What is good upload speed for streaming? what does upload speed do?

The streaming industry has been developed dramatically nowadays with a huge profit but massive competition. If the internet speed is not fast enough to live stream, your business will be affected a lot. Therefore, the question “What is good upload speed for streaming?” is always a concern. Today, MySpeed will share some useful information about what is a good download and upload speed.

Test upload speed: What upload speed do I need for live streaming?

MySpeed -  A download and upload speed test

To test upload speed test, you need to find a reliable speed check google used to measure upload speed. The internet speed test market is diverse, there are a lot of suitable choices for you such as Speed test Ookla , FAST , testmy.net . MySpeed   is a good choice for you.

MySpeed promises to bring customers a convenient effective tool to measure the speed of network connection. This tool takes you about a couple of seconds up to a minute to conduct the test. Its interface is simple along with many other pluses like no-ads, changing server automatically, informative news/ blog which makes many users pay attention it. 

Conducting the test is also easy. First of all, you visit the website of MySpeed: https://gospeedcheck.com/.

MySpeed is a convenient effective download upload speed tester

On the homepage of MySpeed, you will see the “Go” button, click it to start the test. After that, the test will run the testing of ping, download, and upload speed. There is a speed clock in the middle of the website which represents the testing is operating. Waiting for some seconds to get the results. 

MySpeed test upload and download speed, ping time

When the process is finished, the results of ping, download speed, and upload speed are shown to you. From that, you can have a completely full picture of your network connection. Is there any problem with your network? Is your connection speed good enough? Those questions you can answer based on the above test results. 

So, apart from conducting test upload speed, you can know more about your internet performance with ping speed and download speed through the speed check google -MySpeed tool. 

Upload speed vs Download speed

On the Internet, what do people do online? As we know, Google is the most popular website in the world, it can be considered as a giant boss of the online industry. Followed by it, they are YouTube, Facebook, Baidu, and Wikipedia which are also big online websites.

Whichever an encyclopedia, a social network/video platform, or a video platform/social network, there are still two main operations: download and upload. What is a good download speed and upload speed? These two speeds should be focused on if we want to have a good online experience. 

There are still two main operations on the Internet: download and upload

What is download speed?

For download activity, it is the speed of your network connection that allows your devices to download, to take how many bits of data from the online Internet using that connection.  In general, people consume content online through the activities of searching, identifying, reading, listening, and watching. All online activities like those need download data. 

To be able to do that, your devices will need to ingest data, which is existed in the form of bits. Usually, the download speed is represented in millions of bits or megabits per second (Mbps).

Online activities taking up downloading data can be listed:

• Streaming audio/ video ( watching Netflix)

• Downloading large files

• Loading website both image and content

• Reading articles on the internet

• Music-streaming services

• Shopping online

• …..

What's my download speed?

What is upload speed?

What is an upload speed? Opposite to downloading, when you create online content and you want to share it with many people, that is called upload data. Your device uploads something on the Internet and then test upload speed is the issue you need to care about most. 

Being the main spec of a network connection like download speed but it just works the other way around. Upload speed shows how many bits of data your device can share per second on the Internet. In other words, uploading is sending digital data from your device to virtual platforms. The measurement of this speed is also in megabits per second (Mbps). 

Here is the list of common activities consuming uploading data:

• Video calls ( Zoom, Skype, Viber)

• Sending an email, big attachments through gmail

• Data backup to internet or cloud storage services

• Uploading videos on different social media platforms: Youtube, Facebook

• Live streaming such as on Twitch, Youtube, Facebook

• ….

What is my upload speed?

What is the difference between upload and download speed?

Generally, the difference between download and upload speeds may be stated as follows: The rate at which digital data is transported from the Internet to your computer is referred to as download speed, whereas upload speed is the rate at which online data is delivered from your computer to the Internet.

By conducting a speed check for internet, you will get the result of upload rates are lower than download rates. Why is download speed faster than upload?

As mentioned above, the majority of internet-based activities take up downloading so that Internet service providers (ISPs) often offer internet plans with higher download speed. 

What is the difference between download and upload speed?

However, depending on your online demands, if you’re a streamer or developing your Youtube channel that needs fast upload speed, you are able to ask your ISP to get a plan with a higher upload speed. What is a good internet upload speed? Find out in the last part of this article.

Factors affecting test upload speed

What factors can affect the test upload speed? Basically, there are three main factors you need to concentrate on if you want to upload processes smoothly without interruption. They are the type of content you upload, frames used on social networks, and your competitors. 

Types of video content

Firstly, the faster the pace of the visuals, the more the bitrate ( the speed of bits) you need. The quantity of video data transferred in a given time period is referred to as the video bitrate. Your high resolution and high frame rate video will not seem as well as it might if you don't have a high bitrate.

To be detailed, for a 720p video with 30 frames per second, the maximum upload speed is 5.7 Mbps. If the streaming video speed test has the upload speed below 5.7, you can still live stream quite well. 

