When network congestion hits, it’s much like a power grid experiencing a brownout. Businesses relying on stable, high-speed connections see operations slow down, with machinery faltering under fluctuating voltage. In a manufacturing environment, this means delays in production schedules due to lag in real-time data processing. Financial institutions face slower transaction speeds, leading to lost opportunities and reduced competitiveness. Even small e-commerce businesses experience longer load times, known to drive customers away and impact sales.
To mitigate these challenges, businesses are increasingly investing in advanced network infrastructure and adopting overlay networks to reroute data through less congested pathways and ensure a more stable and efficient flow. For example, Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) enable dynamic rerouting of data, reducing the impact of congestion and maintaining consistent performance even during peak usage times. Developments in network infrastructure, such as the expansion of 5G networks and the rise of edge computing, are also helping to relieve pressure on the existing grid.
But while SD-WAN, 5G, and edge computing offer significant improvements for last-mile connectivity and performance, they do not directly address mid-mile congestion. Solving mid-mile congestion requires a different set of strategies focused on optimizing the network backbone and core infrastructure.
On top of that, the underlying protocols that power the internet, like TCP/IP and BGP, were not designed for the sheer scale and complexity of today’s digital landscape. Though they have been adapted over time, they are increasingly strained by the demands of modern data traffic. The evolution of the internet’s infrastructure will require businesses to continually reassess their network strategies and invest in end-to-end technologies that can keep pace with the ever-growing demand for data.
Teridion’s patented,AI-powered route detection helps global businesses find the optimal end-to-end path between any two points on the internet.
What Causes Network Congestion?
The modern internet is best understood as a vast power grid, with data acting as the electricity that keeps businesses running. As more devices come online and more applications demand bandwidth, this digital grid is under increasing strain. By 2030, with projections of over 50 billion connected devices—the pressure on the network will intensify, leading to significant challenges in maintaining consistent performance.
Activities such as streaming high-definition videos, engaging in online gaming, and transferring large files all contribute to this rising demand.
Another contributing factor is insufficient bandwidth combined with outdated infrastructure. Networks that lack adequate bandwidth or rely on older hardware often struggle to meet the demands of modern data traffic. Legacy systems may not be equipped to handle current traffic levels efficiently, leading to performance bottlenecks.
Network misconfigurations and inefficient routing further exacerbate congestion issues. Improperly configured networks or suboptimal routing protocols can cause data to take longer, more convoluted paths, leading to unnecessary delays and increased congestion.
External factors, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, also play a role. These attacks flood a network with excessive traffic, intentionally causing congestion and disrupting normal operations. Together, these factors create a complex web of challenges that contribute to network congestion, impacting overall performance and reliability.
Common Scenarios Where Network Congestion Is Observed
- High-Traffic Events: Major online events, such as product launches or streaming marathons, can cause temporary spikes in traffic.
- Business Operations: Companies with many simultaneous users or high data demands may face congestion.
- Residential Areas: Densely populated areas, such as apartment complexes, often experience network congestion during peak hours.
Effects of Network Congestion on Business
Network congestion can have a significant impact on businesses, affecting everything from operational efficiency to customer satisfaction. Here are some key statistics and references that illustrate these impacts:
- Operational Efficiency:
- A report by Cisco estimates that network congestion can reduce the productivity of employees by up to 10% due to delays in accessing applications and files. Cisco Annual Internet Report (2022).
- Customer Satisfaction:
- According to a Google study, 53% of mobile users abandon a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. This emphasizes how slow data transmission due to network congestion can lead to customer frustration and lost sales. Google: Mobile Page Speed Insights (2021).
- Financial Impact:
- Akamai reported that 63% of online shoppers who encounter slow-loading websites are less likely to return, and 27% abandon their purchases due to poor performance. This impact on e-commerce highlights how network congestion can directly affect revenue. Akamai: The State of Online Retail Performance (2020).
- Latency and Data Processing:
- The Gartner report indicates that high latency caused by network congestion can result in 20% lower productivity in business operations that rely on real-time data processing, such as financial trading platforms and collaborative tools. Gartner: Network Performance and Strategy (2021).
- Financial Losses:
- A survey by Forrester found that businesses experiencing network congestion and related downtime face average annual losses of about $60 billion globally, emphasizing the extensive financial impact on operations. Forrester: The Cost of IT Downtime (2020).
Bottom Line: The negative impact on business operations and productivity can be profound.
Identifying Network Congestion
Signs of Network Congestion
- Slow Performance: Applications and websites load slowly or become unresponsive.
- For example, an e-commerce site experiencing high traffic during a flash sale might see its webpages load slowly, leading to frustrated customers and potentially lost sales. Similarly, a streaming service facing congestion may experience buffering issues, affecting the quality of the viewing experience for users.
