Upload and download speed: which one counts in Belgium?

Download speed is how fast you receive data, upload speed how fast you send it. The first is shown everywhere, the second almost nowhere, and yet it decides your video calls and your backups. Since the announcement of 8 October 2026, Proximus is making its fibre symmetrical from 1 November.

Download, upload: the definition and a yardstick

Download measures what arrives at your home: a streamed series, a web page, an update. Upload (or "sending") measures what leaves your home: a video call, a photo to the cloud, a backup. Both are counted in megabits per second, and eight megabits make one megabyte, as Wikipedia on bit rate recalls. A line advertised "500/30" therefore receives sixteen times faster than it sends.

Why is upload the figure nobody advertises?

Because the figure that sells is the one that impresses. A gigabit in big print on the poster sells, an upload of 30 Mb/s makes nobody dream. Technical heritage plays a part too: ADSL owes its name to its asymmetry, and coaxial cable reserves most of its capacity for the downstream.

The result shows in the sheets. At Orange, which runs its own mobile network and the Walloon cable inherited from VOO, the website does not publish an upload speed: Selectra found the value in CallMePower's catalogue, 50 Mb/s for the Livebox Up. I made the same observation while preparing this article. Download is in big letters on the sales page; upload, when it exists, has to be hunted down in the information sheet.

A ratio from 1 to 20 between the two figures, depending on the plan

The table covers internet-only plans between 44 and 65 € a month. Prices are normal prices including VAT, without promotion, recorded by Selectra on 16 October 2026; speeds are advertised maxima, never guarantees. The last column is my own calculation of 20 October 2026: the monthly price divided by the maximum advertised upload.

Read the right-hand column. The same euro buys twenty-four times more upload on the new Proximus fibre than on VOO cable. And Scarlet, which resells Proximus fibre, has announced no upload increase: same pipe, 30 Mb/s instead of 250.

Proximus goes from 30 to 250 Mb/s upload on 1 November 2026

The announcement dates from 8 October 2026. Proximus, which runs its own copper, fibre and mobile networks, is aligning upload with download on its three main fibre plans. New customers benefit from 1 November; existing customers switch automatically in the following weeks, at no cost, and no price rise comes with the upgrade, according to Selectra and the business press.

One discrepancy is worth flagging. On 20 October 2026, the Proximus fibre subscriptions page still showed the old speeds, and promotional prices that did not match from one place on the page to another. For Go Fiber, the most-quoted version gives 44.99 € for twelve months, then 59.99 €. Over twenty-four months that comes to 1,259.76 € against 1,439.76 € at the normal price, a 180 € difference. A page lagging behind the announcement, or an announcement that has not yet reached every screen: I cannot tell which.

How long does it take to send 20 GB?

Twenty gigabytes is a big backup of holiday photos, or a few hours of family videos. The calculation below assumes maximum speed with no loss at all: 20 GB is 160,000 megabits. In real life, allow more.

Calculated on 20 October 2026 from advertised maxima. Wi-Fi, the remote server and evening network load slow the result.

Does a household really need to send fast?

No, not most of the time. The average upload measured in Belgium is around 20 Mb/s according to Ookla, as our article on real versus advertised speed details, and most households never looked for more. A household that watches series and browses will send almost nothing.

Only, upload is not paid for at average use. It is paid for at the household's peak hour: the evening a parent is on a video call, the teenager's phone backs up its videos to the cloud and a security camera sends its stream. All three draw on the same upload, and that is what saturates.

A mobile line makes up for nothing. The lines in a bundle do not add their upload to the box's, and DIGI's 5G box, according to CallMePower, tops out at 10 Mb/s upload.

The profiles for which upload really matters:

• the remote worker who sends large files or spends several hours a day on video calls;
• the family whose phones back up photos and videos to a cloud;
• the household with connected cameras recording remotely;
• the gamer or creator who streams live or uploads videos.

Your address decides: symmetrical fibre, asymmetrical cable

In Ghent, Namur or Schaerbeek, the same subscription does not arrive through the same pipe. Telenet, whose cable serves Flanders and Brussels, lists symmetrical versions of its plans in its information sheet only where fibre reaches the home; elsewhere the customer gets the cable version, capped at 100 Mb/s upload on the Turbo. DIGI, which owns its own fibre, says it is active in Brussels, Liège and Charleroi and building in Ghent, without publishing a number of connectable homes.

Proximus fibre, according to CallMePower, reaches about 43% of the population. Lines still on copper do not move. Our guide to fibre available at your address shows how to test yours, and the one on cable or VDSL explains why two neighbours do not get the same offer.

For a bundle, the angle changes. The bundle discount applies to the whole; upload depends on the internet component. In Proximus's Flex+, the Mega Fiber plan goes from 500/500 to 600/600 Mb/s, and Ultra Fiber with 8 Gb/s upload is only sold in a Flex+ bundle. Look at the component's upload before comparing the discount.

How do you read the upload speed before signing?

Five checkpoints, in this order:

• look for upload in the offer's information sheet, not on the sales page, and ask for it in writing if it is missing;
• note the maximum and the normally available speed, two of the three speeds the BIPT/IBPT requires to be stated;
• check that your address receives fibre and not the cable version of the same plan;
• compare the ratio between download and upload, not download alone;
• note the date an announced upgrade applies, and whether it is automatic.

After signing, measure upload over Ethernet, at several times including one in the evening, as you would for download.

To compare current offers, our internet ranking gives the prices recorded, and the glossary of offers and networks explains VDSL, DOCSIS and FTTH.

Sources: Selectra (16 October 2026 checks on upload speeds and the Proximus upgrade), CallMePower (maximum speed catalogue, October 2026), Proximus (fibre subscriptions page, viewed 20 October 2026), BIPT/IBPT (contractual speeds), Ookla (average speeds measured in Belgium), Wikipedia (bit rate).