What is symmetric internet?

Internet speeds continue to get faster as technology becomes more advanced. However, ISPs usually focus on providing faster download speeds, but this is only half of the service. Upload speeds are usually much slower. Symmetrical internet provides the same upload and download speed. For example, a 500/500 megabits per second (Mbps) connection offers upload and download speeds of 500 Mbps. When upload and download speeds are different, you have asymmetric internet.

Who will benefit from symmetric internet?

>> Companies: Efficient day-to-day business operations depend on fast internet speeds to handle the required amount of data. Businesses are sending, uploading and moving more information than ever before. Large files are shared with colleagues to increase collaboration. Employees send out emails with large attachments and use cloud applications to upload and download files throughout the day. Point-of-sale systems must process transactions in a timely manner. All of these processes require high upload speeds and will benefit from symmetrical internet.

>> Work from home employees: If you work from home, you may need fast internet speeds, but you may also have other internet users in your home taking up their share of the upload speed. Participating in online meetings and video calls requires high-quality upload speeds to appear clear and professional to the other participants.

>> Housing with a large number of internet users/devices: Between the four of us in my home, we have 19 devices for work, school and personal use. When everyone is at home and online, we place the greatest demands on the network – work, online school work, games, security cameras, mobile devices and other uses. Faster upload speeds give each of our devices the share of speed we need when we need it.

>> Students: During the pandemic, distance learning required even more upload bandwidth. Taking online courses, collaborating with other students on cloud-based services and sharing files were essential to the learning process. Electronic submission of class work, projects and other assignments requires good upload speed, especially when approaching a deadline. PDF files, PowerPoint files, and other graphics-heavy uploads can grow quite large very easily. Uploading a 1 gigabyte file over a 10 Mbps upload connection takes 15 minutes, while it only takes about 30 seconds when the upload speed is 300 Mbps.

>> Web Content Creators: Web content creators’ work covers a wide range of projects, such as marketing materials, emails, websites, blogs, videos and more. Each piece of such content must be uploaded. Doing so with a slow upload connection reduces productivity.

Which one should I get?

The answer to that question comes down to what purpose you are using your internet connection for. With a small number of users only using it to surf the internet, stream movies, view social media and email, the difference between symmetric and asymmetric speeds will be less noticeable.

Symmetrical speeds give your network the boost needed for multiple users to host or participate in online meetings, upload files to remote servers or video content sites like YouTube, host live streams, and anything else that requires a lot of data upstream. When you have multiple people and devices on your network, each one takes up some of the upload speed.

Most businesses can certainly benefit from a symmetrical connection, especially as the number of employees on the network grows. For private users, it comes down to how many users and devices you have and how much demand you place on the network.

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Nicholas Theuriet is Product Manager at Hawaiian Telcom. Reach him at [email protected]