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How to Identify and Mitigate Network Overload

By Brittany Fugate, CEO at Cenetric

Networks used to be pretty simple and contained. Before wireless connectivity became so commonplace, a company’s network was made up of ethernet-connected devices like computers, printers and maybe some A/V equipment.

Today, we’re wireless all the time and we love our connectivity — but it takes a huge toll on our networks. Network overload means your whole business won’t run as fast and as smoothly as you want. Dozens of devices all competing on the same network creates this overload, leading to buffering and slow speeds. 

Problems associated with too many devices on your Wi-Fi

Most businesses offer Wi-Fi to their employees, customers, and visitors, which can sometimes slow the whole network down. 

That’s enough of a problem on its own, but if your organization relies on real-time connections like virtual desktop or remote desktop, you might find your connection unusable. It can also cause problems with VOIP phone lines, such as choppy calls, dropped calls, or strange audio distortions. 

So, if you’re noticing these signs of network overload, what can you do about it? The first step is to identify the potential cause — then it’s time to take action.

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Causes of network overload

When a network is overburdened, you have to figure out why before you can fix it. It could be everybody and their brother trying to get on your network at the same time  — or something more problematic.

Too many connections

This is the most common reason for network overload. Everyone expects to connect any device they want to Wi-Fi and get to work effortlessly — but without the right protections and setup, you could be looking at frustration and low productivity. 

Take action: Your firewall solution can help you analyze your network and find out where traffic is coming from. Once you do, one sure way to increase your Wi-Fi speed for your team is to limit Wi-Fi connections on your network.

By putting caps on both the number of connections and the bandwidth per user, you can keep your network flowing normally so everyone can get their work done delay-free. If some team members do need more bandwidth because of the work they do, that’s an easy customization.

If your VoIP solution is suffering because of other connections, you can use Quality of Service tools to ensure your voice traffic gets top priority over other traffic.

Also consider creating a company Bring Your Own Device policy to control what’s happening on your network when you don’t own the devices that are joining. To reduce network overload, keep mobile devices on a separate network with per-user bandwidth restrictions.

Unknown Activity

A jammed-up network might be more than too many people using too many devices  — it could be something a lot scarier, like unauthorized users or even a denial-of-service (DoS) attack or distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. This type of attack means bad actors are overwhelming your system with traffic to purposely disrupt it. These attacks increased by 94% worldwide from 2022 to 2023 — and even small businesses can fall victim to them.

Take action: To determine who’s on your network, you should perform an assessment to determine exactly how much of the network is being used by company devices. If there’s still significant traffic after accounting for those, you likely have unauthorized users on your network. While it could be the business next door glomming onto your connection, it could also be a threat.

As you audit your network activity, take note of activities and applications that are unknown, and consult with your MSP on the measures you should take to keep your network protected from unauthorized users.

Low Bandwidth

If you complete your Wi-Fi activity audit and find that nothing is out of the ordinary, but you are still dealing with slow speeds, the problem might be with the amount of bandwidth you have. 

Most businesses should focus on optimizing their network first before paying for more bandwidth, but if you’ve already looked at that and you’re still having trouble, you might be due for an upgrade.

Businesses and their needs change, and your current bandwidth might not be able to meet your needs the same today as it did last year, especially when it comes to streaming video and hosting video chats.

Take action: After you’ve optimized your network, if things are still slow, you might need to upgrade to the next service tier with your internet provider. A boost in speed to your business might do the trick.

Network Interference

Sometimes, your Wi-Fi speed issue may lie in something as simple as a neighboring Wi-Fi hotspot that causes network interference. Note that this is different from users at an adjacent business using your Wi-Fi intentionally.

Sometimes businesses have their access points or routers just feet away from each other on a shared wall, causing the networks to slow each other down. A network assessment should bring to light any issues like this.

Take action: If you’ve eliminated potential network overload culprits like too many devices, unknown activity, and low bandwidth, you should run an assessment to see what else is lurking on your network. Then visit any neighboring businesses that might be unintentionally interfering with strong Wi-Fi for your business. 

The interference could even be coming from inside your own organization. If you have a large network, break it into individual subnets to reduce broadcast chatter and interference.

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Say goodbye to IT network overload with the right MSP

When you have fully managed network support, you guarantee efficiency and employee productivity — which, in turn, boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty.  A managed services provider will take all of your wireless network design, management, troubleshooting, and updating needs into their expert hands. The right managed services provider can:

• Monitor your Wi-Fi speed and ensure it’s optimized to prevent network overload before it happens
• Secure your network and monitor traffic to ensure it’s not hosting any unknown or unauthorized visitors or activity.
• Handle access point management to make sure your Wi-Fi network is set up optimally
• Offer comprehensive Wi-Fi network management services (so you don’t have to worry about it).

If you have a slow network and are concerned about overload and productivity slowdowns, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. The experts at Cenetric are ready to tackle the challenge. Let’s talk about it. Whether you’re in Kansas City or beyond, Cenetric has the experience to help.