How Ohio Credit Unions Should Evaluate Their WAN Bandwidth

For Ohio credit unions, seamless technology isn’t just a performance metric—it’s a promise of trust. Your members depend on you for access to their money, their mortgages, and their peace of mind. That’s why evaluating your wide area network (WAN) bandwidth isn’t just an IT chore—it’s a business continuity decision that touches every member who walks through your doors or logs into your app.

Let’s break down three critical areas every Ohio credit union should consider when evaluating WAN bandwidth: consumption versus capacity, continuity strategies, and traffic priorities.

1. Bandwidth Consumption vs. What You Have in Place

Think of your WAN like the highway outside of town. On a quiet Sunday morning, traffic flows fine. But when Friday night football lets out and half the county hits the road at once, you feel the gridlock. Bandwidth works the same way.

Ohio credit unions often have a mix of branch offices, ATMs, and digital channels all funneling through limited WAN pipes. The first step in evaluation is simple: measure what’s really happening. Are you paying for 200 Mbps but using 20 Mbps most days, with occasional spikes? Or are you constantly running at 80% utilization, creating slowdowns that frustrate staff and members alike?

Tools like network monitoring software can give you a clear picture. These dashboards show usage by time of day, branch location, and even specific applications. That visibility helps you answer two key questions:

• Do we have enough bandwidth for today’s needs?
• Are we overspending on capacity we rarely use?

For smaller credit unions—often with just a couple of IT staff—partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) can help right-size that bandwidth without guesswork. The goal isn’t to buy the biggest pipe possible. It’s to align bandwidth with actual demand, with room to grow.

2. Business Continuity Strategy Around WAN Services

Bandwidth isn’t just about speed. It’s about resilience. If your primary WAN connection fails, how long can your credit union function before members feel the impact?

Business continuity planning for WAN services should address:

• Redundancy: Do you have a backup internet provider or secondary circuit? For example, a fiber connection backed by wireless LTE/5G can keep branches online if the main line fails.
• Failover Testing: It’s not enough to have redundancy on paper. Run drills to confirm systems switch over smoothly during outages.
• Cloud Dependence: With so many credit unions moving to Microsoft 365, cloud cores, and digital banking, downtime on the WAN means downtime for members. Continuity planning must account for this.
• Regulatory Expectations: NCUA and FFIEC guidance stresses the importance of disaster recovery and continuity planning. Having a clear WAN strategy isn’t optional—it’s part of compliance.
• Ohio credit unions can’t afford outages that leave members locked out of accounts or ATMs offline for hours. A continuity plan that prioritizes WAN resiliency ensures that operations keep moving, even when the unexpected happens.

3. Identifying and Prioritizing WAN Traffic

Not all traffic is created equal. Imagine your network as a grocery store checkout. Should the teller system or online banking get stuck behind someone streaming a training video? Of course not.

Evaluating your WAN bandwidth means understanding which applications consume the most—and deciding which deserve priority. For Ohio credit unions, common bandwidth hogs include:

• Video conferencing (Zoom/Teams): Critical for staff collaboration, but can eat bandwidth fast.
• Core processing systems: Non-negotiable—these must take priority over everything else.
• Security tools (remote monitoring, intrusion detection): Often steady consumers of bandwidth, but essential.
• General web traffic: Necessary, but rarely mission-critical.

With the right tools, credit unions can set traffic shaping or Quality of Service (QoS) rules that give core applications first dibs on bandwidth. That way, a video call won’t slow down teller transactions, and members won’t face lags when checking balances or making transfers.

This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about protecting member trust. When a member’s online transaction fails because someone in the back office is streaming music, it erodes confidence in your institution.

Serving Your Members Starts Behind The Scenes

Ohio credit unions are unique. They serve communities where trust is everything, but they often do it with lean IT teams and limited budgets. Evaluating WAN bandwidth is one of those quiet, behind-the-scenes tasks that can have a massive impact on daily operations and long-term member loyalty.

By measuring consumption against capacity, building a rock-solid continuity plan, and prioritizing critical applications, your credit union can deliver the stability members expect—even when the unexpected hits.

At the end of the day, WAN bandwidth isn’t just about technology. It’s about ensuring that every member can access their money, every teller can serve without delay, and every leader can sleep a little better knowing their systems are resilient.

If you’re ready to take a closer look at your WAN bandwidth—and want a partner who speaks your language and understands the credit union world—Corporate Technologies Group is here to help. Reach out today at info@ctgusa.net or call 330-655-8144. Let’s make sure your business is getting the most out of every dollar—and every ounce of performance.