Home or business Internet speed is based on many factors.  The majority of people think that if your connection speed is fast you will have better performance over your network.  Well, I am here to tell you that this is not necessary true.  Yes, your download speeds may be faster when your downloading a file but in reality how many times do you do this?  Browsing the net is one thing, downloading large files is another.  

Now if you have a camera system or do streaming you will need a good upload speed because your sending information.  

Again, this isn't the only factor in your performance. 

For example the ping rate is incredibly important.  This is the "Latency" of your Internet connection.  This is how fast packets travel to and from your router to each point you want to reach over the Internet.  The lower the ping rate the better.  I like to see mine at 4.  This is pretty good.  An average would be between 8 and 15.  I am taking this number just from my experience using Comcast and AT&T.   Generally AT&T has a better ping rate as they have less congestion and in most cases excellent equipment.   

Another important factor is your "Jitter'.  Funny names but also Paramount when your using VoIP phones.  You see now we are getting a bit more technical.  Jitter, like the Ping rate is the drifting of your connection with another device on the Internet.   As you can imagine if you make a call using VoIP that connection stays active sending data packets back and forth.  If you have a high Jitter rate or high Jitter you will notice ghosting on your VoIP call or even a dropped call.  Jitter also has to do with the processing speed of your router.  It's not only your connection speed as your router has work to do keeping connections innl tact and flowing.   A good router will have a fast processor to handle traffic and its routing table.

There are a few more things you should be aware of but these in my opinion are the most important.

You see, you can have a 10 line VOIP phone system, while uploading data say to YouTube, watching videos on 10 computers.  So, a rule of thumb is each VoIP phone needs 100 kbps of download and 100 kbps of upload speed for each phone.  10 phones is only 1 mpbs up and down.  For streaming the following will help:  

1280×720(HD): 3Mbps

3840×2160 (UHD): 25Mbps

1920X1080(FHD): 6Mbps

4096×2160 (4K): 32Mbps

This would be watching a stream per TV or Computer, etc.  It's per stream.  On top of that it will depend on the Codec but tye Codec doesn't change things -too- much enough for this article anyway.

So when you want to calculate what your home or business needs will be first get the best Router you can afford.  Spending $400 or more on a good router will be the smartest investment here.

Next, calculate what you will be doing and how much bandwidth your needs are and then double it.  This way you have head room for future upgrades.

See if there are tests for ping rates and Jitter.  If your opening up an office that uses VoIP Jitter and Ping rates are paramount.  Just getting the fastest speed your provider has is nonsense and a waste if money.

Hope this helps!