Why Should You Care About Gig Speed?

Supercharged internet speed—up to 1 gigabit (or gig) per second (Gbps) is now available for any size business. But unless you’re a tech expert, deciding whether to upgrade your business to super-high-speed internet connection can be a puzzle.

To take the guesswork out of this important business decision, we asked Jud Whiteneck, senior director, Product Management at Spectrum Business, to break it all down.

What is gig speed? 

Gigabit speed is an evolution in the industry that enables incredibly fast internet connections with enough speed to support many employees and all of their bandwidth needs. With gig speed service, you can download a 1-gigabit file in less than nine seconds. This task would take longer than a minute on a 100 Mbps connection. And with a fiber-rich, state-of-the-art network and a next-generation technology called DOCSIS 3.1, more speed can be packed into existing lines running to customers’ locations.

Why should a typical business owner care about gig speed?

Internet usage or consumption tends to grow every year, due to additional applications and programs that move to the cloud. As more business functions, such as file sharing, project management and bookkeeping, depend on internet connections, gig speed can accommodate the next generation of cloud applications without slowing down service.

To illustrate this point, think of internet connections like highways. A 100 Mbps connection is like a four-lane highway that is able to move traffic efficiently to its destination. As the amount of traffic grows, a four-lane highway may need to be expanded. Gigabit service would be like adding 36 additional lanes to the highway and increasing the speed limit at the same time.

Faster download as well as faster upload speeds are important, so businesses should pay attention to both. We want faster download speeds so we can navigate and update cloud applications and web browsers as quickly as possible, and minimize load times. However, the ability to quickly upload data is just as important to preserving productivity. Small companies upload files and send data via the internet all day long by sending emails, using online communication tools like Skype or Slack, uploading to file sharing applications like Dropbox or OneDrive, and more.

Are there any other specific ways business owners can benefit from getting gig speed?

Adapting to new technology and growing headcounts will require faster internet service for a business to stay productive all day. For companies that have employees working with data-intensive applications in the cloud, gig service provides enough speed to support SMBs with even the heaviest data usage needs. For companies that are planning to add employees, or that have a fluctuating number of employees, gig service allows headcount to grow without connectivity bottlenecks that limit productivity.

How should a business owner measure the impact of high-speed connections on the business?

While most people think gigabit is about a single speed, the value it really provides to small businesses is the ability to support many connections at incredibly fast speeds. With gig speed, a business can support a growing team that has high bandwidth needs or can foresee moving more operations online. Speed allows flexibility and room to grow.

Spectrum High-Speed Internet offers the fastest starting internet speeds of 200 Mbps at the lowest prices. To find the right speed for your business, click here.