Home office internet | Home Office Base

Working from home without a computer is almost unthinkable today—but even then, can you imagine doing it without the internet?

A lot of the work people do nowadays is online or at least reliant on the internet in some form. This is why when planning on what you need for your home office, the kind of internet you will be using is no less important than everything else.

So what kind of Internet do I need to work from home? The kind of internet you need to work from home will depend on the type of work you do. If your work involves low-internet usage, you can use a DSL internet connection of at least 12 to 25 Mbps. For high-internet usage, a high-speed fiber internet of at least 50 Mbps may be needed.

To better understand what kind of internet you need, continue reading below. I will tackle that problem from more than one angle so that you can use a few different ways to determine the right internet for you so that you can get the best value for the money.

What Is the Difference Between MBps and Mbps?

Before starting out, I want to go through a few very important details that bring up a lot of confusion. I know this because I myself was confused by these terms for quite some time.

This is very much like one of these “fine print” situations. Many may not even see that the difference lies in the lower case vs. uppercase “b”. As it stands, this small detail merits a lot of attention.

MBps stands for Megabytes per second, and Mbps stands for Megabits per second. Megabits refer to the physical ability to send information, while megabytes refers to how fast the information will be transferred between the two systems.

When a file, a video, or any type of communication between two computers is carried out, that information is sent in bits. These bits represent small pieces of information. They carry different types of information — not just the video or file you are sending or receiving.

This additional information can include a lot of different things like information about the receiver and the sender, about the file, the status of the transfer, and more. However, to many, Mbps will not mean a lot. In fact, it will be very hard to decide, for example, how long it will take you to download that 1 Gb video file from your cloud storage, for example. This is why MBps are seen as more practical means of measuring internet speed.

How to Convert Mbps to MBps?

However, I, and many other people, have always had a better time understanding the speed of the internet we need by looking at the Megabytes. Using megabytes as a reference point, you can calculate—even if vaguely— how much time it will take you to download or upload a file.

However, with this comes a problem—very rarely, if, at all, ISPs give out the MBps speeds. They rather speak of the Mbps only, which can be confusing. A 24-Mbps internet may seem great until you find out that 24 Mbps is very different from 24 MBps.

Fortunately, there is a very simple formula that you can use to convert Mbps to MBps.

In theory, the maximum bits per byte are 8. By knowing that all you have to do is divide the Mbps by 8 and the resulting number will show you the actual MBps.

However, there is a caveat here. Dividing by 10 is something that a lot of people prefer to do for a few reasons:

First, it is a lot easier to do the math in one’s head, making it a lot more practical.
And secondly, by dividing the number by 8, you get—arguably—something more resembling a theoretical maximum when in reality, the chances may be the speed will be somewhat lower due to different factors.

For example:

24 Mbps are about 2.4 to 3.12 MBps.
60 Mbps equal about 6 to 7.5 MBps.
100 Mbps would be about 10 to 12.5 MBps.
200 Mbps are about 20 to 25 MBps.

Of course, these are examples, and your mileage may vary.

Now that you have a more in-depth understanding of what Mbps and MBps are and how to convert one to the other, you will have a much easier time figuring out what kind of internet you will need.

Let’s move on to the next step.

What Are the Different Types of Internet Connections?

Now it is time to take a look at the kinds of internet connections you can stumble upon during your search. There are several of them, with one or two being the most widely used.

Dial-Up

I am throwing this one here for the sake of honoring it. Dial-up was the first commercially available to the public type of internet. These were fun times where you had to choose between having your telephone line working or your internet working.

Interestingly enough, there is data suggesting that even today, there are people that continue using dial-up. Unfortunately, dial-up was—and still is—very slow, reaching no more than 56 Kbps on a good day.

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)

Eventually, broadband DSL internet replaced dial-up internet connections.

It was offering faster speeds and a constant connection to the internet.

There are several different types of DSL internet connections. Not all DSL connections will be the same, and some will be capable of different internet speeds.

