Upload and download speed why both matter

The way we use our home wifi has significantly changed over the last 18 months.

Not so long ago, when at home we were mostly consuming content – watching Netflix and Youtube and scrolling through social media.

Nowadays we’re using the home wifi to work from home – attending meetings via video conferencing applications and sending off large files. And children are also doing their own form of working from home – online learning and uploading their schoolwork for their teachers to mark.

On top of this, the way we use social media has changed too- we’re uploading videos to Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook, rather than simply writing brief life updates on our newsfeeds.  

 This new way of using the internet at home means upstream (or upload) internet traffic is increasing at a higher rate than our also ever-increasing levels of downstream (or download) traffic. 

Check out the graph below from one of the days of our recent lockdown (it was a similar picture for most days).  You can see upstream traffic a lot higher than pre lockdown levels, because of the surge in those working from home. You can also see the ‘step affect’ of those logging into scheduled video call meetings on the hour and half hour in the morning and early afternoon.

Because of this new way of ‘interneting’, when you’re looking for a fibre broadband plan, be sure to check there is plenty of upload bandwidth as well as download to allow for those days you work from home or the kids are busy uploading their Tik Tok videos!