25 Mb/s was the broadband standard twenty-five years ago, back in 1994 (Think Clinton in the news for sexual harassment and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.) Technology has moved on. Your computer is 100 times faster and you have many more internet-connected devices: But standard broadband speeds are the same as they were in 1994. The internet is over-crowded because more people are using it, there are more video downloads, and online gamers are hogging bandwidth. This is why your internet connection slows to the pace of a dial-up connection at certain times of the day.
Broadband for Business
Your business needs instant response broadband. Each logon, each click, each download or upload is critical to your profit. You can’t be waiting around for egg-timers to turn over and over.
Broadband for BusinessDedicated Leased LinesOther Business OptionsSumming Up
Home broadband connections use a contention ratio of 50:1; fifty homes share one broadband line. With four people in every home online, that’s two hundred connections fighting for bandwidth. Is it any wonder your computer Cloud apps run too slowly to be useful? You can get a business broadband connection with a contention ratio of 1:1 with a dedicated leased line. The monthly charges are higher than standard shared broadband, but the quality of service is beyond comparison.
Dedicated Leased Lines
Leased lines are capable of much more than many companies require and providers will tailor a contract to meet your needs
Speed
Choose your own speed from 10 Mb/s to 100,000 Mb/s (10 Gb/s). Higher speeds will have higher monthly fees, but the upgrade option is always there if you need it without having to wait until the end of an 18-month contract. The more users you have the more bandwidth you will need, so every contract is different. You will need to check the market and get a leased line quote from your preferred supplier. A leased line connection is symmetrical. Your upload and download speeds are the same. Compare that to a typical shared line broadband service where the upload speed is typically only one-tenth that of the download speed. With a symmetrical connection, your video conferencing and VOIP calls suffer no lags and are as good as talking to someone in the same room. One thing you will instantly notice is that your speed stays the same all day, every day. That’s because you are no longer competing with neighbouring gamers and Netflix subscribers for bandwidth on a shared line. Your leased line is yours exclusively, though it will be shared by everyone on your company network. On a shared line internet service providers will manage the traffic, limiting subscribers who place high demands on the line. With a dedicated line, your ISP will never reduce your speed because you will never affect other customers.
Reliability
Things will go wrong because that’s the nature of technology. However, if your dedicated line does develop a fault you will have a fall-back option to a shared line: Your backup connection will be slower, but you will still have some connectivity. You are paying more for your leased line, so you get a better service level agreement and faults are repaired in hours rather than days. Faults are also less frequent because your supplier will use newer equipment to provide your service.
Other Business Options
You will see business broadband connections touted as being sufficient for SMEs. They aren’t. These deals are cheap because you are still on a shared line, though the contention ratio may be lower than for a domestic line, perhaps “only” 25:1. That’s not good enough for any business that needs a fast connection regardless of what other line users are doing. Ask about the contention ratio on any phone call you have with an ISP about business broadband because the ISP will be reluctant to volunteer the information. Mobile broadband using a cellular network is too unreliable to be of any use in a commercial setting. You also have “fair usage” clauses that limit your “unlimited” plan to 15 Gb a month. Satellite broadband works everywhere, after a fashion. It breaks down in heavy rain or snow and is subject to frequent operator shutdowns.
Summing Up
Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for. If you need a reliable and fast internet connection for ten to fifty computers in your office then you need to pay more than a typical domestic broadband shared line connection costs. Talk to your current ISP to see what they can do or you, but be careful about signing up for a lengthy contract if the deal is less than perfect. Leased lines are not available everywhere: Rural areas have very poor provision If leased lines are available in your area then look into ordering one because are the best way of getting a reliable and fast connection for your business.
