(a) Guide
How much internet speed does a business need?
Speed sizing goes wrong when it is based on staff count. Size it on what is running in your busiest hour.
Count concurrent devices, not people
Every member of staff carries two or three connected devices, and guests or customers add more. Tablets, handhelds, card terminals, cameras, thermostats, TVs and printers all hold connections. The number that matters is how many devices are active at once in your peak hour.
Upload is where business traffic hurts
Video meetings, cloud backups, camera footage leaving the building, imaging transfers, card authorisation and hosted phone calls all push data outward. A plan sold on a large download number with a small upload will feel fast on a speed test and slow in practice. Ask whether the circuit is symmetrical.
List the systems that cannot stall
- Payments and point of sale
- Hosted phone or contact centre
- Security cameras and recorders
- Cloud applications your staff work in all day
- Guest or customer Wi-Fi, kept on its own segment
- Backups and file sync, scheduled outside peak where possible
Leave headroom and a failover decision
Size for the peak, then leave room for a year of growth — adding capacity later is usually a contract change. If an hour offline costs more than a month of a backup path, size the failover at the same time rather than revisiting it after the first outage.
Commercial service only · United States