What makes Business Broadband, Business?
Is all broadband the? Furthermore, is business broadband the same broadband you can get at home, just cleverly marketed to businesses? It’s easy to see why the differences are not immediately obvious; we are permanently connected to the internet in our day to day lives, you are probably reading this article on your phone right now so it’s easy to assume that all internet access is created equal. However it’s what you don’t see about business broadband that makes it special.
If you would like to learn more information or pricing about business broadband, you can do so here .
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Business Broadband: Why is it Important?
Being connected is more important now than ever, COVID has made more of the activities we do every day and the businesses we interact with all the time online-only or online-first. We now order food from restaurants and pick it up when it’s ready or even completely skip it and deliver it to our door. We talk to our lawyers, accountants and, most importantly, customers over video chat, and, as consumers, we expect to be able to reach every business over the Internet at all times. These changes are here to stay so having the right broadband is more important than ever as a business.
If being connected is so important, what makes business broadband business? We’ll break it down into three categories – speed, service and stability and explain how these features help your business run smoother.
Business Broadband Speed
First, when talking about speed, there’s one big difference between domestic and business broadband, and that is upload speeds. When you see speeds advertised for broadband every provider talks about the download speed, which you benefit from when getting content from the internet. Upload speeds can be as low as one-tenth of the advertised download speed on home broadband plans. So what is happening here? Are internet service providers lying to you?
The problem here is that video calling is a big challenge for home broadband. It is real-time, so lag needs to be minimised, additionally, unlike the video content we primarily consume, it can’t be buffered.
It also can’t be compressed very efficiently as it’s being recorded and sent in real-time. Because we all work 9 – 5, even when working from home, it has peak periods for the entire network rather than demand being spread evenly throughout the day.
If you’ve ever had a hard time hearing or seeing a colleague during a meeting between 9:30 AM and midday or between 4:00 PM and 5:30 PM, now you know why.
We usually blame our internet if a video call is blurry or lags. Still, more often than not, it’s the person sending the video who is the cause, their device reducing the quality to minimise lag while fitting the video in the low upload allowance that home broadband has.
This is where business broadband comes in.
While home broadband plans are primarily designed for consumption, business broadband is designed for both consumption and creation.
Even the most cost-effective business broadband plans have around double (20 Mbps) the upload speed found on home broadband plans (usually around 9-10 Mbps), this holds true even when we compare plans from the same provider.
If that isn’t enough, some specialist business ISPs offer fully symmetrical upload and download speeds for customers with demanding use.
Speed increases are not limited to uploads, though, with most business plans offering a 10 – 20 % increase on top of what is available to consumers.
How is this possible? Do companies have their own business infrastructure that offers these higher speeds? In short no, in most ads you will see bandwidth defined as speed. But it’s much better to think about it as volume, the speed at which you send or receive data is the same, what changes is the amount of data you can transmit in one second. Providers build out this capacity over time at great cost – most of the infrastructure that provides both domestic and business broadband in the UK is underground, making replacing or improving it a very costly endeavor.
That means every ISP will have a certain amount of bandwidth available in your area, many times larger than the bandwidth you see advertised to consumers, as it needs to serve potentially hundreds of customers at the same time. That also means that they can break up this overall bandwidth however they choose, offering business customers higher guaranteed speeds.
This additional speed is beneficial if your area does not have access to fibre plans, as business broadband can provide that extra bandwidth boost not available to domestic consumers, usually at comparable or marginally higher prices.
Business Broadband: Customer Service
An uncomfortable truth about broadband is that business customers are more valuable than domestic customers. This is for three main reasons.
First, they are more loyal, changing your internet service provider as a business requires more administrative effort and – in most cases – more approvals than changing your home broadband, where the only people who have to agree to change the provider are your partner or friends. This loyalty increases the lifetime value of each customer, so ISPs are incentivised to keep you happy.
Secondly, because you need the internet to have video calls with your customers or receive orders, you can’t afford any service interruption when changing providers.
You might be willing to go without Netflix for a few days at home if you change your plan, but losing internet access for your business is extremely costly.
Thirdly, business customers are less price sensitive than domestic customers. If you need the internet to run your business, broadband becomes just one of the many costs you have to account for every month.
Compared to other, much larger line items such as wages, it’s not a significant cost, sometimes even asking an employee to look for a cheaper plan might end up costing you money once you factor in their hourly wage.
That is where business broadband-focused comparison sites like ours come in handy, you can find more cost-effective business broadband plans in minutes that meet your needs, whether they be better speeds, more stability or simply a cheaper price for what you already have now.
