Is 500 Mbps Fast in 2024? [Practical Insights + Infographic]

Yes, 500 Mbps internet is fast. With it, you can easily stream ultra HD content on multiple devices. But listen, not just on 4, 5, or 6 devices, but simultaneously on as many as 20 devices. Now that’s crazy fast! And forget about casual browsing, watching YouTube videos, or attending video calls, you’ll be able to do much more than that.

You can easily share it with your whole family, and I can guarantee that none of you would face any bandwidth issues. But what can you do with such speed? How fast are the downloads? What's the average cost and ISPs that provide an internet speed of 500 Mbps?

Well, that is all I'm going to discuss in this article.

How Fast is 500 Mbps?

With 500 Mbps, you get download speeds upto 62.5 MB/s. It means you can download 100 GB worth of data in 27-35 minutes. An average 4K movie is around 20-22GB, so you can download five 4K movies in less than 30 minutes. That's how fast a 500 Mbps internet is.

500 Mbps also means a lot of bandwidth, and hence you can see above that as many as 100 devices can run simultaneously using the same connection.

In theory, you can even connect up to 200 devices for casual tasks like internet browsing and texting. However, in real life, it would start lagging. Not because of internet speed but because of so many devices connected at the same time.

Let's understand what activities you can perform with 500 Mbps internet:

Time Taken to Download Different File Types & Sizes with 500 Mbps Plan

If you are wondering how good is 500 Mbps, you can literally download an entire blu-ray movie within a couple of minutes. You can also download an entire music album within 10 seconds. A full HD movie of two hours would take about 10 minutes to download with a 500 Mbps connection.

Look at the table below to see how much time it will take to download different things with a 500 Mbps download speed:

What Can You Do with 500 Mbps Internet?

The following is a list of potential uses for 500 megabits per second internet speed:

• Zoom calls on 300 devices
• Zoom calls (at HD quality) on 200 devices
• 4K Netflix streams on 20 devices
• Watching YouTube videos (HD) on 200 devices
• Streaming Spotify music on 1000 devices

Is 500 Mbps Good for Streaming?

When we talk about streaming, we think of YouTube videos, Netflix series, and listening to music on different audio platforms like Spotify.

So if you are playing to watch some videos with 500 Mbps WiFi, let me tell you that you can easily do so. Not just on 5-10 devices but more than 100 devices at a time. An average HD YouTube video requires only about 3-5 Mbps connection.

Coming over to Netflix, things still remain more or less the same. You can stream FHD content on Netflix on about 100 devices simultaneously, which is just amazing. On top of that, you can also stream 4K content on about 20 devices simultaneously.

If you are an audiophile, streaming music and listening to podcasts would not be a problem with 500 megabits of internet. These activities require as low as 0.5 Mbps speed to work without issues. However, with a 500 Mbps connection, you can stream music and listen to podcasts on as many as 1000 devices at the same time, theoretically.

Is 500 Mbps Fast for Gaming?

I know gaming requires stable and good download and upload speeds. So, is 500 Mbps fast enough for gaming? Let me tell you straight up, you will never face any issues while playing online games with a 500 Mbps WiFi connection.

You can get a good playable experience at just 3 to 5 Mbps internet speed, so you can imagine how good your gaming experience would be with a 500 Mbps internet speed. You can even download big games pretty fast. And by that, you can download a 100GB+ game like GTA V in less than half an hour.

Low-end games like Among Us and Fall Guys smoothly without any issues. Matter of fact, you can play on as many as 100 devices with this connection. Mid-tier games like CS GO and Valorant will run flawlessly with speedy loading times.

Coming over to high-end games like PUBG, Apex Legends, and GTA V requires high internet speeds and a stable connection, which can be achieved with a gaming modem and a Wi-Fi 6 router. But not to worry, you can enjoy these games without facing any internet issues on a 500 Mbps speed.

Online Meetings Experience with 500 Mbps

If you are wondering how your experience will be while attending a meeting on Zoom or Skype, 500 Mbps is more than enough for these activities.

You can easily make voice calls on Zoom and Skype while still being able to do the above activities with ease. This is because these calling platforms rely more on uploading speed rather than downloading speed.

You can also attend video calls on Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype at 1080p quality on as many as 100 devices without any network issues.

But the numbers will drop if your upload speed is less, say about 50 Mbps. Not to worry, you can still attend video calls on 15 devices simultaneously, which is a good number.

How Much Does 500 Mbps Cost?

As for the cost of a 500 megabits internet plan, it’s not as costly as a 1000 Mbps plan. A 500 Mbps internet connection would cost you somewhere between $39 per month and $80 per month. However, these ISPs would be limited to specific locations, and hence the price and availability of the plan might be different in your area.

That being said, below is a list of internet service providers which provide 500 Mbps internet plans:

Frequently Asked Questions

In the end, I would say that if you have a 500 Mbps connection, you can easily do almost every online activity. You can do 4K streaming, play high-end games, and download huge files smoothly on multiple devices.