Even before the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the way much of America conducted business, having enough connectivity speed was crucial in today’s increasingly tech-driven world.
As the pandemic now stretches past 18 months and Zoom meetings have become commonplace along with a remote workforce often sharing large files and cloud-based applications, a lack of bandwidth can be a deal breaker for your business.
McKinsey and Company says that “in just a few months’ time, the COVID-19 crisis has brought about years of change in the way companies in all sectors and regions do business”.
The McKinsey Global Survey of executives found that:
With digital adoption taking a quantum leap in business, your connectivity speed is more important than ever.
Despite being the birthplace of Silicon Valley and the modern tech movement, the U.S. has lagged other countries when it comes to connectivity speed.
In fact, until in 2015 the definition of broadband in the U.S. was just a slowpoke 4 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps
Those connectivity speeds are still not fast enough for many businesses to remain competitive.
“We strongly urge you to update federal broadband program speed requirements to reflect current and anticipated 21st century uses,” four U.S. senators -- Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), Angus King (I-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) – wrote to the FCC, the US Commerce Department, and the Department of Agriculture in March.
The senators would like to see a broadband benchmark symmetrical speed across federal agencies of 100 Mbps for both downloads and uploads.
According to Ookla, the average U.S. internet speed in June 2021 was:
While the U.S. fixed broadband speed has increased from 143.28 Mbps average download since June of 2020, globally the U.S. is still not top 10 in connectivity speeds, trailing others that average over 200 Mbps including:
To understand connectivity speeds, it helps to know your bits from bytes. Information flows over the internet in units of electronic data with a “bit” as the most basic unit. When eight bits are combined in a series, they form one “byte”.
So, a megabyte is one million bytes and eight times larger than a megabit. Download and upload speeds, as referenced above, are measures in Mbps or megabits per second.
Information flows over the internet from your fixed or mobile device in two directions:
Residential use relies more on download speeds for such things as streaming programs on Netflix, while upload speeds become more important in a business setting where large files need to be shared, video conferencing is streamed, and cloud computing is conducted.
Your internet speed is based on how fast those bits or bytes can be sent or received.
Many times, you will see bandwidth and internet speed used interchangeably but bandwidth is the capacity of your internet connection to handle the transfer of data.
If we can use an analogy in terms of water flow, internet speed is the “water pressure” while bandwidth is the “delivery device”.
A smaller bandwidth – say using a garden hose – is going to take longer to get a volume of water than something larger such as a fire hose, regardless of the actual water pressure.
For businesses, the goal is to have both that fire hose and high-water pressure at their beck and call.
Keep in mind that advertised internet bandwidth from service providers is measured by full capacity and not per user such that if you have 25 Mbps and five employees all downloading files at the same time, you will only have an average of 5 Mbps per employee available.
Latency and hops are two other terms to understand when considering connectivity speeds:
Fewer hops will result in lower latency and optimize your connectivity speed.
To understand your current connectivity speed, you will need to run tests.
TechWiser.com says there are a variety of ways to test your internet speed including:
Every business has its own unique appetite for connectivity speed with the number of users on your network and the number of connected devices driving what bandwidth will keep you competitive.
“You’d think that a small business with a handful of employees could get by with less speed, but what if they’re transferring gigantic files and video conferencing all day?” asks Bill Frost in his guide “How to Choose an Internet Service Provider for Your Business”.
For reference, Broadband.Now has the following speed guidelines:
On the other hand, HighSpeedInternet looks at connectivity differently:
Contact Data Center Systems today to find out how our structured cabling solutions can help your business achieve best connectivity speeds possible.