We’re sure that you don’t want to be waiting around for your new PlayStation game to download, but instead, get right to it and start the gaming session. Day-to-day, we’re downloading more – whether it be important work email attachments, another Taylor Swift album, or your favourite romcom. But, how long does it take to download different files and what’s internet got to do with it? We've also got some handy tricks on how to make your download speed that extra bit better.
The things that affect your download speed
The general rule of thumb is the faster your internet speed, the quicker your downloads will be. It’s one of the primary reasons why people start looking for a different broadband provider. After all, there’s only so much you can take of the spinning wheel or your download getting stuck on 99% for hours. For more on Lit Fibre’s full-fibre speeds, head straight here!
It goes without saying really that the size of the file you’re downloading will make a huge difference to the overall time. GTA 6 will probably take a bit longer than the PowerPoint slides from a previous Teams meeting.
Plus, the more people you’ve got downloading and streaming at the same time can make a major difference to the speed. If you’ve got one person downloading a huge game and another streaming Netflix, don’t be too surprised if your Teams video starts to crack up. Don’t get us started on half-term holidays with all the kids connected and trying to working from home!
The speed you need to download files
A study by HighSpeedInternet.com looked at the average download speeds and the findings are pretty interesting.
• The UK average download speed for a 2-hour movie is 1.5Mbps, which translates to 1 hour and 20 minutes of you waiting around.
• Downloading a 4-minute song is 500Kbps and takes around 20 seconds of your time.
• And, a 20GB game would take around 15 hours to download at a 3Mbps download.
But, level up to full-fibre with Lit Fibre and you’ll be seeing only a slice of this time! Your download speed could be 100Mbps, 500 Mbps, or 1,000Mbps, depending on which package you choose. Take for instance Hogwarts Legacy as an example for download speed.
How to make your download speeds faster?
Connecting your device via a wired connection might give it the download speed kick you need.
But, if these tweaks aren’t helping, it might be time to look into switching to internet that’s more suitable for your household. It just so happens that we’ve got price packages for all wallets – and that’s for full-fibre that you can actually rely on.