Choosing the right Internet bandwidth for your company

Effective Internet bandwidth is crucial for a company’s productivity

We’ve all experienced it: the video conference that freezes halfway through an important presentation. The email that doesn’t leave the outbox. All of this can be due to problems selecting the right Internet bandwidth.

The file download that never seems to end. These situations lead us to try all sorts of ways to improve internet speed, from moving close to the Wi-Fi router to installing Wi-Fi range extenders to adjusting the antenna to find the optimal angle. While these methods improve the Wi-Fi signal, they are not sufficient as a long-term solution. Instead, choosing the right Internet bandwidth for your business is the answer to achieving big productivity gains.

Are Internet bandwidth and speed not the same thing?

The terms bandwidth and speed are often mistakenly used interchangeably. Although they are related, they are two different measurements of connection quality. Speed refers to the maximum data transfer rate, while bandwidth refers to the maximum amount of data your connection can support at any given time.

Think of bandwidth like a highway and vehicles like data – the more vehicles there are, the more congested and slower the traffic will be. Therefore, you may have a high internet speed one moment, which drops off the next when your colleague is on a video conference and another is accessing applications in the cloud.

Insufficient bandwidth can affect efficiency and experience

Every company and every network has its own bandwidth requirements. However, low bandwidth can be a limitation for your business. Delays in applications and data loading not only impact the efficiency of your business operations, but also affect the experience of your employees and customers. Amazon has found that for every 100ms of latency, 1% of sales are lost; and for every 0.5 seconds it takes for Google search results to load, website traffic drops by 20%2. When it comes to your business, every second counts. Choosing effective bandwidth to optimize your connection speeds is critical to improving productivity and user experience.

Key factors for determining the optimal bandwidth for your company

1) Use of cloud applications

The cloud shifts the focus of bandwidth to the connections between the network and the cloud infrastructure. Transferring data to the cloud and running business-critical applications with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) can put a significant strain on internet connections. If most of your business applications and data are hosted in the cloud, you need greater bandwidth to ensure smooth and efficient data exchange and access to the cloud.

Tip: Also consider background activities such as automatic updates, synchronization or backups in your applications, which also take up part of your bandwidth.

2) Type of online activities

Different online activities require different speeds. Depending on your industry, you may be running multiple programs and data-hungry applications at the same time. Basic activities such as email and web browsing do not consume much bandwidth, but complex activities such as real-time communication (i.e. voice over IP phone systems and video conferencing), large file uploads, 4K video streaming, data backup services and cloud-based applications require higher speeds.

Tip: It is likely that every user is multitasking. Therefore, take all simultaneous activities into account when calculating the total bandwidth required.

3) Number of devices

Digital density, i.e. the number of devices in the system, can have an impact on performance as bandwidth is distributed across all users and devices connected to the network at the same time. The more people using the same network, the more data needs to be distributed, which slows down the network.

Tip: Remember to consider not only your employees’ devices, but also those of your guests.

Greater bandwidth creates room for company growth

Insufficient bandwidth can lead to bottlenecks in your business operations. Investing in more bandwidth allows for better business scalability and facilitates the introduction of new technologies, accelerating business growth and transformation.

While it’s difficult to predict future needs as your business expands, it’s likely that new technologies such as 5G will create next-generation digital solutions, communication tools and collaboration software that will require more bandwidth than ever before. Companies that utilize these technologies effectively will secure a competitive advantage and stay ahead of the competition.

Ultimately, greater bandwidth is an investment in the future of your company that will save time and resources in the long term.

I look forward to your questions!

Frank Frommknecht

Key Account Consultant