ProZone Internet Requirements

Working in the cloud requires a quality, reliable internet connection to ensure a good user experience. For this reason, ProCirrus carefully reviews the internet service of all new clients and makes recommendations where necessary. Six factors determine how well a cloud connection will perform: provider, service level, bandwidth, latency, jitter, and packet loss.

Provider

Your provider determines how many network hops your traffic has to make to reach ProCirrus's data centers and return. Similar to air travel, a more direct path gets you to your destination faster and with less hassle. Carriers with strong peering agreements such as Spectrum, Comcast Business, AT&T Business, and other major providers are preferred.

Service level

Internet service is broadly categorized into two types of guarantees:

• Best Effort service is most commonly seen with cable internet. These very affordable lines are conceptually similar to a shared road where your speed is affected by the activity of other subscribers in your area. Your line will deliver up to the published speeds, but those speeds are not guaranteed and you may rarely see them. If you are on a Best Effort service, we recommend subscribing for more speed than your office strictly needs to account for fluctuations.

• Service Level Agreement (SLA) service is most common with business fiber and dedicated Ethernet circuits. These services are more expensive but come with contractual guarantees for speed, uptime, and repair response. They have become significantly more affordable in recent years and are strongly recommended where they fit your budget.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of traffic your internet line can carry per second, essentially the "size" of your pipe. Bandwidth is important, but it is not the only factor. A very large pipe is of limited use if it suffers from inefficient routing, high latency, or excessive packet loss.

We recommend a minimum of 4 Mbps per user, symmetric (the same speed for upload and download), to comfortably handle cloud apps along with Microsoft Teams or Zoom video. On Best Effort service, plan for at least double the minimum since speeds will fluctuate.

Tip: Symmetric upload and download bandwidth matters more than it used to. Cloud work, screen sharing, and video calls all rely on healthy upstream capacity, which asymmetric residential plans often lack.

Latency

Latency is the time it takes for a signal to travel from your computer to our data center and back, essentially the "quality" of your connection. High latency causes lag, where a user has to wait for their computer to respond. For an acceptable experience, we require latency under 80 ms (milliseconds). For an excellent experience, aim for under 50 ms. As noted under Provider, the fewer hops, the better.

Jitter

Jitter is the variation in latency over time. Even when your average latency is good, large swings between fast and slow packets cause choppy audio in voice calls, frozen frames in video, and stalls in cloud sessions. We recommend keeping jitter under 30 ms, and ideally under 10 ms for users who spend significant time on Teams or Zoom calls.

Packet loss

Packet loss is the percentage of network packets that fail to reach their destination and must be resent. Even small amounts of loss can severely degrade voice quality, video clarity, and cloud session responsiveness. Packet loss should remain under 1 percent at all times, and ideally under 0.1 percent for voice and video work.

A note on remote work and WiFi

The guidance above applies anywhere, but approved users can access ProCirrus from any internet-connected device. The user experience will depend on the quality of that connection when working from home, coffee shops, or at hotels and airports.

Tip: A wired Ethernet connection almost always outperforms WiFi for cloud work. If you are experiencing lag, dropped calls, or frozen sessions, try plugging directly into your router or switch before troubleshooting further. WiFi adds latency, jitter, and packet loss that a wired connection avoids.