Talk to almost any internet service provider, and they tout the high download speeds they offer. While important, it isn’t the only metric you should be looking at when signing up for internet service for your business.
Depending on your type of business and what your needs are, upload speed can be just as or more important than download speed.
Cloud Applications
In the world of online communication and “doing business in the cloud,” keep in mind that the data you download and edit needs to be uploaded back to the cloud in order to be saved and accessed by others or even yourself on other devices. Collaboration applications such as Google Drive allow multiple people to work within the same files. In order to access the most recent updates, you’ll want the files to be updated nearly instantaneously.
Online Backup
Most backup solutions offer an off-site, cloud solution, so ensuring you have good upload speeds will keep your backups safe and secure. Since most initial data retrieval processes will entail many Gigabytes or even Terabytes of data, the faster your upload speeds are, the faster that initial data can be backed up.
VOIP & Video Conferencing
Internet communication is a two-way street, and your download & upload speeds need to be on par with your minimum technology needs. If your speeds are too low, your voice & video data could lag. You don’t want your voice or video to cut out when you’re working to close that big deal, do you? 😉
Working Remotely
This is one of the most overlooked areas where upload speeds matter for many businesses. Any team members who are working remotely or need to access company data via a VPN will be relying on the upload speed of your company’s internet. Just as it is important for them to download via whatever speed their internet connection is, the company server needs to be able to upload the data to the team member’s computer/device.
If any of the above-mentioned scenarios exist in your business, I urge you to take a look at the current speeds of your company’s internet connection. You can test using an internet speed test here. Compare the results to what your ISP says you are supposed to have. If it has been a while since you have upgraded your plan, see what offers they may have for updating to a higher speed plan that would fit your budget and business needs.
ClearCom IT would be glad to check your network equipment to be sure you are receiving the internet speeds you are paying for. Contact the team to schedule a free IT Network assessment at 508-892-5555 or fill out the request form here.
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I’ve never considered just how important a good internet speed would be for businesses. They would need to ensure that they have enough speed to do their job quickly, while also having enough bandwidth to support so many systems on their network. It’s definitely a good idea to choose a good internet service provider for that kind of thing.