Internet, Networking, & Security > Home Networking 64 64 people found this article helpful Is Your Broadband Fast Enough to Stream Audio? Learn how to test your internet speed and capacity By Mark Harris Mark Harris Writer University of Wolverhampton Mark Harris is a former writer for Lifewire who wrote about the digital music scene and streaming music services in an easy to understand, no-nonsense manner. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on June 30, 2021 Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email In This Article Expand Jump to a Section Test Your Speed Streaming Without Buffering Speed Requirements Recommended Capacities A slow internet connection causes buffering and intermittent pauses while music or video plays. This means the data transferred (streamed) to your device is moving too fast or is too much for your connection to handle. To evaluate whether your broadband connection is fast enough to watch movies or use a music subscription service, check the capacity of the connection by testing its speed. Instructions in this article apply to cable, FIOS, satellite, and other broadband types on all network-enabled operating systems. How to Test Your Internet Connection Speed There are several online tools to check your connection. One free web-based tool is Speedtest.net. Use this online tool to see your actual internet connection speed. After you test your connection, look at your download speed. Streaming Without Buffering If you have access to high-speed internet (broadband) service, audio and video should stream in real-time without problems. Having a broadband service, however, does not mean that you can listen to all music streams. Broadband service varies from area to area. If it's on the slow end of the scale, you might be able to stream music but not high-quality audio that is encoded at a high bitrate (320 Kbps); the higher the Kbps, the more data is required for streaming. Streaming over a wireless connection (Wi-Fi) can be hit-or-miss compared to a wired connection to a home router. If possible, configure your system to stream music over a cabled connection for maximum transfer rate and uninterrupted listening. Connection Speed Requirements Audio streams use less bandwidth than video. If you stream only audio, your broadband speed requirements can be lower than if you also stream music videos and movies (for example, from YouTube). To stream audio, the broadband speed should be at least 1.5 Mbps. Recommended Capacities for Streaming Music Videos Video takes up bandwidth because it forces more data through the broadband pipeline. Streaming music videos (at standard quality) requires a broadband speed of at least 3 Mbps. For high-definition (HD) videos, an internet connection that can handle 4 to 5 Mbps is an ideal range to prevent dropouts and buffering. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up! Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit