TeamAre you wondering how fast should your internet connection be for live streaming? If you want to become a YouTuber and occasionally have live streams, you need to have good internet speed. There are a lot of things that you should take into consideration before you go live. In addition to a good microphone, camera, and other equipment, you need to pay attention to the quality of your live streams.
Whether you are a Twitch gamer or a passionate YouTuber, you need to choose the right internet service provider and select the right plan. You also need a high internet speed that can fulfill your expectations and offer your audience high-quality video content. If you are not satisfied with your internet speed, try these ways to improve your connection.
When it comes to internet speeds, you should pay attention to both, download and upload speed. However, in your case, upload speed is more important.
When you have a live stream, you send your video content to the computers of your followers. To make this communication effective you must have a great upload speed and also your viewers should have a decent download speed. It is up to you to ensure the right upload speed and creative content for your viewers. Many internet provider’s plans include low upload speed so it is crucial not to choose this one.
One more important factor for live streaming is bitrate. Bitrate is the rate of bites that are transferred from one location to another. The higher the bitrate, the better quality of your videos.
In this article, we are going to help you choose the right internet speed for live streaming.
What is a Fast Internet Speed?
The internet speed varies from country to country. To be considered a fast internet, the download speed should be at least 25 Mbps and upload speed 3 Mbps. In this particular example, download speed is good. You can stream HD videos on several devices. When it comes to UHD resolution, your speed should be much higher, like 50 Mbps or even more!
At the same time, the upload speed which is used for sending data to the internet is not good. The speed of 3 Mbps simply is not enough to give you the opportunity to have full HD live streaming. You need to have 4 Mbps at least.
Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to measure your internet speed.
How Fast is Your Internet Connection?
There is a large number of internet speed tests. If you want to choose one of them, enter the keywords ‘speed net’ in Google and you will get a list of the best tools. Before you click the button ‘Go’ make sure your internet traffic is free. Turn off all browsers and programs that might trigger some internet traffic. Once you are ready, click the button and find out what is your internet speed.
You will get info about your download speed, upload speed, information about your ISP, and ping. Some people are confused about the ping. In short, ping or latency is how your internet connection reacts to your requests. It is measured in milliseconds.
If you are a gamer, a good ping is important because it means that your connection is responsive. Finally, what does the ping number mean? The lower the number, the better the ping. If your ping is 10 or below, you have a great ping! Anyway, the best ping is between 0-59 ms, the good ping is between 60 -129 ms, and the bad ping is 130+ ms.
The Best Internet Speed for Live Streaming
As we said earlier, if you want to have good live streaming, you need to pay attention to your upload speed and your equipment. Depending on the platform you use for live streaming, these are the minimum upload speeds:
- YouTube Live: 1 – 50 Mbps
- Facebook Live: 4 – 10 Mbps
- Twitch Live: 4 – 6 Mpps
- LinkedIn Live: 4 – 10 Mbps
How to Improve Your Internet Connection
There are a lot of things you can do to improve your internet connection. If you want higher speeds, whether it is download or upload speed, switch to a fiber internet connection.
Make your internet traffic free before you go live. There are applications that constantly use download and upload speeds. If you are using a phone, these applications are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. On the other hand, computer applications that are killing your internet speed are Chrome, Dropbox, and other similar applications that are always active in RAM.
It is crucial to turn off all these programs that reduce your internet traffic!
In the end, remind your family members that you are planning to go live, so they can stop watching movies online or playing games.
