p] | 2-3 Mbps | 250 - 300 Kbps | Yes |
| Streaming Netflix [720p] | 1.5-2 Mbps | 250 Kbps | Yes |
| Streaming Netflix [1080p] | 5-7 Mbps | 600-800 Kbps | Yes |
| Online Gaming | 3-4 Mbps | 300 - 400 Kbps | Yes |
| Streaming Audio Music | 400 Kbps | 50 Kbps | Yes |
Theoretically, these activities should pace well on 100+ devices without choppiness or frequent network drops. But in a real-time scenario, your WiFi router must have device limitations and connecting more than the set limit leads to a potential network slowdown.
Well, you can simply browse the internet or send emails through as many devices as you want while connecting to a 50 Mbps WiFi.
Is 50 Mbps Good for Streaming?
Yes, 50 Mbps internet is good enough for your streaming needs.
When streaming content, YouTube is probably the most accessible platform we have, so let’s talk about that first. YouTube is a source of millions of videos uploaded by millions of creators worldwide, available in various qualities, normal to Full HD.
Well, it depends on what video quality you prefer to watch there. A good internet speed for YouTube streaming glides between 15-20 Mbps, so a 50 Mbps connection is good enough to let you stream HD+ videos without clunkiness.
Now, barring YouTube, Netflix and Spotify are the most popular and the best streaming platforms we have, with an option to stream 4K videos.
Let’s start with movies. To stream 4K videos on Netflix, 25 Mbps internet is required, so you and another person could stream such simultaneously, but you might experience some lags.
However, if you’re using the internet for any further processes, then there’s no way you can stream 4K movies on two devices.
On the other hand, only requiring a bandwidth of 5 Mbps, it would be much easier to stream HD movies. Here, you could stream on 10 devices at once without any choppiness or network drops.
But what about streaming music on platforms like Spotify or Amazon prime music? Naturally, streaming audio requires a lot lesser bandwidth compared to videos.
The High-definition audio streaming requires 0.6 Mbps, so play different tracks on 83 devices on the go simultaneously.
Is 50 Mbps Good for Gaming?
Yes, it is. Most games require a 1 Mbps upload speed, so I am confident you can play with nine of your friends at 50 Mbps or 5 Mbps upload speed.
Gaming is probably one of the most bandwidth-demanding tasks. But it mainly demands another factor, ping, which doesn’t correlate with upload or download speed.
| Latency | Summary |
|---|---|
| Less than 20ms | Excellent for gaming |
| 20-50 ms | Average for gaming |
| 50-100ms | Slow with some noticeable lags |
| 100-200ms | Slow, play games at lower frame rate |
| 200-500 ms | Very slow, hard to play any games |
| 500ms+ | Extraordinarily slow, detectable lags |
Apart from ping, you’ll also need a decent upload speed for gaming or expect noticeable lags during your playtime.
To sum up, a 50 Mbps connection allows a single person to play online games, chat with friends, and stream on Twitch in high quality to their heart’s content. But what about the final and most crucial factor, downloading? How would you play a game if you didn’t download it in the first place?
This is where this internet speed might be a tad slow for a gamer, especially for those impatient to wait longer. Let’s look into some examples of some largest files one might download at some point.
Take an example of Call of Duty: Black Ops cold war, one of the most hyped and popular games on PC and other platforms, with a whooping size of around 250 Mbps.
And downloading a file of such a massive size takes a tiresome 11 hours and 10 minutes. You might want to download such large-sized files at night so your bandwidth isn’t throttled for the entire day.
Is 50 Mbps Good or Bad for Video Calls?
To determine if you could attend lag-free video calls on Zoom, let’s shift our focus onto upload speeds from download speeds for a moment. This is because Zoom video calls rely much on the upload rather than download speeds.
Now, most internet plans of most service providers offer one-tenth of the upload speed to the download speed, so for 50 Mbps download speeds, uploads will take place at 5 Mbps at most. But what upload speeds do high-quality Zoom video calls require? The answer would be that the optimal speed for a 1080p video call would be 3.8 Mbps.
Zoom video calls should go on much smoother with an internet speed of 50 Mbps and 5 Mbps upload speeds.
P.S. There is other video calling software available, and Skype is the most famous. But much slower speeds also work wonderfully well with HD video calls on the platform.
