What's Up With Upload Speeds? Here's All You Need to Know

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When choosing a home internet service, it's important to find a plan with the speeds you need, download and upload.

The information highway isn't a one-way street. It's more like a four-lane, busy and bustling freeway on one side (downloads) and a two-lane, lightly-trafficked road on the other (uploads). Though that road is certainly less traveled, you'd have a hard time getting around online if it shut down.

So what do you use those upload speeds for? And what's a good upload speed for your home? You'll find the answers below. For more Wi-Fi tips, check out the best spot to put your router to speed up your internet, and our picks for the best Wi-Fi routers, the best mesh routers and the best Wi-Fi extenders. 

Sure, download speeds are most important

Just about everything we use the internet for relies on download speeds. You probably don't think about it when you're streaming the latest House of the Dragon episode or shopping online for a new iPhone case, but that activity involves downloading data from the internet. 

What determines how quickly and easily you can download that data -- as in, how good the streaming quality is, how fast the webpage and images load -- is your download speeds. 

The faster your speed, the better your experience is likely to be. Speeds of 100Mbps and higher are often sufficient download speeds, but what constitutes a "good" download speed will vary for every household and the number of connected devices.

But fast internet upload speeds will come in handy

Now, I'd bet you really don't think about it when you're posting the seventh video of your cat to Instagram today (keep 'em coming!), or when you're logged into Zoom for a meeting, but both of these everyday activities involve uploading data to the internet.

Also, consider this: When you search for House of the Dragon on HBO Max, you are entering data and sending it to the internet -- that's an upload. When you type in "new iPhone case" in the search bar and hit Enter, you're uploading data. When someone "likes" your cat video (it's possible it was me), they are uploading data. Granted, you don't need terribly fast upload speeds to do this, but you're using the upload side of your connection nonetheless.

Here are some other ways we make use of upload speeds:

• Video chatting on Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, etc.
• Gaming online
• Submitting work or homework, and working and learning from home in general
• Voice over IP calling
• Posting to social media

What determines how quickly and easily you can perform these tasks? You guessed it: your upload speeds. When it comes to your upload speeds, again, faster is better, but you can get by with upload speeds that are slower than your download speed.

The FCC defines 20Mbps and higher as broadband

For nearly a decade, the FCC deemed upload speeds of 3Mbps and higher as a broadband connection. Recently, however, the FCC updated its broadband definition to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads. I'd recommend upload speeds of higher than 20Mbps, if available, especially if your household has multiple people working or learning from home.

Still 20Mbps should be enough to meet most of the minimum requirements for applications such as Skype and Zoom. Skype recommends a minimum of 100Kbps for calling and 512Kbps for group video chats of seven or more people. Zoom is a bit more demanding, requiring a minimum upload speed of 600Kbps for 1:1 video calling and 3.8Mbps for 1080p HD video group calling.

Remember that these are minimum speed requirements for a single device. As such, you're likely to benefit from much faster speeds.

How to find out your internet upload speed

A good speed test will give you an idea of what your upload speeds are. Run a few speed tests using different devices in different locations throughout your home to get an overall gauge of your connection's upload speed performance. 

If your upload speeds are lower than you think they should be, check out our list of common issues with speed performance and how to fix them. And for more tips on how to improve not only your internet connection but for everything that keeps your home running, be sure to browse our CNET Home Tips section.