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Can your connection handle it?
Almost every Canadian internet plan sold today is fast enough on paper. What matters is the speed that actually reaches the device under your television, and how many screens are competing for it.
Test properly, or the answer is meaningless
Run the speed test three times on the streaming device and take the lowest result. You care about the floor, not the best case. Canadian cable internet is shared at the neighbourhood level, so a 2pm reading and an 8pm reading can differ by a factor of three, and 8pm is when you actually watch.
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How the numbers work
On the streaming device itself, in the room where it lives, at the time of day you actually watch. Not on your phone standing next to the router, and not the number printed on your bill. We have seen gigabit fibre plans deliver 12 Mbps to a streaming stick in a basement corner. That gap is where nearly every streaming problem lives, and no plan upgrade fixes it.
Because video bitrate is variable. A stream advertised at 25 Mbps averages that figure but spikes well above it during fast motion, which is exactly when a hockey broadcast is most demanding. Running a connection at exactly its calculated need means those spikes empty your buffer and you see a spinner. The verdict bands build in that margin.
Anything else using the connection at the same time: video calls, a game console downloading an update, phones backing up photos, a laptop syncing files. Fifteen Mbps is a reasonable default for a typical family. If you work from home on video calls while others watch, push it higher.
It is a reasonable approximation based on typical bitrates: roughly 0.7 GB per hour for SD, 1.2 for HD, 2.0 for Full HD and 5.0 for 4K. Actual usage varies with content, since a static news broadcast compresses far better than a fast-moving sports feed. If you are on a capped plan, treat the figure as a floor rather than a ceiling.
Work through the fixes in order of cost-effectiveness rather than jumping to a plan upgrade. Move the device to 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Add a wired Ethernet adapter, which costs about $15 and removes the entire category of Wi-Fi problems. Drop one screen from 4K to Full HD, where the visual difference at normal viewing distance is far smaller than the bandwidth difference. Raise the player buffer to three to five seconds. Upgrading the plan should be last, because Wi-Fi is more often the real limit than the line.
No. A connection is a simultaneous stream, not a device limit. You can install IPTVhub on the living room TV, a bedroom TV, two phones and a laptop on a single connection; only one can be playing at a time. Count the screens that might realistically be on at the same moment, which is usually fewer than people assume.