Downloading Files with a 50 Mbps WiFi
It’s quite evident from the previous section that an advertised 50 Mbps download speed can cover most of your day-to-day activities.
It’s fast enough to download any of your music albums in less than 15 seconds, and it takes around 4-14 minutes to download a two-hour movie, depending on its quality. There are other things you can do, as listed in the below table:
| Type & Size of File | Download Time |
|---|---|
| Apps and Games [Up to 40 GB] | Less Than Two Hours* |
| HD Music Album [Up to 500 MB] | 10-12 Seconds |
| HD Movie [Up to 3 GB] | 4-14 Minutes |
| Email Attachments [Up to 25 MB] | 2-3 Seconds |
| High-Quality Picture [Up to 5 MB] | 1-2 Seconds |
To conclude, you can experience good download and upload speeds for most activities.
Cost & ISPs That offer 50 Mbps Plans
The internet speed of 50 Mbps costs anywhere between $20 to $80 depending upon the provider and region you belong to.
However, if your requirements can't be matched with 50 Mbps and you can afford higher internet plans, you may check out internet speeds of 400 Mbps and 1000 Mbps.
| Internet Provider | Service Package | Download Speed | Upload Speed | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xfinity by Comcast | Internet Up to 60 Mbps | Up to 60 Mbps | Up to 12 Mbps | $50 / Mo |
| Midco | Fixed Wireless Internet 50 | Up to 50 Mbps | Up to 10 Mbps | $65 / Mo |
| Ziply Fiber | Fiber 50/50 | Up to 50 Mbps | Up to 50 Mbps | $20 / Mo |
| Rise Broadband | Internet 50 | Up to 50 Mbps | Up to 10 Mbps | $35 / Mo |
50 Mbps vs Other Speeds
| Internet Plan | Download Speed* | Upload Speed | Summary | Ideal Users | Suitability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Mbps | 0.625 MB/s | 768 Kbps | Slow | 1 | Browsing on Single Device |
| 10 Mbps | 1.25 MB/s | 1.7 Mbps | Basic | 2 | Browsing on 2 Devices |
| 25 Mbps | 3.125 MB/s | 3 Mbps | Average | 3 | Browsing on 2-3 Devices |
| 50 Mbps | 6.25 MB/s | 10 Mbps | Good | 4 | Social Media / Content Creation |
| 100 Mbps | 12.5 MB/s | 11 - 12 Mbps | Very Good | 5 | High-Graphic Gaming on Consoles |
| 200 Mbps | 25 MB/s | 20 - 25 Mbps | Decent | 10 | HD Streaming on Multiple Devices |
| 300 Mbps | 37.5 MB/s | 32 Mbps | Better | 15 | Home Use with a Few Smart Gadgets |
| 400 Mbps | 50 MB/s | 35 Mbps | Fast | 20 | Small Offices / Small Businesses |
| 500 Mbps | 62.5 MB/s | 60 Mbps | Very fast | 25 | Modern Homes with Lots of Gadgets |
| Gigabit | 125 MB/s | 100 - 120 Mbps | High-Speed | 30 | Hotels, Hostels, or Office Premises |
Frequently Asked Questions
50 Mbps is good enough for working from home. Two or three people can connect simultaneously to work with online softwares like Slack, Google Drive, Hubstaff, Todoist, and others. Nevertheless, if you need to download or upload huge files, it would be great to have subscribed to a 100 Mbps connection.
If it’s just you or one other person connected to your internet, or not a lot of devices are sharing a similar bandwidth, it’d be ideal to get an internet plan that offers 25-50 Mbps for gaming. This plan's download and upload speeds must be sufficient to cover your gaming and other internet needs.
A 50 Mbps plan is good for 2-4 people connecting on 5-7 devices. This particular speed handles 2-3 video streams and additional online activities like web browsing, sending emails, or others.
A 4K video streaming requires a bandwidth of 25 Mbps, so any plan that offers such or more should be optimal. A 50 Mbps plan must run 4K videos on two devices, provided no other device uses the bandwidth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, 50 Mbps speed is more than enough for a single person into gaming, streaming, or a working professional. However, the speeds might not be ideal for more than 3 individuals with similar needs.
So, before subscribing to an internet plan, it would be ideal for you to determine your particular needs and make decisions accordingly.
