How to choose the best business broadband option for you
In today’s world, the internet is the backbone of every business's infrastructure. It is crucial for anything from processing sales on a website to Google search being the source of new clientele. We even run our VoIP phone line systems off our broadband and the cloud now.
Broadband connections vary slightly between residential connections and business connections, mostly due to Business Broadband being a dedicated broadband connection set up in an office or workspace, with typically more comprehensive packages with back up connections to avoid downtime.
Whether it’s time for your business to invest in a faster and more reliable business broadband, or you need to upgrade to support business expansion, it can be daunting to know which option will best suit your business requirements for the future. With a variety of different offerings and options to choose from, how do you decide which is the one for you? We discuss the different broadband options that we currently have available.
There are some key questions that you should be asking ahead of looking at business broadband:
What do we want to use the internet for (eg emails, downloads, VoIP)?
How many users will there be in the business premises?
Do you need business broadband for multiple locations?
Types of Business Broadband connection:
FTTC - Super Fast Fibre to Cabinet - With speeds of 80 to 100mbps, an FTTC connection meets the demands for modern office requirements through supporting popular cloud based services such as hosted telephony and cloud based applications such as Microsoft office 365 and CRM.
FTTP - Ultrafast to the premises - With high speeds of up to 900Mbps, and highly reliable fibre connectivity. With FTTP there is no copper cabling or sharing with other buildings, it comes straight to your business premises, ensuring speeds up to 25x faster than on standard fibre, ideal for larger businesses.
Leased Line - A dedicated business leased line connection with impressive speeds of up to 10GB with potential to scale bandwidth to grow alongside your operations. Ideal for fast-growing, data-focused businesses of any size, especially those that are adopting remote working practices. Easily handles all voice traffic, servers and cloud-based software you can throw at it.
What you should look out for:
Bandwidth/ Speed: Bandwidth is essentially how much data can be downloaded or uploaded within a second. Your internet speed will be most affected by how many devices/ users are relying on it at any one time. Below are examples of internet speed and its capability.
Source: Business.org https://www.business.org/services/internet/business-internet-speed/ Price: It is important to consider your business requirements for data and capacity in order to make sure that you will getting the best value for your money. If you will have a high usage due to VoIP systems and multiple locations, then unlimited plans would be a better choice. Alternatively, if you do not rely on your internet connection as much and use it for basic emails and CRM, you may waste monthly costs on unused data.
Security: It is important to ensure that you have a secure connection for your company, with no other third party users being able to access it, this is essential for minimising the risk of leak/loss of data, cyberattacks and hacking by a considerable percentage.
SLAs: Checking the Internet providers SLAs (Service level agreement) is significant as it ensures that you get extensive support when in need or experiencing issues. This can also include support for internet downtime, maximum reply times from customer support teams and a call out option.
Once all of the above factors have been carefully considered and chosen, our team at Can Solutions can support you to find the right business broadband to suit your needs. Contact one of our team members today, to find out more about what we have to offer and how we can help your business.