- High Latency: Increased delay in communication between users and servers.
- For a financial trading firm that could mean facing delayed trade executions due to increased latency, potentially missing critical market opportunities and impacting profitability.
- Frequent Disconnections: Users experience dropped connections or service interruptions.
- For example packet loss, where data packets are lost during transmission, can further disrupt services, such as VoIP calls, leading to poor call quality and dropped conversations.
Network Congestion Test
To diagnose network congestion, combine the following tools and methods:
- Network Performance Monitors: Tools like SolarWinds can help identify traffic patterns and bottlenecks by providing real-time visibility into network performance.These monitors track crucial metrics like bandwidth utilization, packet loss, and response times, often offering customizable alerts to notify administrators of potential congestion issues. It’s worth noting that achieving true end-to-end visibility often requires proper deployment and configuration of the tools, integration with other systems or data sources, and customization to fit specific network architectures.
- Speed Tests: Online tools such as Speedtest.net measure network speed and latency end-to-end, but are normally used to indicate last-mile speed, so it’s best to run these tests against custom servers deployed remotely to provide a better indication of end-to-end throughput. Also, running these tests at various times throughout the day lets you identify peak congestion periods and compare results with expected or contracted speeds to spot discrepancies. Using multiple speed test services can provide a more comprehensive view of network performance.
- Packet Analysis: Tools like Wireshark allow network administrators to inspect the details of network communications, identifying applications or protocols that may be contributing to network congestion, as well as detecting patterns in packet behavior such as retransmissions, out-of-order packets, or indicators of excessive latency. However, it doesn’t inherently provide end-to-end analysis across an entire network path. Its analysis is limited to the traffic passing through the network interface that it is monitoring.
How to Fix Network Congestion
To tackle network congestion effectively, particularly at the last mile, the most effective strategy is a combined effort. Start with bandwidth management: allocate more bandwidth to critical applications and users to ensure essential services get the resources they need. Quality of Service (QoS) can help by prioritizing important traffic, like VoIP calls or video conferencing, making sure these get the bandwidth they need while less critical traffic is managed accordingly.
Upgrading network infrastructure is another key approach. Investing in higher-capacity switches, routers, and faster connections helps handle increased traffic volumes. Switching to fiber optics offers faster speeds and more bandwidth than traditional copper cables, while new technologies like 5G and Wi-Fi 6 can also boost performance. The expansion of 5G networks improves last-mile connectivity by offering higher speeds and lower latency to end-users and businesses.
Load balancing and traffic shaping further manage data flow. Load balancing spreads traffic across multiple servers, preventing any single server from getting overwhelmed, which helps maintain smooth performance. Traffic shaping controls how quickly data packets are sent to avoid congestion and keep everything running smoothly.
SD-WAN solutions can also be a game-changer. They dynamically route traffic based on real-time network conditions, optimizing paths to reduce congestion and improve performance. By adjusting routes as needed, SD-WAN helps maintain a reliable and efficient network.
However, while SD-WAN and 5G can help alleviate issues related to congestion experienced by businesses at the last mile (e.g., between a business’s local office and its data center or cloud services), they do not directly address congestion issues occurring in the broader network backbone. Similarly, edge computing reduces latency and improves performance by processing data closer to the source rather than relying on centralized data centers. This technology helps mitigate last-mile issues by decreasing the amount of data that needs to travel through the network, thus reducing the load on the last mile. But it doesn’t tackle mid-mile congestion, where data travels through the core network.
For global enterprises that depend on consistent, reliable performance between international locations, this distinction is critical.
Mid-Mile Solutions for Network Congestion
Solving mid-mile congestion requires a different set of solutions focused on optimizing the network backbone. These solutions can require significant upfront investment and provisioning as well coordination with ISPs who typically control network backbones:
- Upgrading Core Routers and Switches: Enhancing the capacity and performance of network hardware in the mid-mile to handle increased data traffic.
- Implementing Traffic Engineering: Using protocols and techniques that optimize data routing across the network backbone.
- Expanding Network Capacity: Increasing the bandwidth and speed of the core network to accommodate higher data volumes.
Teridion: Don’t Choose Between Performance And Ease-Of-Use
Teridion’s patented, AI-powered global overlay takes network congestion solutions ten steps further. Our solution offers the best of both worlds: top-tier performance and unparalleled ease-of-use, featuring plug-and-play functionality, rapid deployment, enterprise-grade security, and unlimited scalability with zero capital and operational expenditure.
By using 25 public cloud providers and 500 points of presence, Teridion addresses congestion across the entire global backbone, end-to-end. This comprehensive approach ensures fast, reliable, SLA-backed connectivity, helping businesses stay efficient and responsive no matter where they operate, including the most challenging networking environments in the world like the Great Firewall of China.
