The new buzzword in internet service is “symmetrical.” Many providers, including altafiber, are offering symmetrical internet speeds and touting the benefits of this feature.

But do you really have the need for symmetrical speed? Here’s your guide to help you cut through the technobabble and understand what symmetrical internet is and how it can benefit you.

What is symmetrical internet?

The definition of “symmetrical internet” is simple: it refers to any internet service plan where the upload speed and download speed are identical.

Are all internet plans symmetrical?

Actually, no! It’s a common assumption that the “speed” advertised for a given internet service plan refers to both download and upload speeds. In fact, many plans that boast lightning-fast download speeds have much slower upload speeds—this type of plan is called “asymmetrical internet.” Selecting a symmetrical internet plan ensures your uploads are just as fast as your downloads.

Why is upload speed important?

All these activities require fast upload speeds:

• Video chats or conferencing
• Playing network-connected video games
• Sending important or time-sensitive files
• Streaming live video as a creator

If you use your network for any of these, a symmetrical plan might be for you.

Who can benefit from symmetrical internet?

Businesses: Efficient day-to-day business operations rely on fast internet speeds for handling massive amounts of data. Businesses are sending, uploading, and moving more information than ever. Large files are shared with coworkers 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 need to process transactions immediately. All these processes require fast upload speeds and may be improved by symmetrical internet.

Work-from-home employees: If you work from home, you might require fast internet speeds, but you may also have other internet users in your home taking up their share of the upload speed. Attending online meetings and video calls require quality upload speeds to come out clear and professional to the other participants.

Residences with many internet users/devices: Think for a moment about all the network-connected devices in your home—laptops, gaming consoles, phones, tablets, smart home devices, etc. Households with several family members or roommates living together often have multiple devices per person. Each device connected to your network slices up your bandwidth like a pie, so when everyone is home and online, the overall demands on the network can be taxing even if no one person is uploading substantial amounts of data. Faster upload speeds give each device the share of speed required when needed.

Students: During the pandemic, distance learning required even more upload bandwidth, and not much has changed since then. Taking online classes, collaborating with other students on cloud-based services, and sharing files are now a major part of the learning process. Submitting classwork electronically requires a good upload speed, especially when running up against a deadline. PDFs, PowerPoint files and other graphic-heavy uploads can become very large very quickly. Uploading a 1 gigabyte file over a 10 Mbps upload connection takes 15 minutes, whereas it takes only 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 collateral, emails, websites, blogs, videos and more. Every piece of such content must be uploaded. Doing so with a slow upload connection decreases productivity.

Do I need symmetrical internet?

The answer to that question comes down to how you’re using your internet connection. For those who use it only for browsing the web, streaming movies, viewing social media, and emailing, the difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical internet speeds will be less noticeable—but there are very few people who use it this way.

Nearly all businesses can benefit from a symmetrical connection, especially as the number of employees on the network grows. For residential users, it comes down to how many users and devices you have and how much demand you are putting on the network.

How can I find a symmetrical internet plan?

If you live in our coverage area, altafiber can help with that! altafiber offers a variety of symmetrical internet service plans, all delivered over a lightning-fast fiber network. Learn about internet options here, or visit one of our retail locations to build the perfect plan for your needs.