Plan stable site connectivity before crews arrive daily. Compare growth, redundancy, and utilization targets quickly. Export results to share with installers and managers today.
| Parameter | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Concurrent Devices | 80 | Crews, supervisors, shared kiosks. |
| Avg Mbps per Device | 1.5 | Cloud drawings, messaging, updates. |
| Peak Multiplier | 2.0 | Design sync and reporting bursts. |
| CCTV Streams × Mbps | 8 × 3 | 1080p H.264 streams. |
| VPN Users × Mbps | 5 × 2 | Remote access for coordination. |
| Overhead / Growth / Failover | 15% / 20% / 15% | Margins for resiliency and expansion. |
| Utilization Target | 70% | Stable performance under interference. |
| Sessions per Device | 200 | Modern apps open many connections. |
Early mobilization often runs light traffic, but demand rises fast once trades arrive. A typical mid-size site may jump from 30 devices to 80+ within weeks as foremen add tablets, scanners, and cloud drawing apps. Use the device count and peak multiplier to reflect coordination windows, progress reporting, and software update bursts that stack on top of normal usage.
Average Mbps per device is not a “speed test” number; it is sustained application load. Plan ranges: messaging and light web can sit under 0.5 Mbps, cloud drawings and photo uploads can push 1–3 Mbps, and heavy BIM sync can exceed 5 Mbps for key users. Add VoIP, CCTV, VPN, and sensor traffic so the estimate reflects shared infrastructure, not just office laptops.
Overhead, growth reserve, and failover headroom convert raw demand into an engineered load you can trust. Protocol overhead covers retries, headers, monitoring, and control traffic, while growth reserve protects you from added crews and temporary events. Failover headroom supports N+1 behavior when a link degrades. A 70% utilization target keeps queues short and protects real-time calls.
Stateful firewalling, inspection, and shaping consume CPU cycles, especially on encrypted traffic. This calculator models feature impact as added processing overhead: firewall (+20%), IDS/IPS (+30%), and QoS (+10%). Enable the options you will actually run on the router so the required capacity reflects the post-security throughput figure vendors publish. Pair the result with session estimates for NAT sizing.
The required router capacity is the engineered load divided by your utilization target, which yields a practical “minimum rated” number. The recommended WAN speed rounds up for simpler procurement, while the LAN backplane estimate highlights internal traffic needs for camera viewing and file sharing. Choose a router class that meets both Mbps and session tables, then validate with a short pilot during peak hours.
It is a planning estimate based on your assumptions. Accuracy improves when you use realistic per-device Mbps, include add-ons, and apply conservative utilization. Validate by monitoring real traffic during a busy shift.
Use 1.5 for steady sites, 2.0 for common jobsite bursts, and 3.0 when large file sync and meetings overlap. If users complain about lag at certain times, increase the multiplier to match that behavior.
Inspection evaluates more packet content and often more state, which reduces throughput on the same hardware. The calculator adds a processing overhead so the final capacity aligns better with real-world “throughput with security” ratings.
Only include it when camera video traverses the same router or WAN link as staff traffic. If cameras stay on an isolated local network with a separate uplink, you can set CCTV inputs to zero.
It estimates the size of connection tables used by NAT and firewalls. If your router supports high Mbps but low session capacity, web apps and VPN use can still cause drops during peaks.
Start with the recommended WAN speed, then consider provider tiers and redundancy. If you have dual links, ensure each link can carry essential traffic during failover, or increase failover headroom for safer sizing.
Important Note: All the Calculators listed in this site are for educational purpose only and we do not guarentee the accuracy of results. Please do consult with other sources as well.