400 Mbps is 16 times what the FCC classifies as broadband internet and is suitable for almost any need. It is best suited for being shared by multiple users or downloading huge volumes of data.
In the rest of the article, we’re going to look at how good 400 Mbps is for a number of different tasks, such as gaming and streaming, and also what other factors are important to consider in an internet connection, such as latency.
How Does 400 Mbps Compare for Specific Tasks?
People use the internet for a diverse range of activities. These different tasks will have varying degrees of dependence on internet speed. Let’s look at some of the most common things that people consider internet speed for.
Is 400 Mbps Good for Gaming?
If you do a lot of online gaming, you understand the importance of having a good internet connection. If you have a download speed of 400 Mbps, that is significantly higher than what you need to be able to game smoothly. With online gaming, however, it’s important to consider your line’s upload speed and latency, which can ruin a game if they’re poor.
For gamers who only play offline, your internet connection’s speed is important for keeping your games up to date. Most video game distribution in 2022 is digital, and updates are delivered frequently, so having 400 Mbps will enable you to spend less time waiting for your downloads to complete before running your game.
Is 400 Mbps Good for Watching Streaming Video?
Whether you watch premium streaming services like Netflix or just enjoy watching YouTube videos in high definition, a good download speed is essential to doing this without having to pause for buffering.
Not only is 400 Mbps enough to allow you to stream even 4K video without buffering, but it can also support streaming different media to multiple TVs and computer screens in the house all on the same internet connection, making this ideal for families.
Is 400 Mbps Good for Streaming Your Own Content?
For example, if you stream on sites like Twitch, your download speed is not the most important factor. Although download speeds will scale in quality alongside other elements of your internet connection, you will want to pay much greater attention to your upload speed and latency since these factors will determine how smooth your stream appears on the other side.
Is 400 Mbps Good for Downloading Large Files?
The best task you can use a 400 Mbps internet connection for is downloading large files. Maybe you do it as part of your job, or perhaps it’s just a hobby, but if you regularly need to pull huge files off the internet, a breakneck download speed will save you a lot of time in waiting.
To put it into perspective, if you need to download a 4 GB file, it will take less than a minute and a half to do so at 400 Mbps. If your internet connection is 25 Mbps, which the FCC uses as the cutoff speed for broadband, the same file will take 23 minutes.
Is 400 Mbps Good for Office Use?
Offices with multiple people working simultaneously are another setting that benefits from having a 400 Mbps internet connection. Although we’ve learned that 400 Mbps is rarely necessary for a single user, it is a great speed to share out between multiple people without them experiencing slowdowns or buffering.
What Are Some Other Considerations for Internet Connections?
Most internet service providers will use their download speeds as the primary feature when advertising their different internet plans. This is enough for most situations, but there are scenarios where you should consider the other significant factors.
Let’s look at three of the most important ones below.
Upload Speed
Although it’s rarely considered, internet use is impossible without uploading data. What is true is that, for the most part, this data is simply the requests to sites, which takes up very little bandwidth. If, however, you’re a streamer or need to be uploading large files to external servers for work, upload speed is crucially important.
Latency
Latency measures how quickly your computer can communicate with servers connected through the internet. The milliseconds of difference will be irrelevant for downloading large files but can ruin an online gaming experience through excessive lag.
Reliability
It may be impossible for an internet service provider to offer a 100% uptime guarantee, but you want to get as close to this as possible. Having your internet connection cut out in the middle of an important gaming tournament or towards the end of a big file’s download can be much more frustrating than having a lower speed.
Conclusion
We’ve learned that when assessing is 400 Mbps good, the answer is yes for just about any purpose, but we’ve also looked at some of the other features that can be as important in an internet connection.
