Does your business need ultra-fast internet?

Internet

How fast should your internet be? When you look at the prices of various internet packages, it might be tempting to aim for maximum speed or try to save as much money as possible.

In truth, both options are valid in different situations. Here’s what you should consider when deciding how fast your internet should be.

What counts as “ultra-fast”?

Speed is relative. A connection that is ultra-fast for a residence could feel incredibly slow when shared between 100 computers in an office building. Similarly, while a basic connection can be very fast for reading emails or watching videos, the same internet might take forever when you try to upload a video project to a streaming platform.

For the purposes of this article, let’s say that an “ultra-fast” internet is the fastest — or one of the fastest — connections you can get in your region. The type of connection that providers charge a premium for. Whether that premium package will provide you with 100mps or 1000mps using an optic fiber depends on what’s available in your region.

The benefits of a faster internet

The truth is that about 90% of small and medium-sized businesses don’t need above-average internet. Stability and consistency of service are much more important in their case. Especially if email and cloud solutions will be the main uses of your corporate internet.

However, if your daily operations see you constantly sending and receiving large files over the web, it might be worth investing in a faster connection. Here’s why.

1 – Faster download speeds

Large videos, databases, and design projects can all take a long time to download off the company’s cloud. You can avoid having to download those files by employing solutions that let your employees manipulate those files in the cloud. However, that is not always possible, and when downloads like this are necessary, you will want a fast internet connection.

Often, employees are forced to stay idle while they wait for files to finish downloading. Faster download speeds not only make their time more efficient, but it makes the average day less frustrating, as constantly waiting for downloads to complete can slow down their workflow.

2 – Faster uploads

A lot of what was said about downloads also applies to uploads, with two additions. First, uploading large videos to the web fast can be very important if your company is running video-oriented marketing campaigns or publishing video content. The last thing you want is to lose a major scoop because the video was ready but took too long to upload.

Second, faster upload speeds also make backing up files to the cloud much faster, which can save a lot of time.

3 – More reliability

If you can get an optic fiber connection, those come with the benefit of greater reliability. Optic fiber cables are much more resilient than copper wires, and they can handle changes in weather better.

Of course, while getting all of these benefits often means you have to buy a more expensive internet package, that is not always the case. You can also get a boost to your business’s internet speeds by optimizing your local network. Look into utilizing an SD-WAN solution, for example.