What internet speed do you need for 4K and 8K streaming?

The short answer: 15 Mbps per stream for HD, 25 Mbps for 4K and 50 Mbps or more for 8K. Those are per simultaneous stream, not per household, and they assume the connection is steady. A line that tests at 200 Mbps but fluctuates will stutter where a rock-steady 30 Mbps will not.

The figures, per simultaneous stream

These are sustained rates, not peak. Modern IPTV uses HEVC/H.265, which is roughly twice as efficient as the older H.264, so the numbers are lower than equivalent figures you may find for older services.

Why your household needs more than one stream's worth

Multiply the figure above by the number of streams that will run at once, then add headroom for everything else on the line. A family watching two 4K streams while someone works from home wants 100 Mbps or better, even though the streams themselves account for 70 of it.

Jitter matters more than raw bandwidth

This is the part speed tests hide. IPTV sends a continuous stream, so it is sensitive to variation in packet timing rather than to average throughput. A connection averaging 100 Mbps with frequent dips to 5 will buffer; one holding 30 Mbps flat will not. Wired Ethernet largely removes this problem, which is why it is the first thing we suggest.

How to check what you actually have

Run a speed test on the device you watch on, not on a laptop beside the router. A streaming stick three rooms away can see a fraction of what the router reports. Test at the time of day you normally watch, since contention on shared connections peaks in the evening.

What to do if you are short

Drop to a lower-quality stream where your player allows it, move the device to 5 GHz Wi-Fi or Ethernet, and check nothing else is saturating the line. If you are consistently below the HD figure, no provider will fix that for you - the limit is the connection.

More troubleshooting in our FAQ, installation walkthroughs in the setup guides, and connection counts per plan on the pricing page.