Type of DSL	Maximum Download Speed	Maximum Upload Speed
ADSL	1.5 to 24 Mbps	Up to 1.5 Mbps
ADSL2+	Up to 24 Mbps	Up to 1.4 Mbps
SDSL	1.5 to 2.3 Mbps	1.5 to 2.3 Mbps
HDSL	1.5 to 2 Mbps	1.5 to 2 Mbps
VDSL	13 to 52 Mbps	1.5 to 16 Mbps
VDSL 2	Up to 100 Mbps	Up to 100 Mbps

These numbers will vary greatly depending on different factors like the distance or the length of the cable, for example.

Cable

Cable broadband is something that started appearing sometime after the ADSL internet became popular. Cable internet was carried over the television wires and was offering higher speeds.

Cable internet is, on average, a little faster compared to the most DSL broadband connections. Cable broadband internet speed usually varies between 25 and 500 Mbps.

Satellite

Using satellite internet has a few good things about it. It has a very wide coverage and can be used in many different locations. It does not require any ground wires for it to work, which means that in the case of natural disasters, as long as you have a working satellite dish, you will most likely be able to connect to the internet even if there are some signal interruptions.

Unfortunately, satellite internet usually has a high ping or latency. It is also not very impressive speed-wise. Satellite internet speed is generally speaking between 12 and 100 Mbps, depending on your ISP and internet plan.

Fiber Optic

Fiber optic cables contain very thin strands of glass, which allow for a significantly faster internet connection compared to the copper wires used with DSL and other wired connections.

Another plus of fiber is that it can offer more balanced internet speeds—or, in other words, better upload speeds. Fiber usually offers internet speeds between 50 and 1000 Mbps.

How to Decide What Kind of Internet You Need for Your Home Office

First things first—you need to have a good understanding of what kind of a job you will be doing from your home—not all types of work will require you to have a super-fast internet speed connection.

Additionally, not all internet connections are created equal. We will get to that in a bit. Now let’s get over the factors that will determine what kind of internet you will need for your home office.

Since not all types of work require fast internet, let’s break down the different types of work in several categories.

Web Browsing

The size of the average web page on the internet is about 2 MB to 3 MB. So this may be a good ballpark to start from. You want to be able to load a webpage quickly, so this would mean that your internet connection should be at least 12 to 24 Mbps.

Although technically you can browse the internet even on a slower 1 Mbps connection, I do not recommend it as this will cause slow loading times, which can be very frustrating.

Email Handling

Emails do not require a lot of bandwidth or speed. In fact, this may be one of the categories that can potentially have the lowest internet requirements.

If used for sending and receiving emails only—just text no attached files—then you can do pretty well with almost any kind of internet speed.

However, if you will be using your email for sending and receiving files, things can become a little more demanding.

Most email services today have a limited amount of what size of a file you can attach:

Outlook 20 MB
Gmail 25 MB
Yahoo 25 MB

If you will be downloading and uploading a lot of email attachments, it is beneficial to have a faster internet connection.

Overall the bandwidth will be more important, but with that being said, if you find yourself constantly uploading and downloading small to medium-sized files over your email, I would suggest going with no less than 20 to 40 Mbps.

Downloading Files and Cloud Services

The internet speed you will need can vary depending on the type of files you will need to upload or download. Downloading or uploading a 5 MB file will allow you to get away with a lot slower internet speed compared to a 500 MB file.

The time-frame you need to fit in when working also has a significant impact. Can you afford to upload or download the file for several minutes or even hours, or the work needs to be done quickly?

This is why some employers would require their remote workers to have certain download and upload speed (in some instances even low ping). Generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, I would consider a good golden mean to be having 30 to 50 Mbps in both upload and download speeds.

This category also includes the potential applications and programs that you may use while working from your home office, which may require an internet connection. Applications—depending on their use—should not, usually, put too much strain on your internet connection, but it is worth keeping that in mind.

Video Calls (VoIP)

Video calls are not that demanding as previously considered. For example, a skype video call (and screen sharing) would need at the very minimum about 128 Kbps for both download and upload speed. For a higher-definition video call, you may need between 1.2 to 1.5 Mbps of download and upload.

A group video call and screen sharing would require a little higher download speed between 512 Kbps and 2 Mbps and an upload speed of 128 to 512 Kbps. And the more people, the more demanding the call will be.

Smart Devices

The number of smart devices you are using on a daily basis in your home or home office may also affect how much internet speed you would require. These devices are not necessarily too demanding and require a basic internet connection to function. While idle, a smart home device will not utilize any internet.

Smart home devices will use the internet connection at bursts when they are ordered or asked to do something. Generally speaking, you would need at least 512 Kbps for something like Amazon Alexa to work. With that being said, the rule of thumb is to add about 5 Mbps or so to your internet download per every single smart home device. If you are installing cameras as well, you should add at least another 10 Mbps on top of that.

Gaming and Streaming

Some people work in the gaming industry where they may need to be actively involved in the game. This could be by providing in-game support, being a game master, or even streaming the game. These activities will be somewhat more demanding, especially streaming.

For the general single player type of gaming over the internet, you would need at least 3 Mbps of download speed and 1 Mbps of upload speed. If you will be playing with multiple players, it is recommended to have a connection capable of download speeds of at least 20 to 25 Mbps.

However, another important aspect of gaming online is that you will also need low latency (low ping) connection, usually below 100 ms. A ping between 100 and 150 ms can also be tolerable but go over 150 ms, and you are looking at a very jittery and problematic experience. When it comes to streaming, however, things can look even more demanding. Streaming a game will be especially hard on your upload speed.

The actual upload you would need to stream a game over the internet will vary depending on the quality you are looking to push. With that being said, the typical upload speed you would need will vary between 1 and 12 Mbps. In some instances, it may go up to even 61.5 Mbps if you will have to stream in 4K at 60 fps. The ping is going to have a huge impact on the quality of your stream as well.

Online Chat

This may be important to people that are potentially going to have to communicate with their customers, clients, or colleagues over online chat systems. Fortunately, only chat is not heavy on the internet speed requirements. Generally speaking, you will need a connection capable of download speed of at least 512 Kbps with the optimal variant being about 3 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.

The ping will be important here too. When you are live chatting with people, you really want to be quick and responsive—having to wait for several seconds after each message is not going to be a pleasant experience for your clients or customers.

Number of Connected Users

The next thing you need to consider is going to be the number of people (or devices) that will be connected and using your internet connection. The more people—and depending on the type of work—the higher the demand will be.

Below is an example of some average numbers:

Number of Users or Devices	Recommended Internet Speed
1 to 2	5 Mbps
3 to 5	25 Mbps
5 to 15	75 to 150 Mbps
15 to 30	250 to 600 Mbps
30+	1,000+ Mbps

Total Cost

We can talk and discuss how neat it is to have a super-fast internet connection at your disposal at all times. There is no denying that. But since one of the most important aspects for anyone—undoubtedly—is cost. Good internet is necessary, but depending on how much you are willing or can spend, the price of a simple internet connection may limit your options in one way or another.

The cost of a good internet connection will vary between $20 up to $100 per month. On average, the majority of Americans pay about $60 per month for internet services.

Do You Need a Wireless Internet Connection?

Choosing between a wireless and wired internet connection for your home office can be a difficult task. Let’s take a look at some of the most common pros and cons of wireless networks.

Wireless networks give more freedom, effectiveness, and flexibility. More people can connect to the network and use it from different areas of your home or home office.
Although coverage is one of its strong points, it can also be one of its weak points as some materials can interfere with the signal creating spots where you may not be able to connect to the wireless network. Even if you can, you may be experiencing reduced internet speeds and higher ping.
Wireless networks are usually slower compared to comparable wired connections.
Wireless internet is less messy as there will be almost no cables needed—this also makes for a better and cleaner looking home office.
Wireless networks may be more vulnerable to hackers.

As you can see, wireless networks can be an excellent way to declutter your home office and have more freedom where you work from. However, wireless networks may be less secure, slower, and prone to signal interference.

Overall, which internet connection will be best for will depend on personal preferences and needs.

What Download Speed Do You Need for Your Home Office

The download speed you need will be one factor, however, whether or not you will have the needed access to such an internet connection will depend on where you live, your local ISPs, and your budget.

The global average broadband download speed is about 74 Mbps (or about 9.25 MBps) right now. This number has been steadily growing over the past several years, with the top countries averaging at 150 to 202 Mbps.

With that being said, the average internet speed in the U.S. is a little more than 90 Mbps—which is, generally speaking, an excellent internet speed. However, with that being said, you need to consider what the usage of the said network will be, who will use it, and how often.

