How Fast Does My Business Internet Need to Be?

A practical guide to choosing the right internet speed for your business. How many Mbps does your team actually need, and what happens when you run out?

The Honest Answer: Less Than You Think for Most Tasks, More Than You Think for Peak Load

Most individual internet tasks consume far less bandwidth than people assume. A voice call uses 0.1Mbps. A video call uses 1–3Mbps. Loading a webpage takes a burst of 1–5Mbps. Streaming HD video uses 5–8Mbps. The challenge isn't the average — it's simultaneous peak load.

A Practical Speed Guide by Business Size

Business Size	Recommended Speed	Suitable Product
1–5 staff	50–100Mbps	Full fibre broadband
5–15 staff	100–300Mbps	Full fibre broadband
15–30 staff	300Mbps–1Gbps	Full fibre or leased line
30–50 staff	500Mbps–1Gbps+	Leased line recommended
50+ staff	1Gbps+ symmetric	Leased line

What Slows Your Internet Down More Than Speed

Many businesses with technically fast connections experience slow performance due to factors that have nothing to do with the headline speed: contention (shared infrastructure at peak times), latency (delay on VoIP and cloud apps), upload speed (often the real bottleneck for cloud-first businesses) and WiFi quality (the router or access points becoming the bottleneck).

The Upload Speed Problem Most Businesses Miss

Consumer and even some business broadband products are heavily asymmetric — fast download, slow upload. A 1Gbps/100Mbps connection downloads at gigabit speed but uploads at only 100Mbps. For businesses using cloud backups, uploading large files, running video calls or hosting anything externally, upload speed matters as much as download.

Full fibre broadband from Telexico delivers symmetric speeds — equal upload and download. Leased lines are always symmetric.

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Yes, for most purposes. 100Mbps full fibre handles 10 staff running Microsoft 365, Teams, video calls and cloud software simultaneously with headroom to spare.

The most common causes are WiFi bottlenecks (consumer router not adequate for the number of devices), contention (shared infrastructure at peak times) or upload speed limitations. A proper business broadband connection with a managed WiFi system usually resolves all three.

VoIP calls require approximately 1Mbps per simultaneous call. A 20-person office making 10 simultaneous calls needs just 10Mbps for voice — a tiny fraction of any business broadband connection.

Check whether the bottleneck is the internet connection or the WiFi. Run a speed test via ethernet cable directly to the router. If the wired speed is as advertised but WiFi is slow, the issue is your wireless infrastructure, not the broadband.