How long downloads take at each UK broadband speed

Name: How long downloads take at each UK broadband speed
Creator: UKSpeedTest.co.uk
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Infographic by Dr Alex J Martin-Smith (LinkedIn), BroadbandSwitch.uk. Published 15 October 2026. Free to reuse with a credit link.

Mbps is megabits per second and files are measured in bytes, which is why a "100 Mbps" line downloads at about 12.5 megabytes a second. At that rate a 100 GB game takes about two hours and a quarter. On a 10 Mbps line it takes most of a day; on a 900 Mbps gigabit line, a quarter of an hour.

Grid of download times by speed: a 5 GB phone backup, a 20 GB 4K film and a 100 GB game at 10, 30, 70, 150, 300 and 900 Mbps, from 22 hours to 44 seconds — Ideal, steady conditions, decimal gigabytes. Real downloads also depend on the server at the other end and your Wi-Fi.

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What it means for you

If you download big games or 4K films regularly, the step from 30 Mbps to 150 Mbps is the one you will feel: hours become minutes.
Above 300 Mbps, the server you are downloading from and your Wi-Fi are usually the limit, not the line.
Divide Mbps by 8 for megabytes per second. It is the single most useful bit of broadband maths.

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The numbers behind the chart

File	10 Mbps	30 Mbps	70 Mbps	150 Mbps	300 Mbps	900 Mbps
A 5 GB phone backup	67 min	22 min	10 min	4 min	2 min	44 s
A 20 GB 4K film	4.4 h	89 min	38 min	18 min	9 min	3 min
A 100 GB game	22.2 h	7.4 h	3.2 h	89 min	44 min	15 min

Questions people ask

How long does a 100 GB game take to download?

About 22 hours at 10 Mbps, 7.4 hours at 30 Mbps, 3.2 hours at 70 Mbps, 89 minutes at 150 Mbps, 44 minutes at 300 Mbps and 15 minutes at 900 Mbps, in ideal conditions.

Why is my download slower than the table?

Game stores and servers often cap each download, your Wi-Fi may be slower than your line, and other devices share the connection. Treat the table as the best case.

What is the difference between Mbps and MB/s?

Mbps is megabits per second, the unit providers advertise. MB/s is megabytes per second, the unit downloads show. There are 8 bits in a byte, so 100 Mbps is 12.5 MB/s.

Use this infographic

Free to reuse on your site, in a report or on social media under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Please credit UKSpeedTest.co.uk with a link. Paste this to embed it:

<a href="https://ukspeedtest.co.uk/infographics/how-long-downloads-take-at-each-uk-broadband-speed/"><img src="https://ukspeedtest.co.uk/assets/infographics/how-long-downloads-take-at-each-uk-broadband-speed.png" alt="Grid of download times by speed: a 5 GB phone backup, a 20 GB 4K film and a 100 GB game at 10, 30, 70, 150, 300 and 900 Mbps, from 22 hours to 44 seconds" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p>Infographic by <a href="https://ukspeedtest.co.uk/">UKSpeedTest.co.uk</a>, the free UK speed test from BroadbandSwitch.uk.</p>

Cite as: UKSpeedTest.co.uk (2026). How long downloads take at each UK broadband speed. BroadbandSwitch.uk. https://ukspeedtest.co.uk/infographics/how-long-downloads-take-at-each-uk-broadband-speed/

Sources

UKSpeedTest.co.uk. (2026). Download time calculator. ukspeedtest.co.uk