Upload speed, stability and backup connectivity needed for video meetings, VPN and cloud applications.
Working from home makes your internet connection part of your work equipment. Outages, latency or low upload speed translate directly into productivity. The recommendations below help you move your home office onto a solid infrastructure.
What speed is enough?
For a single-person home office, 100 Mbps is usually enough; but if several people work in the same home, children take online classes or large files are shared, 250-500 Mbps is recommended. A video meeting needs roughly 3 to 8 Mbps both down and up; high-definition meetings need more.
Upload speed is the hidden hero
In video conferencing, cloud sync and sending large files, upload speed is decisive. The upload speed of our fibre tariffs is half the download speed; Fiber 1000 offers 500 Mbps upload. On older copper-based lines upload may stay at 5-20 Mbps.
Latency and stability
Remote desktop, VPN and session-based applications are affected by ping and jitter. Use a wired connection and, if needed, define a separate network on the Wi-Fi 6 modem for work devices. Set quality of service (QoS) priorities so other devices do not download heavily during a video meeting.
Backup connectivity plan
- Phone hotspot: a temporary fix in emergencies; check your data allowance and signal quality beforehand.
- 4G/5G backup modem: in our business tariffs it takes over automatically when the main line fails.
- Uninterruptible power supply (UPS): keeps the modem and fibre terminal running for two to four hours in a power cut.
Security
For business data a strong Wi-Fi password (WPA3), a separate guest network and modem firmware updates are essential. If you have a company VPN, follow company policies, which usually prefer full tunnelling to split tunnelling.
Cost
Many companies give remote staff an internet allowance. In that case you can make a business application so the tariff invoice can be issued to the company. For a home office, look at our Office Fibre or Fiber 500-1000 tariffs.
Home office checklist
- Fiber 250 or higher tariff, wired connection
- Wi-Fi 6 modem and, if needed, an extra mesh unit
- A UPS for the modem and fibre terminal
- Backup: phone hotspot or 4G modem
- Lighting and background for video meetings; as important as network quality
Once you complete these five items, your home office may have a more stable connection than many company offices. If needed our team can do an on-site home office analysis and recommend a configuration for you.
Finally, if possible connect your work device by Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi and run a 30-second speed and ping test before a video meeting. A small preparation prevents most of the dropouts and freezes that can happen in a meeting.