In today’s economy, business can’t exist without the internet. E-commerce alone generated over $4.2 trillion worldwide in 2020. When you add online marketing and social media to the mix, nearly all businesses depend on the internet, which is why maintaining the health of your internet is vital.

How to Determine Your Internet Health

The health of your internet can be summed up using four basic metrics: ping, network jitter, download speed, and upload speed. Here’s what these mean when it comes to how well your internet supports your business:

• Ping speed: Your ping speed measures how long it takes data to make a round trip from your computer to a server and back. If your ping is too high, such as more than 150 milliseconds, you may have latency, making video calls and other real-time data functions inefficient.
• Network jitter: Network jitter reflects delays you experience in video or audio connections. Anything close to 30 milliseconds or above may impact what you see and hear on your screen, as well as what others see and hear when you’re chatting or conferencing with them.
• Download speed: This refers to how many megabytes your internet allows you to download per second. The speed you need depends on your business activity, but most organizations will need at least 50 Mbps for every four or five employees.
• Upload speed: Upload speed quantifies how quickly your internet connection allows you to upload data, and it’s also measured in Mbps. Some businesses rarely have to upload significant amounts of data, but many need videoconferencing or fast file transfer capabilities, so requirements will vary.

Why Internet Health Is Important for Your Business

The quality of your internet connection, along with your bandwidth speed, can have a big impact on your overall operations. And if your business leverages virtual meetings and conferencing, your internet connectivity directly impacts the quality and reliability of these calls and meetings. Collaboration technology isn’t the only business software that relies on the internet; business productivity can suffer without a healthy and reliable connection.

Business is all about communication, data, and interactions, so quality internet is mandatory. It protects your reputation as a reliable operation that’s easy to interact with, while also ensuring seamless, efficient workflows. If your internet connection is weak, investing in a different ISP or package may pay big dividends in the long run.

Test the Health of Your Internet with Our Bandwidth Test

You can test your ping, network jitter, download speeds, and upload speeds with our free bandwidth speed test. To learn more about how to use the internet, managed IT, and cloud services to boost your business, connect with TPx today.