A part from price, internet speed is one of the main decision drivers when shopping for internet or evaluating your current internet service. Fast internet enables you have great streaming, download a movie in seconds, among others. But, unlike price – where you can easily look at the monthly cost and say “that fits my budget” – internet speeds can be a bit more tricky to gauge.
Internet speed is measured by how much data the connection can download (download speeds) or upload (upload speeds) per second.
For most households in Uganda, having fast download speeds is still a dream given that fact that internet penetration is currently at 37% according to UCC’s latest statistics. Common use for internet includes streaming TV, downloading music and browsing social media.
Upload speeds come into play with things like video conferencing and uploading large files to a server or cloud.
What’s a good internet connection?
According to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 2018 Broadband Progress Report, the Commission voted to change the definition of broadband which has raised from 4Mbps to 25Mbps download, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps. This means that we are way behind this set bar, as our internet speed experience is not as good.
Speeds much faster than a standard broadband connection are generally considered “fast” internet. While all speeds below that threshold aren’t always necessarily slow, they are too slow to be considered broadband internet.
Keep in mind there are many things that can affect actual internet speeds and performance. Adding connected devices and using the internet for demanding tasks such as streaming in 4K or downloading an HD movie can hinder performance and make even “fast” speeds seem slow.
A good internet speed is at or above 5Mbps for personal use and 25 Mbps for a household or small business (SME). These speeds will support most online activity, such as HD streaming, online gaming, web browsing and downloading music.
Fast internet speeds, those in the 100+ Mbps range, are often better, especially if you want your internet connection to support multiple devices in an office with many users connected at once.
The movie download test
Please note that this article is not about the Internet Service Provider (ISP) we used for our tests, but to give readers out there more information how a fast internet connection can help save time. Also, it should be noted that the higher the speeds the more the cost.
We used 1 Mbps, 3 Mbps, 5 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 25 Mbps and 30 Mbps dedicated connection for both our upload and download test.
Download a Movie
File sizes for things like music, movies and pictures vary, but a movie can range from 1 to 7 GBs depending on the length and picture quality. Here’s how long it would take in hours:minutes:seconds to download a 4 GB Ultra HB movie file with various speeds.
| 1 Mbps | 10 Mbps | 25 Mbps |
| 9:32:39 | 0:57:15 | 0:22:54 |
Upload a short video download
Video files vary in size, we used a 500 MB mkv video clip, which could amount to 10 minutes or more in standard definition (SD). Here’s how long it would take to upload it with various upload speeds.
Keep in mind, upload speeds from internet providers are often significantly lower than download speeds. Some fiber-optic providers, however, do offer upload speeds comparable to their advertised download speeds.
| 1 Mbps | 3 Mbps | 5 Mbps | 10 Mbps | 30 Mbps |
| 1:09:54 | 0:23:18 | 0:13:58 | 0:06:59 | 0:02:19 |
These download and upload times are estimates and based on a constant speed. As mentioned above, there are many factors, such as the number of connected devices and types of internet activities performed, that can affect internet speeds and the time it takes to perform a given task.
