Why 900Mbps broadband is about household capacity, not just speed

Dan Howdle • November 3rd, 2025

Before you hit the upgrade button, it’s worth considering that not every home needs 900Mbps – we would go as far as to say most don't, in fact, and for a host of different reasons. Many can get by perfectly well with something not quite so zippy.

The real decision to be made here is whether the top speed is going to be useful to you, or whether you might find a mid-range package that delivers the same day-to-day experience for less money. Let's take a look.

Do you really need 900Mbps?

If you’re on Standard Fibre and someone’s telling you to upgrade to 900Mbps, here’s the bottom line: you only need it if your home is crawling with devices, everyone’s streaming or gaming at the same time, and you’re noticeably hitting Wi-Fi snags regularly. A lot of households with 4–6 people using laptops, tablets, smart speakers and TVs can get by just fine on 300-500Mbps. 900Mbps is for those households who need as much as they can possibly get.

If you’re living in a large house, maybe working from home on video calls while someone downloads a game in another room, someone else is zip-lining around a Call of Duty map, and yet another is streaming in 4K and updating their phone, then yes – 900Mbps gives you room to breathe.

Since usually no one is aware of what everyone else is doing online at one time, it's useful to think of it like a dark room in which everyone is milling about. The more speed you have, the bigger the room and so the less chance you all have of bumping into one another. And remember: Providers typically supply their best router with their top package, so there are additional benefits too. And we'll talk about those a bit further down.

These days, it all soon adds up

Here's a quick overview, demonstrating just how quick the needs of a typical household can add up these days.

When 900Mbps makes a difference

Sometimes 900Mbps really does earn its keep. If you've read other pages on our site talking about speed, you may find this tack quite surprising, since broadly, our advice tend to be no, you probably don't need broadband that quick. And while this remains the case, it's less so as time goes on and requirements ratchet upwards.

Increasingly, there are households where broadband isn’t just a background utility, it’s the heartbeat of everything – work, entertainment, relationships and running a host of smart devices around the house. If you’ve ever had people shouting at you about slow Wi-Fi, or streams dropping quality during busy evenings, that’s a sign you’re already brushing up against your current limits. So you should definitely consider 900Mbps for…

• Busy households with multiple users – When four, five or more people are online at once, even fast Standard Fibre can start to choke. For home with back-to-back video calls, streaming, gaming and huge game downloads all going on around the clock, a 900Mbps broadband deal gives each person plenty of breathing space – no buffering, no lag, no wibbly-wobbly Netflix streams
• Gamers and streaming enthusiasts – Downloading games and 4K streaming are both hungry for stable, consistent speeds. With 900Mbps you’ll get faster downloads for those massive games and updates and experience fewer dips during live sessions. It’s not just about that top speed going to a single device, it's about the speed being divvied out equally so everything everyone is doing has more than enough
• Smart home and other connected devices – If you’ve got smart speakers, cameras, thermostats, Hue/Govee lights, TVs and phones all connected at once, each one quietly eats a slice of your bandwidth and occupies its own piece of your router's overall capability. On slower speeds that constant background chatter can add up. 900Mbps makes sure the small stuff doesn’t drag down everything else
• It’s not about one device – it’s about everyone staying fast – No single gadget will ever pull 900Mbps on its own over Wi-Fi – even Wi-Fi 7 will struggle to deliver that. What you’re really buying is headroom – space for every device to run at full tilt without bumping into another (the dark room analogy again). The more people and tech you’ve got sharing the connection, the more that extra speed is going to pay off

Why you might not need 900Mbps

Okay, let's be real: 900Mbps isn’t for everyone, even though we'd argue that almost everyone will feel the benefit in some form, no matter how small. There are actually plenty of situations where upgrading to the top speed won’t make a huge difference to your daily life, especially if you’re not pushing your current broadband to its limits, whatever speed that happens to be.

If you're not hitting those limits, and you're considering getting 900Mbps, you should at least be planning to do things with your broadband you're not currently doing. So keep that in mind. Here are the cases where you probably don't need 900Mbps (or it won't address the issue you're trying to fix) and should consider something a little less full-on – 500Mbps, for example, or less if your needs are moderate.

• You won't get 900Mbps to a single device over Wi-Fi – Even if you sign up for a 900Mbps deal, you’ll almost never see that full speed on a single device without connecting it directly to your router with a LAN cable. Wi-Fi – even the latest tech like Wi-Fi 7 – can only push so much data around at once over the airwaves, so unless you’re plugged directly into the router, you’ll top out some way below that headline number. The real benefit of 900Mbps is that speed is plentiful when shared around
• Light or moderate usage households – If it’s just you or a small family mostly browsing, shopping, working from home maybe, and watching a bit of Netflix now and again, then 900Mbps is overkill. Standard Fibre (if that's all you can get) or a mid-range Full Fibre deal (around 150-500Mbps) are going to be enough to handle that comfortably. You’ll rarely hit the limits, the rest of the available speed will just sit unused, and so it's simply not worth paying a premium for
• The cost vs. benefit question – The fastest packages almost always come at the top of the price list. Providers might usually throw in their best router, but that alone doesn’t always justify the higher monthly cost. If your broadband isn’t struggling now, you’re better off saving the cash and taking a smaller step up when you genuinely need the extra oomph

The bottom line

900Mbps broadband is fast, no question. But whether it’s right for you really depends on what’s happening in your home. If your Wi-Fi already feels crowded – constant downloads, smart devices everywhere, video calls colliding with gaming and streaming – then yes, that top-tier speed will smooth everything out and future-proof your setup for years to come, especially if you find a provider that'll let you bolt on a mesh system either for very little cash or included in the price. Because remember, it's less about getting 900Mbps to your PlayStation, and more about everyone having a few hundred Mbps available when they need it.

If, on the other hand, your broadband feels fine and rarely breaks a sweat, then a jump to 900Mbps probably won’t change your experience all that much, and you should consider a smaller step up or a side-grade, where the speed doesn't change much, but you reap extra benefits as a new customer with a new provider.

900Mbps isn’t just about raw power, it’s about capacity. For some homes, that’s essential; for others, it’s a luxury. The smart move is to match your broadband to your lifestyle – and when the day comes that your connection starts to creak, you’ll know it’s time to go big.