Network and Internet Bandwidth

Business and home users alike are using more and more internet and network bandwidth in their day to day operations.  Whether it be business applications, streaming online video, surfing or playing online games, bandwidth has become more and more a necessity.

The analogy that I use all the time to describe bandwidth is to equate it to plumbing for a house or community.  The larger the pipeline coming into the house or housing plan the more water you will have at any given time.  Let us say you have a ¼” line feeding all the items in your house with water.  Turn any one item on and the water and pressure are enough.  Start turning more and more on at the same time and you will notice a decrease in the water volume and pressure.

Bandwidth in your business and home works the same way.  If your local business network is working on a 10mb network and everyone tries to access the network programs / resources at the same time you will notice a massive degraded performance in your overall network speed.  Please keep in mind I am using the most simplistic explanation to relay my point.  If your business network is operating at only 10mb you need to contact me immediately so we can get you up to date.  Most businesses are operating at a minimum of 1000mb / 1gb speeds on their internal network.

Internet bandwidth works in the same aspect and speed is determined by your provider and how much speed you are paying for.  The most common used today is the cable internet provider.  With speeds now exceeding 1000/Mbps in some areas.  You’ll have to contact your local provider to determine what speeds are available for your area.  Fiber internet is becoming more and more affordable and available to business and home users.

Though your business internal network will be operating at symmetrical speeds, your internet most likely is not.  Internet has two speeds.  The download speed and the upload speed.  Download is almost always greater than the upload speed on cable internet providers.  Most people use far more download than upload.  Your cable internet provider will have a layout of their plans and you will notice that their download speed is far greater.  Fiber internet connections are symmetrical.  This means both speeds are the same.  if you have 500Mbps download you will have 500Mbps upload.  For businesses working with VPN’s, remote access and online backups, upload speeds are just as important as the download.  Most cable internet providers will provide you what is known as “bursted” speed.  Though you are paying for 200Mbps service, you will not get that speed all the time.  You are using a shared connection with others on that leg of service.  During peak times you may notice that your internet is slower than non-peak times.

If its network is experiencing low bandwidth, a business will likely run into challenges that may interrupt workflow and cut into the bottom line.

On the customer or client side, individuals attempting to navigate a website won’t wait if service is slow. What’s more, effective customer service might not be possible, client communication may bottom out as video conferencing lags or skips, and slow payment processing could directly impact revenue.

Internally, business operations may drag and even come to a halt. Cloud-based apps, like Office 365 or G Suite, may not function smoothly if internet bandwidth usage is high, leading to employee frustration. File sharing is crucial to many aspects of business, but this is a major data drag and may not be possible with a low bandwidth network. Surveillance or security technology may not operate as it’s supposed to, putting the business at risk. And if an enterprise consistently experiences network issues, leadership can forget about trying to scale operations until they have the issues figured out.

Bottom line? Low bandwidth will cost the business—literally. Major interruptions can mean a direct hit on any given workday, but even minor slowdowns impact productivity and profitability over time.

Monitoring your WAN bandwidth is something that can be easily done with the right type of router for your business.  Most business class routers will offer a monitoring feature that will isolate the top 10 bandwidth users and the applications using the bandwidth.  Thus, giving you an in depth look at what is happening across your WAN.  Monitoring your internal LAN network can be done on a per device using basic monitoring tools available for download for both Windows and Mac devices.  These tools can be very useful when trying to find the issue of slow network performance.  Such as file transfers or video chats.

Simply adding more bandwidth is not always the correct issue and can become costly on any business and it ignores the underlying problem.  Some applications will use as much bandwidth as it can.  So, adding more bandwidth may help the application sucking up the bandwidth but will not resolve the slow speeds in other aspects.

How do you decide what speeds to go with in a business environment?  The easiest answer is to consult an IT professional to project what your bandwidth usage will be.  For your home usage it’s a lot easier to figure.  Follow these simple steps.

• What is your current monthly budget?
• How many devices will be connecting via hardwire? Wireless uses far less than a hardwire connection.
• What will be the primary usage for your service?
• Will you be streaming videos or video services that will use your internet connection and if so, how many will be doing this at the same time?

The great part about home service is that it’s easily upgradable with a simple phone call.  If you feel you don’t have enough internet bandwidth you can contact your provider and ask them to increase it.  This usually doesn’t require any new hardware and just a simple reboot of your modem.  There are a ton of items to consider and this is by no means an extensive list but a simple start.