Network throughput vs bandwidth: A transformation balancing act

Getting complaints from users that apps are lagging, video is jittery, and file transfers crawl? You’ve seen it before: high-bandwidth links on paper, poor application performance in reality. The cause? Nine times out of ten, it’s a network throughput issue. 

Day to day, it’s a nuisance. But what if you’re also tasked with implementing transformative technologies across your organization? Throughput issues can impact bandwidth-hungry implementations like AI, cloud-first strategies and IoT. This year, IDC found that 33% of enterprise tech leaders’ AI transformation plans suffer from limited bandwidth. Which means they need to look at their throughput.

So keep reading to balance your throughput against your bandwidth needs.

Is throughput the same as bandwidth?

Essentially, one tells you what your network connectivity should be capable of. The other tells you what’s actually getting through.

Bandwidth is potential. Throughput is performance.

Understanding what’s impacting your throughput and how that plays into your bandwidth needs can be the key to unlocking successful transformation at scale, increasing efficiency company-wide, as well as improving productivity levels and revenue. Not to mention if you’re trying to diagnose bottlenecks, troubleshoot underperforming sites, or optimize network architecture…

You can provision a 1 Gbps Ethernet circuit and still get sub-100 Mbps throughput if something upstream (or downstream) is misconfigured, underpowered, or overloaded.

But what’s important to note is that bandwidth is what your provider sells you and what your interfaces report as link speed. So troubleshooting some network problems will require balancing throughput issues with scaling your bandwidth, depending on what’s causing the issue.

What is good throughput?

“Good” is relative. Throughput needs to align with the application’s requirements and the individual site's use case. But in a transformation context, it needs to scale with new architectures, adapt to evolving user behaviors, and support next-gen workloads.

The key is consistency. A 500 Mbps link delivering 90 Mbps of throughput at peak hours isn’t “good” unless that 90 Mbps is enough for what’s being asked of it.

For more information on the technical details of throughput, check out our FAQ at the bottom of the page.

What kind of bandwidth does your business need?

That depends on your architecture, your application mix, and how usage is trending. Especially as AI and cloud adoption drive traffic in new directions.

It’s not just about meeting today’s demand. It’s about anticipating what’s next and making sure your investment scales with it. As Expereo’s CIO, Jean-Philippe Avelange, recently noted:

If you're provisioning bandwidth without understanding how throughput and performance will respond under real-world loads, or how transformative tech will reshape demand, you’re setting yourself up for cost overruns and underwhelming returns.

But on average, a medium-sized business needs at least 500 Mbps of download speed and 100 Mbps of upload speed for everyday activities like emails, cloud application usage, data transfer, and video calls.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what that could look like:

• Small businesses (1–10 users): 25–100 Mbps.
• Medium-sized businesses (10–50 users): 100–500 Mbps.
• Large enterprises (50+ users): 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps or higher.

But there are also considerations about your network architecture and the connectivity solutions you’re using. For example:

• Distributed sites using SD-WAN: Should prioritize high-quality DIA links with known throughput metrics. You should look to providers who can scale your bandwidth up and down as needed.
• Cloud-first orgs: Size bandwidth to peak usage needs. It’s important to also factor in your network redundancy measures, as those will also require bandwidth. But monitor actual throughput to spot over- or under-provisioning.
• IoT-heavy or real-time ops: Focus on consistent throughput with low jitter and latency.

Bottom line: don’t just size links based on bandwidth. Build around throughput requirements.

How to measure network throughput

Measuring throughput accurately isn’t hard, but you need to know what to look for.

How to test throughput on a network:

1. Network visibility tools: Platforms, like Expereo’s Intelligent Internet platform expereoOne, can help you see real-time and historical bandwidth utilization rates on a site-by-site basis. Allowing you to see bandwidth bottlenecks that indicate a network throughput issue.
2. Packet analysis: You can analyze network packet headers and timestamps to calculate the number of packets transferred in a specific timeframe. Again, divide the packet count by the time duration for the packet transfer rate for the throughput of the network.
3. Network load testing: By simulating high traffic volumes, you can evaluate network performance under heavy load conditions. Throughput is then calculated on how well the network can handle that increased traffic.
4. Bandwidth testing: This is when you send a certain amount of data across a network connection and measure the time it takes for the transfer to complete. Then you divide the data size by the time taken to calculate the network throughput. 

How to increase network throughput

Increasing network throughput isn't just a matter of throwing more bandwidth at the problem. It’s about understanding what’s really happening across every link, site, and region. Similarly, it’s about having the right tools, data, and partners to act on it.

This is why managed Network-as-a-Service is becoming a popular option, as it allows you to scale your bandwidth needs per site so you can get the optimal throughput needed to power your priorities. It could be seamless app performance, AI integration, cloud migration, or adding more devices or sites to your network.

Expereo can turn your complexity into performance no matter how many sites you have, where they are or what your current network architecture looks like.

Here’s how we can help you optimize throughput:

• Work with you to understand the right blend of connectivity solutions for each site and location based on performance, availability, and cost.
• Build diversity into your network strategy through solutions like LEO satellites or Fixed Wireless Access.
• Monitor real-time network health via our platform, expereoOne, giving you visibility into actual throughput, not just theoretical capacity.
• Optimize routing and failover paths to avoid congestion and packet loss with our Enhanced Internet solution. This can be critical for reliable application performance for cloud-first architectures.
• Configure and manage CPE, edge, and last-mile equipment to avoid local bottlenecks that often go unnoticed.
• Proactively detect and resolve performance degradation before it hits your users using smart automation and our global support centers.

Throughput isn’t something you fix once. It’s something you manage continuously and globally. And unless you’ve got time to build a worldwide NOC, manage dozens of ISPs, and troubleshoot issues at every site and location, it pays to have a partner who can do it for you.

Throughput issues? Fix them at the source with Expereo

That’s what we do at Expereo. We simplify enterprise connectivity. We own the complexity so you can connect your people, places and things to move your business at the speed of life.

Get in touch today to discuss your connectivity challenges and transformation goals.