How to work out required internet speed

Eildor

What's the best way to work out internet speed requirements? Sounds quite complicated since there are many factors to be considered and every network is going to be different... sounds like it's going to be quite hit and miss to be honest (unless the business is already up and running and you monitor usage to get an idea).

Also, does anyone know what kind of speeds are available in the UK and which providers are the most popular for business use?

vinbuck

Use something like PRTG/MRTG to monitor the current uplink or uplinks and you will get an idea of what the usage patterns are like. Until you know that, it's tough to make any other decisions. You may find that a single user is hogging a big chunk of it - PRTG graphs help out a whole lot.

Lizano

I've looked for a kbps per user metric for a long time, but have not found one. I guess the thing I would take into consideration are the amout of users and the type of traffic. If you are gonna be passing voip traffic then you know that each call is around 80 kbps.

For the rest, I have customers that run a 10 employee shop with a 1.5 Mbps. I think in general terms, from what I see on the street, if you have less than 15 users you might be safe with a T1.

dustinmurphy

It depends on what your users are doing with the internet. I worked for a video game company, so we had a high bandwidth requirement. A sister company was a financial firm... they didn't do much, so a bonded T-1 (3 Mb/s) was good for them (approx. 15 users in all)

MAC_Addy

It really depends, what will you be doing? T1's and bonded T1's are usually the best bet. People think of 1.5Mbps or 3.0Mbps is really low, but this is a leased line connection, guaranteed 1.5/3.0Mbps.

Whenever my company gets a new site I ALWAYS set them up with a bonded T1, it works very well for them. Good thing about in the US is that AT&T will provide a managed router, so if there are any problems they can usually take care of it. I have been out of the UK for about 8 years now, I can't remember what's to offer.

Eildor

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated!

Since someone mentioned PRTG... anyone know of a free alternative? I set it up with GNS3 and it's a sweet tool.