A friend of mine recently wrote about “joys” of the slow internet in the Greater Bahamas. Of course, he was there on vacation; for me, vacation is just a word in the dictionary. I’m one of those people who sent stories using a 300-point acoustic modem to a phone. Now, that it was slow!
But for work today, we need the fastest possible internet to our home offices and workplaces. This is because now more than ever, whether we work from home, the office or a combination of both, we need high-speed internet with a capital “F”.
As the analytical company CCS Insight found in its latest version Study of technologies in the workplace of employees in 202237% of respondents say that slow networks are the biggest disappointment when connecting. This is followed by bad mobile signals, 30%; unreliable home Wi-Fi, 29%; and Wi-Fi for the corporate office, 29%.
I feel your pain.
This week I’m working from our Myrtle Beach apartment with its 5Mbps DSL internet connection. Oh, how I long for the gigabit connection of my home office!
I rubbed my nose at how bad it was when a recent Zoom meeting lost its way into oblivion. Today, according to CCS Insight, companies are relying on video conferencing programs like Microsoft Teams and Zoom like never before. In 2021, the use of online video conferencing jumped by 50%.
At the same time, the popularity of old phone calls is rapidly declining. Their study showed that calls on desktop and mobile phones fell by 20%. Instead, people use instant messaging systems like Slack and, you guessed it, video conferencing apps.
By comparison, a phone call, even if made using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), can take as little as 100 kilobits per second (Kbps). Group Calling with Zoom requires a minimum of 1Mbps up and 600kbps down per user. (In practice, I would triple these bandwidth requirements.)
Looking ahead, CCS Insight and yours really see that the use of desktop phones is rapidly declining over the next 12 months. In their place we will see that conversations only with voice and video are growing strongly.
This will have two consequences for business.
The first is that you will need faster internet speeds to qualify for video conferencing. Second, it’s time to rethink how much you pay for PBX and traditional phone services.
I’m not saying it’s time to dump your plant – it’s not. But I see the end of business landlines here.
Of course, your domestic workers need all the fast internet they can get. They may not share an Internet connection with a dozen other employees. However, they probably share it with kids who play video games and family members who watch Batman in 4K resolution on HBO Max.
While a faster internet at the last mile will help, you need more than that; you also need to speed up your local office network and Wi-Fi.
For real speed, you still can’t beat Gigabit Ethernet. Wi-Fi is fine and good, but it will never replace the Ethernet cable to servers and routers.
For most users, however, Wi-Fi is where it is.
If you haven’t updated your Wi-Fi hotspots and networks by 2020, it’s time to upgrade.
What you need to look for is equipment that supports Wi-Fi 6also known as 802.11ax.
The big reason for the upgrade is that Wi-Fi 6 provides a nearly 40% increase in net bandwidth over its immediate predecessor, Wi-Fi 5.
Behind the harsh increase in speed also uses Wi-Fi 6 Multi-User, Multi-Input, Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), and Orthogonal Frequency Split Multiple Access (OFDMA) to allow the Wi-Fi router to split the connections into eight simultaneous streams. The net result quadruples the effective bandwidth of the user.
Another feature of Wi-Fi 6, Target Wake Time (TWT), is a useful power saving scheme. It allows Wi-Fi 6 devices to sleep while not having to send or receive data. This gives useful gadgets for the Internet of Things (IoT) such as security cameras and video doorbells for better battery life. It also helps on smartphones and laptops.
You can get Wi-Fi 6 equipment for only $ 70, but you don’t want to go cheap unless you have a choice.
Cheaper equipment does not have the CPU power or multi-gigabit ports needed for maximum performance. Decent equipment, such as TP-Link Archer line and on Asus ZenWiFi ET8applies to prices ranging from $ 200 to $ 500.
If you want even more speed and the ability to handle dozens or hundreds of devices, you’ll want to move on Wi-Fi 6E. In particular, Wi-Fi 6E can handle multiple Internet addresses.
This happens more often than you think. Today, every piece of equipment blown up in your home, including refrigerators and washing machines, can have its own IP address.
Wi-Fi 6E is also faster than Wi-Fi 6. In fact Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E is the first Wi-Fi router I’ve ever tested that can actually delivers a gigabit signal per second over the air.
This is good news. The bad news is that Wi-Fi 6E hardware is expensive.
Prices start at around $ 400, and my Orbi Wi-Fi 6E costs me a whopping $ 1,500. On the other hand, it also covers two buildings with 3,500 square meters.
So you get what you pay for.
Finally, when considering the future of your Internet and network, remember that the network is as fast as your slowest connection.
If your laptops, for example, still use outdated 802.11n Wi-Fi chipsets, they still can’t run faster than 300Mbps, even if they’re sitting on a 6E router pumping a 1Gbps signal.
Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3659193/its-time-to-speed-up-your-business-network.html
