Any rule of thumb for pipe size?

[maruhi]

Hello!

My client is a very small office consisting of three fulltime employees.

Currently they have a T-1 PRI for voice and any unused bandwidth at any given time is for the Internet. This makes it for a painfully slow internet access for the office. They could just add a business class Internet service that will at least give a more faster download speed ...

But when talking to them, I found out that they had plans to hire a parttime remote staff in the fall and was also thinking VPN so one fulltime can also access in-house NAS housing documents, spreadsheets, etc.

So looking into either 5MB/5MB or 10MB/10MB connection to upgrade to. With a maximum of two people accessing from the outside through VPN, is there a rule of thumb as to how much each should minimally have to get a decent user experience

Thank you!
Maruhi

 

[sfx2000]

Could probably bump to a 10/10 config, and move the PBX over to a VOIP solution - you didn't mention what country, and what the actual carrier options are available.

 

[maruhi]

Thank you for your advice!

I was thinking along that line as 5/5 & 10/10 levels are provided through bonding T-1. Good thing is bumping up speed won't extend their contract which they have 12 more month. Above 10, they offer through fiber and triggers new contract.

Pulled quotes from other providers and considering ETF, it is difficult to justify jumping ship now ... might make sense to ride it out for 12 more months with bumped speed. If jump ship now then they'll have staggered contracts: what's left of T-1 contract and new fiber.

Also other providers offer 100 or 50 only so as in your advice a new contract in 12 months with fiber & VoIP (like Packet8 service) might make more sense.

Above was one of the reasons why 50 or even 100 was taking bazooka to a fly in such a small userbase ... of course if the figures work out then bazooka is ok as the fiber from current provider seems pricey comparative to other quotes.

Oh, I'm stateside in northeast.

 

[L&LD]

Hello!

My client is a very small office consisting of three fulltime employees.

Currently they have a T-1 PRI for voice and any unused bandwidth at any given time is for the Internet. This makes it for a painfully slow internet access for the office. They could just add a business class Internet service that will at least give a more faster download speed ...

But when talking to them, I found out that they had plans to hire a parttime remote staff in the fall and was also thinking VPN so one fulltime can also access in-house NAS housing documents, spreadsheets, etc.

So looking into either 5MB/5MB or 10MB/10MB connection to upgrade to. With a maximum of two people accessing from the outside through VPN, is there a rule of thumb as to how much each should minimally have to get a decent user experience

Thank you!
Maruhi

If accessing 'housing documents' means anything bigger than about 50MB files, then the faster ISP speeds will help a lot. Particularly if they will be also editing and then saving back the changes, rather than just simply viewing those documents.

How many of the (2) remote staff will be using the VPN at the same time? Will the 'in-house' staff also use the VPN capabilities from time to time too and possibly consecutively with the remote users?

Is there many 'housing documents' that need to be accessed during a normal workday, or it is usually just a handful of documents that need to be referenced throughout the day?

 

[maruhi]

How many of the (2) remote staff will be using the VPN at the same time? Will the 'in-house' staff also use the VPN capabilities from time to time too and possibly consecutively with the remote users?

Is there many 'housing documents' that need to be accessed during a normal workday, or it is usually just a handful of documents that need to be referenced throughout the day?

My understanding was that mostly at different times and not many continuous access to house documents. It'll probably be more like retrieve, edit & save back after using COTS like word processing on their machine. There may be one software that they use to assemble forms (fill i nthe blanks) & save out to in house repository. I also understood that no other in-house staff won't be using VPN.