Today there is no need anymore for expensive infrastructure to share video. There are many ways to send, transfer and share videos - still they all have one challenge in common: the upload. This is because video is always a lot of data.

What factors affect your upload speed?

A video is a very large file - especially if you have to work with professional equipment and standards. If your upload is slow and seem to last for ages, it's not necessariliy caused by a bad line. Here are some other factors that can affect your upload, too. This article is focussing on people working with large files such as video.

1. Internet connection

Of course this is the main bottleneck for your ingoing and outgoing data to and from the internet itself. The bandwith of your internet connection is the very first factor to look at (but not the only one - especially if we are talking about large files as videos).

First, there are some misunderstandings with most of the people about the ordered connection with your internet provider:

• the ordered bandwith with the internet provider is mostly not symetric. If they sell e.g. a "100Mbit line" this does not mean that this is your upload bandwith. This number is naming the download speed (as this is most important to the vast of people - you know: Netflix, YouTube...). So if the sales agent of your provider is talking about "a very fast 200Mbit-connection": ask him if he is talking about download or upload speed. Maybe adjust your contract.

• most of the providers do not guarantee this speed 24/7. If there is a lot of traffic (e.g. for downloads in the evening when everybody is at home, sitting on the couch watching series) there is too much demand and the bandwith might be lower as named in the contract.

• you share the bandwith from the one connection of your office with all other departments and employees: This means: If you have an upload capacity of 40 Mbit/s available but 10 people are uploading as well, then everybody has only 4 Mbit/s...

To Do for optimizing:

1. check your connection with a speedtest

2. ask your internet provider for a better upload performance.

2. Inhouse connection

In which way is your computer connected with the internt line? Do you use an ethernet connection (which is still the most stable connection)? Or do you use Wi-Fi? Sometimes there are restrictions in the router to the various clients of ethernet but there can be a also a problem with the performance of your Wi-Fi.

To Do for optimizing:

1. check the performance of your local network. This can never make your internet connection better but often it is a limitation in the workflow. (I saw huge media companies with build-in limitations of the ethernet to 100 Mbit/s - this is very oldschool...).

2. check with your IT if your speedtest shows bad performance! Maybe they can adjust the router settings.

3. maybe you are to far from the Wi-Fi device? Then you can try to work with less distance or a repeater.

3. Hardware

It's possible that your computer is a limitation itself - if you have a weak processor for example.

To Do for optimizing:

1. time for a renewal of your device? If your device is older than 5 years it's time to think about a change

2. you may also be able to make your existing device more powerful with a new faster processor, a larger hard drive or a RAM upgrade

4. Source of the file

You want to upload a video file - but where is this file originated at present? If it is not on your desktop, maybe it is located

1. on a server you are connected with?

2. on a USB Stick or external harddrive?

Those connections and their allowed transfer speed may slow down your upload process, as the computer can not send data faster...

To Do for optimizing:

1. copy the file to your desktop first

2. if you are pulling from a server - ask your IT to get better connection/allowance

5. Software

Nowadays a lot of work happens inside the internet, for exapmle in the cloud. Nearly all devices are permanently communicating with different servers - the cloud running your business (e.g. Microsoft 365) or cloud storage as Dropbox, iCloud, Onedrive... Often they are set to mirror your local data to the cloud as backup - this is causing a lot of traffic without your notice as this works in the background.

To Do for optimizing:

1. if you are using too many apps which are connected with the internet - stop it for the time of the upload

2. also check the small add-ons in your browsers toolbar

3. if you have too many open browser windows: close them

If you checked all 5 tips from this article you seem to be prepared. Your local workflow is optimized - you should see better upload performance for browser based uploads.

Still there are some factors within the internet itself:

• your internet browser is limiting your upload speed with most platforms.

• there are limitations to filesize on the platform you want to upload to (e.g. Dropbox, WeTransfer).

• Your internet provider has a bad performance to the global internet.

Something you should notice and think about: No one of the huge and known platforms in the internet give a "warm welcome" to the large files you want to upload! This is a huge amount of data. And data is related to costs. So, you generate costs to them. How do they react:

• of course they limit the filesize

• they build bad performance uploading tools (this software runs in the background of your browser within a webpage).

• they slow down the transfer speed to their platform.

Please hint: This is is one of the reasons why we created our powerful software-solution for the challenge of uploading video files. Visit www.scoopa.com