Besides, you conduct a single-shot video that records what you are talking about, the bitrate of 4,000 kbps might not be necessary. Reducing it by half,  you would probably be still fine with it.

The faster the pace of the visuals, the more the bitrate you need

However, 4000 kbps will be essential if you want to live stream video games or events with plenty of visual information. To conclude, depending on the type of content you intend to share online, you will need different upload speeds.

Number of video frames ( streaming)

Secondly, a good upload speed can be influenced by the number of frames used. More frames per second mean a higher bitrate as well as a higher upload speed. Taking examples of streaming video games, to get more and more viewers as well as earn more money, you will need to ensure your viewers see fast-paced actions as clearly as possible. That might stream at up to 30 frames per second.

For Twitch, the range of bitrate for 720p video is between 3,500 and 5,000 kbps, the test upload speed should be at around 4.4 Mbps to 6.2 Mbps. However, YouTube Live requires around 2,250 to 6,000 Kbps at the highest optimal upload speed of 7.4 Mbps. That is the upload speed for the 720p video with 60 frames per second.

More frames per second mean a higher bitrate as well as a higher upload speed

Online competitors

Finally, your competitors might also affect your upload speed requirements. The MMO ( making money online) industry has flourished significantly, therefore, the competition is also massive. 

Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube are big websites that attract a lot of people who try to use them to make money. With that massive competition, the upload process being affected is easily understood. 

Your competitors might also affect your upload speed requirements

Therefore, if you do not upgrade your internet package, improve the video quality, you will fall behind your competitors. Better quality requires higher upload speeds, so the competition will eventually push you to increase your upload rate.

What is a good upload speed for streaming?

As we know, live streaming videos can consume a lot of bandwidth. Not only depend on the network connection speed, to upload content online smoothly, but also you need to consider many other factors. Encoding matters, but so does the type of content you want to stream. Platforms play a part, just like the resolution and the frame rate of your stream.

What is a good upload internet speed? What upload speed do I need to stream? Generally, a good upload speed to shoot for is recommended at 5 Mbps. 

With this speed, you will not need to take notice because most internet service providers offer you internet plans with an upload speed from 5 Mbps to 50 Mbps. For basic online activities, short video uploading, the streaming video speed test at 5 Mbps will be fine. 

What is good internet upload speed?

However, What is a good upload speed and download speed? as mentioned above, they can be different for each internet purpose. If you use your internet household for working, studying, or streaming on a regular basis, the low upload speeds are definitely going to be a problem. 

The higher the video quality, the higher the upload speed. At the very minimum, the best advice for you is to find a cable provider that promises to provide you with upload speeds on the high end, between 25 Mbps and 50 Mbps.

Should select internet plan with at least 25 Mbps upload speed

What is a good upload speed for internet on Youtube?

Video	Max Bitrate	What is good upload speed for internet?
720p video at 30 fps	1,500 to 4,000 kbps	2 - 5 Mbps
720p video at 60 fps	2,250 to 6000kbps	2.9 - 7.4 Mbps
1080p video at 30 fps	3,000 to 6000kbps	3.8 - 7.4 Mbps
1080p video at 60 fps	4,500 to 9,000 kbps	5.6 - 11 Mbps
1440p video at 30 fps	6,000 to 13,000 kbps	7.4 - 15.8 Mbps
1440p video at 60 fps	9,000 to 18,000 kbps	11 - 21.8 Mbps
4K video, at 30 fps	13,000 to 34,000 kbps	15.8 - 41 Mbps
4K video at 60 fps	20,000 to 51,000 kbps	24.2 - 61.5 Mbps

Data from Restream.io

What upload speed do I need to stream on Twitch?

Video	Max Bitrate	What is upload speed good for
720p video at 30 fps	2,500 to 4,000 kbps	From 3.2 Mbps to 5 Mbps
720p video at 60 fps	3,500 to 5,000 kbps	From 4.4 Mbps to 6.2 Mbps
1080p video at 30 fps	3,500 to 5,000 kbps	From 4.4 Mbps to 6.2 Mbps

What is good upload and download speed on Facebook live?

Video/ Audio	Max bitrate (at least)	What is considered a good upload speed
1080p video, with 60 fps	4000 kbps	From 6 - 7 Mbps
720p video with 30-60 fps	4000 kbps	From 3 - 4 Mbps
480p video/ audio	128 kbps	At least 3 Mbps

All recommendations are estimated speed. They can be up and down due to your bandwidth consumption at a given time. Turn off unnecessary applications, devices during doing live streams if you want to get a good internet upload. Learn about more tips to get better good wifi upload speed in the article “What is a good download and upload speed?”

Final words 

It can not be denied the role of test upload speed in the MMO industry in general, streaming in particular. What is upload speed? What is the recommended upload speed for streaming? Have you got it? Running a speed check google,  does your network connection have a good upload speed to stream?