While cost is often a major factor, make sure your chosen plan meets your educational needs. In the face of tight deadlines, a reliable internet connection is often even more important than a fast connection.

Many factors go into reliability, from disruptions that impact certain kinds of connections to the responsiveness of internet service providers (ISPs) when networks go down.

Even so, speed is still an important factor—especially if you’re sharing an internet plan with roommates.

An excellent first step in finding the right balance for your internet connection is identifying how you plan to use it. Here are some examples of how much internet speed you’ll need for everyday student internet activities:

Studying

Are you looking up information for an assignment or cramming for a test? Fortunately, even long nights full of web surfing don’t require a lot of speed or data. Web pages with text and images only have no issues on a 1Mbps connection. But if you watch a lot of videos, you’ll probably want download speeds closer to 5–25Mbps.

Watching lectures

You will need a reliable connection to watch lectures online. Streaming video can use a lot of download bandwidth, and to participate in the discussion, you’ll need a decent upload speed too. Software like Skype or Zoom will drop your call if your internet speed doesn’t meet the minimum speed requirement.

For example, Zoom can still run on a relatively slow connection, maintaining a 1080p video stream on just 2.5Mbps. But your call could drop if your speed falls below that threshold. A broadband connection usually doesn’t have this problem, but connections with high latency, like satellite internet, might have issues.

If available, use the voice-only option to improve your performance issues.

Uploading assignments

Cable and DSL internet connections can give you fast download speeds but don’t prioritize upload speeds the same way. Slow upload speeds are usually not a problem for tasks like web surfing or video streaming. But if you frequently upload files, get a fiber connection with equal upload and download speeds.

Depending on what you study, the connection speed you need for schoolwork could vary wildly. You can get by on a 1Mbps connection if most of your assignments are papers, but you might want a faster plan if you’re in a field like computer science and need to check and recheck a large codebase. A 10Mbps upload speed can make this an easy process.

If you study something like video production, uploading your big project could take all night, as even some faster types of internet, like cable, often have low upload speeds. Although you can get by with less speed, this can be very frustrating, so we suggest an upload speed of 25Mbps.

Staying connected

Staying connected with friends and family is important when you’re living away from home.

You can usually get by on a 1.5–5Mbps connection when you use Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom. However, you might need a more reliable internet plan (switching from DSL to fiber, for example) or a plan with faster speeds if you experience spotty connections.

Do you use the internet for highly specialized tasks or to relax after a hard day? Find out how much speed you need.

How Much Speed Do I Need?