This week, we simplify the way that you are looking at your bandwidth needs in the office. Let’s jump in straight to how to calculate your required bandwidth in your office.
3 simple steps, here we go:
Step 1:
How many devices have you got?
Say you have 20 rooms in a hotel. 2 pax per room. 40 guests total.
Each room has 2 devices. Total 80 devices.
Always account for 80% of the total devices at least. So 64 devices are going to be used at the same time during peak period (after work hours).
Step 2:
Determine what type of services they will need to be connected to.
Low Usage
Email, and IM
Web browsing
Medium Usage
Social media (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)
Upload photos
Video calls
Intense Usage
HD Video Streaming (longer ones like TV episodes, or movies)
Cloud storage (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.)
Step 3:
Calculate your bandwidth
Low usage (of bandwidth): No. of concurrent devices x 500 Kpbs
Medium usage: : No. of concurrent devices x 900 Kpbs
Intense usage: : No. of concurrent devices x 2,000 Kpbs
Example:
[ (14 x 500 Kbps) + (30 x 900 Kbps) + (20 x 2,000 Kbps) ]
7,000 + 27,000 + 40,000 = 74,000 Kbps = 74 Mbps
So 74 Mbps is the minimum bandwidth that we will need to accommodate 80% device usage.
This is not inclusive of the bandwidth usage of hotel owned devices like IPTV, their own internal network for office usage, etc.
This method of calculation works for not just hotels but also any office environment.
To reduce your bandwidth load, simply do not allow employees’ personal devices to connect to the network. This works out well for the cyber security portion of your office as you will eliminate one more source of cyber security breach: insider threat.
Insider threat means that the cyber security breach was cause by an internal employee, or management staff. Whether it was a known or unknown carrier of the cyber threat, by not allowing them access to your office network, you reduce your risk.