If other people or members of your home will be using the same internet connection, you may need to account for that if the potential signal and speed fluctuations may affect your work. For example, if you are having an important conference call with 10 other people and this uses up almost all your internet speed, imagine what will happen if someone else in your home decided they want to watch a 4K movie over a streaming service at the same time.

Overall, in regard to all the minimum internet speed requirements, we have explored in this article, I would not settle for an internet plan that offers anything less than 25 to 30 Mbps.

What Upload Speed Do You Need for Your Home Office

Remember when I said not all internet connections are the same — this is the main reason why. Many people may easily overlook this aspect of their internet connection, but the upload speed is important — in fact, it may be vital to your business. Here’s why.

Some jobs may not require you to have fast download speeds but instead a fast upload speed. For example, if you are editing and uploading videos, especially 4K videos on a regular basis, you will need very fast upload speed. These videos can be massive, and time may be of the essence.

If you are offering streaming services, be it games, music, or something else, or if you are using cloud-based storage, there will again be a stronger need for higher upload speeds. This is where many people stumble upon the fact that ISPs frequently do not offer as high upload speeds as their download speeds are.

The global average upload speed is a little over 40 Mbps (about 5 MBps). Considering the requirements of some frequently used services and the potential need to upload average-sized files to the internet, I would recommend going with an internet plan that offers at least 20 to 30 Mbps.

What Kind of Ping Do You Need for Your Home Office

Another aspect of your internet connection that may or may not be important to you is your latency, also known as ping.

Latency is the time—usually measured in milliseconds—needed for an information package to travel from your computer to a server and then return back. The lower the latency, the better and more responsive your internet connection will be.

This may not always be vital to your work, but it needs to be taken into account. If the type of work you are doing relies heavily on very quick actions and responses, you need low ping. It is best to have a ping lower than 100 ms. And such ping can be expected from the majority of the good ISPs.

What Kind of Mobile Internet Do You Need for Your Home Office

So far, we have explored the so-called fixed broadband internet. However, there is one more kind of internet that deserves your attention—the mobile internet.

Mobile internet is significantly slower in comparison to the wired broadband, but it can be an important pillar in your work. The global averages for mobile internet are about a tad below 32 Mbps for download and a little over 11 Mbps for upload.

But I have always considered my mobile internet as a sort of a backup plan if the internet to my computer is down. Although downtimes are a rarity in today’s world, I have had the occasional situation where I didn’t have internet and had to use my smartphone as a hotspot device. In which case, even a slow mobile internet can be a life savior.

When it all began, mobile internet connections were super slow. However, with the improvement in technology, things started to change. Mobile speed may be important to you if you tend to do a lot of work on the phone (or other smart devices) like video calls, video conferences, downloading and uploading files, and more.

There are different types of mobile internet connections as well, like 2G, 3G, 4G, and now even 5G.

Mobile Connection	Label	Maximum Theoretical Speed	Maximum Real World Speed
2G	G	0.1 Mbps	Up to 0.1 Mbps
2G	E	0.3 Mbps	Up to 0.1 Mbps
3G	3G	0.3 Mbps	Up to 0.1 Mbps
3G	H	7.2 Mbps	1.5 Mbps
3G	H+	21 to 42 Mbps	4 to 8 Mbps
4G	4G	150 Mbps	12 to 15 Mbps
4G	4G+	300 to 979 Mbps	24 to 100 Mbps*
5G	5G	1,000 to 10,000 Mbps	100+ Mbps*

* Unconfirmed.

With all that being said, it is important to note a few things. There is a huge difference between theoretical and real-world mobile internet speed. Although the theoretical maximum can seem like a lot in practice, the actual speeds you may get, on average, will be a lot slower. Overall, your mobile internet should not be the main source of internet you use, so you can potentially make do with a slower connection between 3G to 4G.

A 3G connection will be good for general browsing, email correspondences, VoIP, and chatting. And a 4G connection will be the way to go if you want to do everything a 3G can but also be able to upload and download larger files and do other more demanding work. One thing worth mentioning is that some telecommunication companies may offer limited mobile internet. Or they can limit your speeds after a certain amount of data has been transferred, which could limit your ability to finish your job properly.

What Kind of Internet Do I Need to Work From Home?