Live NetTV v5.0How the calculator works
For each activity, the calculator uses two figures: the minimum the activity needs to work at all, and a recommended figure with headroom for the dips every connection has. It adds them up, adds a little for each person's background activity such as messaging, browsing and app updates, then allows extra if your TVs rely on Wi-Fi. Finally, it rounds up to a common plan size.
| Activity | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| SD stream | 3 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
| HD stream | 5 Mbps | 8 Mbps |
| Full HD stream | 8 Mbps | 15 Mbps |
| 4K stream | 25 Mbps | 40 Mbps |
| Video call | 3 Mbps | 6 Mbps |
| Online gaming | 3 Mbps | 6 Mbps |
| Background use per person | 1 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
Why live TV needs more headroom
On-demand services can download several minutes of a film ahead of time, which smooths over any slowdown. Live streams can only buffer a few seconds ahead of the broadcast, so a short drop in speed shows up as a pause almost straight away. That is why the recommended figures are well above the minimums.
Plan speed versus speed at the TV
Your plan's speed is what arrives at your router. Wi-Fi then loses some of it, sometimes most of it, on the way to the TV. If the calculator says your plan should be enough but you still get buffering, test the speed on the TV device itself. Our guide to internet speed for streaming explains how to run a useful test, and our data usage calculator shows how much data all that streaming uses.