Why do I need fast broadband?
By Gavin Monks - 3 July 2025
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Life moves fast, and your broadband should keep up. From streaming in 4K to working from home, you rely on the internet more than ever. But when your connection lags, everything else does too. That’s where fast broadband makes a real difference.
In this guide, we'll explain why fast broadband is essential for staying connected, productive and entertained in your day-to-day life.
Why do I need fast broadband?
Working and learning from home, stress-free
When you’re studying or working from home, you need an internet connection that’s fast enough to keep up with what you’re doing.
The right broadband speed depends on what you need to do online. For simple tasks like emails or writing reports, lower speeds might be enough. But if you’re often on video calls, sharing big files or juggling more demanding activities, you’ll need more speed to avoid slowdowns and interruptions. If you’re in a busy household with lots of connected devices sharing the bandwidth you’ll want a fast speed that doesn’t compromise your ability (and that of other house/family members) to effectively work from home.
Enjoying smoother streaming and gaming
Whether you’re watching box sets, catching the big match or gaming online, fast broadband makes all the difference.
When streaming in 4K on one device, you’ll need about 25 Mbps. However, if you share your home with others, or use several gadgets at the same time, your internet has to work harder. Even smaller households with multiple users can benefit from a boost in speed and reliability.
Slow speeds can hold back your gaming sessions. Games have large file sizes, often over 100 GB, and take ages to download on a slow connection. Plus, lag during competitive gaming can spell the difference between a win or a loss.
Fast broadband reduces low latency and jitter – making reaction times instantaneous and reliable when you're gaming.
Making your home smarter and future-proof
Nowadays, there’s a smart version of any home device you can think of, including robot vacuums, smart ovens, smart washing machines and many more.
Fast broadband provides the speed and bandwidth to keep all these smart devices running smoothly, meaning everything works better, faster and without interruption.
As smart home tech keeps getting smarter, a reliable, high-speed connection ensures your home network keeps up – handling more devices and bigger data loads without missing a beat.
Staying connected with family and friends
Fast broadband means smoother, clearer video calls on apps like FaceTime or WhatsApp, so you can see and hear your loved ones, wherever they are, without frustrating lag or dropouts. It also makes it easier to share moments on social media and chat in real time.
Plus, with equal upload and download speeds, sending photos, videos and files to family and friends is quick and hassle-free.
What is a fast broadband speed?
There's a wide range of broadband speeds available, and what counts as fast depends on what you use it for. If you mainly browse the web and check emails, a lower speed might feel fine. However, if your household has lots of smart devices and several people online all at once, that same speed could quickly start to feel slow and frustrating.
You won't need to be told if your broadband speed isn't fast enough. It shows up as waiting ages for downloads, video streaming that keeps buffering, and dropped connections that interrupt your gaming sessions. When your internet struggles, so do you.
How fast is full fibre broadband vs copper broadband?
Full fibre is way faster than copper broadband. While copper broadband typically provides speeds up to 20 Mbps, full fibre can deliver speeds of up to 5 Gbps (5000 Mbps).
What makes full fibre broadband so much faster?
The reason for the difference in speeds lies in the technology used. Copper broadband runs entirely on old-fashioned copper telephone lines, which slow down data the farther the data travels.
Standard fibre broadband uses fibre optic cables to get data to a street cabinet, but switches back to copper lines from there into your home. limited speeds to around 70 Mbps.
Full fibre broadband, on the other hand, uses fibre-optic cables all the way into your home. It's the only type that delivers super-fast gigabit speeds without interference or degradation over long distances, making lag and slow downloads a thing of the past.
Also, with copper or standard fibre, your upload speeds are much slower than downloads. This can cause issues if, for example, you regularly upload large files or participate in video calls for work.
How fast do I need my broadband?
"The speed you need depends on how you use the internet, as the bandwidth is shared across all the connected devices. So someone working from home with family members with their phones/TVs/games consoles all connected will need a much faster connection than one person who doesn't use the internet a lot. The advice I give to my family is firstly pick a provider who offers multi-gig products as you don't want to get stuck with a provider who hasn't got the ability to go faster in the future. Secondly, make sure you are not being short changed on the critical upload speed as it best to have the same upload and download speeds. Thirdly it is always better to have a bit too much speed than too little, especially if the extra price is only pennies per day. The speed that most people are choosing is 1 Gbps and if you can get that for £25 that is a great deal at just 82 pence per day."
Peter Rampling, Chief Commercial Officer at Community Fibre
How fast can my broadband be?
With full fibre, your broadband can reach gigabit speeds. Most homes with full fibre access in the UK can reach around 1 Gbps – and that's great.
But if you're in London, you're in luck. Community Fibre offers speeds up to a lightning-fast 5 Gbps, the fastest you'll find anywhere in the city.
Can I get super-fast broadband in my area?
At Community Fibre, we're leading the way with London's fastest full fibre broadband. Our award-winning network runs 99.9% of the time, so you can rely on us to keep things smooth, even when the whole family's working, gaming and streaming.
Don’t just take our word for it – more than 57,000 Londoners have rated us ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot.
Enter your postcode to see if we’re available on your street.
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