Business Broadband: Stability
If improved speeds and better customer service aren’t reason enough for you to think business broadband is worth it consider this – what happens when more people want to use the internet than the existing capacity available. You might be aware of the phenomenon where energy providers increase the supply of electricity right before an expected daily peak, like during halftime for a critical England game, or after a top-rated television programme to compensate for the increase in demand generated by everyone putting the kettle on at roughly the same time. This happens because electricity, like bandwidth, cannot be stored in the grid for future use.
However, bandwidth, unlike electricity, can’t be added in real time to account for extra demand. Most of the UK’s broadband infrastructure is buried under our streets and pavements, so increasing supply is both time-consuming and expensive. So, to deal with increased demand in the morning and evening, most ISPs throttle users when maximum capacity is reached on their network.
Business Broadband: Openreach
This is particularly important for providers that run their traffic through the Openreach network. This used to belong exclusively to BT but now underpins all the major national providers with the exception of Virgin Media – who have their own separate infrastructure. As all providers share the same infrastructure, home broadband users are not only competing for bandwidth with other users that have the same provider but also with everyone else using the Openreach network in your area (use is segregated to a certain degree but the infrastructure is still shared).
This is another advantage business customers have over home consumers, prioritised traffic.
When there is congestion on the network, business traffic gets priority, it is throttled less, if at all and has lower latency, allowing for crisp, interruption-free video calls even at the most demanding times.
In addition to preferential access to exterior hardware, you also get superior interior hardware with your plan.
If you’ve ever been in an office where you have strong wifi signal everywhere with fewer dead zones and consistent speeds, that is only partially due to the prioritised traffic.
Another key piece of the puzzle is the enterprise-grade hardware provided to business customers.
Business broadband comes with professional routers that are designed to keep connections strong and consistent, leading to stable connexions even when multiple people are doing highly demanding tasks like downloading or uploading large files, video calling or media streaming.
These routers will also have wider coverage areas as they will be equipped with more powerful antennas, leading to greater signal strength than available in consumer hardware.
If you’re considering buying one of these routers yourself, you can expect to pay upwards of 300 pounds for each device. The better hardware itself might be enough to justify the slightly higher costs you can expect to pay for business broadband, even if the other benefits described were not a draw.
The final piece of the stability puzzle will only appeal to some users with specific needs: a dedicated static IP address. If you’re wondering what the difference between a static and dynamic IP address is, it’s pretty straightforward. On all domestic plans your IP address, which identifies your machine on the internet to servers and other devices, is allocated dynamically. Every time you connect to the internet, your provider gives you a new address from a pool of available IP addresses they hold. This does not usually affect your connection in any way, with a few noteworthy examples.
Business Broadband: Is it Right For You?
Business broadband can be a smart choice for businesses for several reasons:
Reliability and Performance: Business broadband is typically designed to provide a more reliable and stable internet connection compared to residential broadband. It offers faster speeds and lower contention ratios, ensuring that your business can operate smoothly without interruptions or slowdowns. This increased reliability and performance can contribute to improved productivity and efficiency.
Dedicated Customer Support: Business broadband often comes with dedicated customer support tailored to meet the needs of businesses. This means you can receive priority assistance when facing any connectivity issues or technical challenges. Having reliable and responsive customer support can minimize downtime and help resolve issues quickly.
Business-Specific Features: Business broadband packages often include features and services specifically designed for businesses. These may include static IP addresses, enhanced security options, business-grade routers, advanced connectivity options (such as leased lines), and other business-focused features. These additional capabilities can support specific business needs and requirements.
Scalability and Flexibility: Business broadband providers usually offer flexible contract terms, allowing you to choose the package that aligns with your business’s current requirements and scale up or down as needed. This flexibility is beneficial if your business experiences changes in staff size, bandwidth requirements, or location.
Data Allowances and Usage : Business broadband plans often come with larger data allowances or unlimited data usage, ensuring that your business can transfer and download significant amounts of data without facing additional charges or restrictions. This is particularly important for businesses that heavily rely on data-intensive activities such as video conferencing, cloud storage, or large file transfers.
While business broadband may come at a higher cost compared to residential broadband, the advantages it offers in terms of reliability, customer support, features, and scalability make it a smart choice for businesses that rely on a stable and high-performing internet connection to operate effectively. It’s important to evaluate your business needs, compare offerings from different providers, and consider the specific requirements of your industry before making a decision.
Other useful links about business broadband:
Guess Wifi for Businesses
EE Business Broadband
What makes business broadband, business? | Compare Your Business Costs
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James Ward is CEO and founder of CompareYourBusinessCosts.co.uk, a website that won the Prestigious ‘Website of the Year’ only in its second year of operations in 2015. The website has grown organically since then offering comparisons on over 20 different products including insurance, energy, telecoms, card machines, coffee machines and much more. James has a range of interests including horse racing, skiing, rugby and boxing. He splits his time between home family life, friends, exercise and socialising.