Most buffering complaints come down to one of three things: not enough speed, an unstable connection, or a device that cannot keep up. Speed is the easiest to check, so start there.
The short answer
- SD: about 5 Mbps
- HD (720p): about 8 to 10 Mbps
- Full HD (1080p): about 15 Mbps
- 4K: about 25 Mbps
Those figures are per stream. Two people watching Full HD in different rooms want roughly 30 Mbps between them, not 15.
Sustained speed matters more than peak
A speed test gives you a burst reading over a few seconds. Live television needs that rate held continuously for an hour. A connection that tests at 80 Mbps but drops to 6 Mbps at nine in the evening will buffer, and the test will keep telling you everything is fine if you run it in the morning.
Test at the time of day you actually watch. That single change explains most mystery buffering.
Stability beats raw numbers
Packet loss and jitter cause more stuttering than a modest speed shortfall. Signs of an unstable line include video that freezes for a second then jumps forward, or problems that appear only on wifi and never on ethernet.
Wifi versus wired
A wired connection is materially steadier for 4K. If running a cable is impractical, move the router away from the television and other electronics, use the 5 GHz band for devices in the same room, and consider a mesh node rather than a repeater.
Data usage, not just speed
Roughly 3 GB an hour at Full HD and 7 GB at 4K. If your plan has a monthly cap this matters as much as the speed, which is why our Canada page treats it as the first thing to check.
How to test your connection properly
A single speed test proves very little. Four tests, taken deliberately, tell you almost everything.
- Test from the device you watch on, not from a laptop in another room. The number that matters is the one reaching the television.
- Test at the hour you watch. Between seven and eleven in the evening is when local networks are busiest and when buffering actually happens.
- Test twice, five minutes apart. A large gap between the two readings points at congestion rather than a slow plan.
- Test once on wifi and once on ethernet if you can. A large difference tells you the problem is in the house, not with the provider.
A worked example
Take a household of four on a 50 Mbps connection. One 4K stream in the living room takes around 25 Mbps. A second Full HD stream upstairs takes another 15. That is 40 Mbps before anyone opens a laptop, plays a game or starts a large download. It works, but there is little headroom, and the first evening everyone is home at once is the evening it stutters.
The same household on 100 Mbps has room to spare. The upgrade usually costs less than people expect and it removes an entire category of complaint.
Router settings worth checking
- Band selection. Use 5 GHz for devices in the same room as the router and 2.4 GHz only for distant ones. Many routers hide both behind one name and choose badly.
- Channel congestion. In apartment buildings the default wifi channel is often the busiest one. Most routers can scan and move.
- Quality of service. If your router offers it, give the streaming device priority. It helps most in households where someone games or uploads.
- Router age. A router supplied five years ago with a slower plan is frequently the real bottleneck on a faster one.
Reading the symptom
The pattern tells you the cause. Everything buffering at once points at the connection. One channel buffering points at that source. One device buffering while others are fine points at the device. Problems that start at eight in the evening and stop at midnight point at congestion, and no amount of restarting will fix those.
When speed is not the problem
If one channel buffers and the rest are perfect, the issue is that source rather than your connection. Report the specific channel. If everything buffers only on one device, that device is the bottleneck: older streaming sticks commonly struggle with high bitrate 4K.
Still stuck? The troubleshooting questions cover the usual fixes, or ask the team.
