Your business broadband connection is one of the most vital things for your business. Without it, you can’t connect to the outside world, talk to customers, or communicate internally, and in the 21st century, it would be just about impossible to run your business. There would be no email, no video calling, no website, no cloud computing, and so much more that you’d miss out on without a reliable and secure connection.
But business broadband isn’t your only option. Take a look at the alternatives below.
What Are the Best Broadband Alternatives?
Bonded Broadband
With bonded broadband, you get up to 4 ADSL lines combined into one connection. That makes for a fast, reliable connection because if one line stops working, you still have the others to keep your connection going.
Leased Lines
With a leased line, you get a dedicated line that’s just for your business, with no contention ratio and an excellent connection. With a symmetric connection that gives you the same speed for both uploads and downloads, this can be a good choice for business connectivity.
FTTP
FTTP stands for Fibre to the Premises, which is a fancy way of saying that you get a fibre optic connection straight from the exchange to your business. This can give you a really fast connection that’s also cost-effective.
When Should These Options be Considered by a Company?
With every type of connection, you have to consider the speed needed for your business functions, including whether you need to transfer large amounts of data and use VoIP calls regularly. Cost is always a consideration too, with some options, such as FTTP, coming in at a lower cost than others.
As with choosing standard business broadband, some companies will offer other additions, such as domain names, cloud services, and web hosting, but it’s a case of considering what you need, and whether the extra bells and whistles add anything more than extra costs to your package.
You may also receive a service level agreement with specified speeds and uptime, whether support is included, and more. Again, these details are worth checking as you may save money by removing unneeded options, though you should also make sure that you have everything you need in place to support your business and provide the right connection.
What Are the Challenges with Alternative Connections?
As with any business service, you do need to look at the pros and cons. Let’s take another look at the potential disadvantages of the three broadband alternatives.
Bonded Broadband
Although you do get fast and reliable service with bonded broadband, the speed is lower than with other services and you also have to work with a contention ratio, where the speed can drop at peak times due to other users. This makes it a less ideal choice if you heavily use video calling or transfer large amounts of data.
Leased Lines
With a leased line, speed and reliability are great, but it is more complicated to set up and can take longer. The costs involved are also higher than with other services, which could be an issue for smaller businesses.
FTTP
FTTP provides a fast connection so for heavy users of video and data transfer, this is a great option, however, it is a shared connection which means that, unlike with a leased line, you may have a slower connection when there are a lot of users online.
How Can Changing the Connectivity Type Help a Company?
You can see above that there are both advantages and disadvantages to all types of business connectivity, so it really is up to you to decide what options are more important to you. Changing your connectivity type can give you increased speeds and a line that’s just for your business, which obviously creates a smooth and seamless experience when working, however, you do have to consider the costs involved, along with your business needs.
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