Using technology to power your business

As suppliers of business broadband we often get asked why businesses should use a different standard of internet connection. After all, the internet is the internet, whether you’re an employee or someone sitting at home, right?

Well, there’s some truth in this – in the same way that you could say the law is the same for everyone or that a car is a car whoever drives it. But businesses have always demanded specialist solicitors and specialist car hire services. And the reason for this is simple – although the medium is similar, the way a company needs to interact with that medium is different. And that is why business broadband exists, driven by the demand of businesses to connect to the internet in a way that matches their needs.

There can be a world of difference in what you will receive from a residential internet connection and what business broadband offers – you could say it’s the difference between flying economy and business class.

So what should you expect from a business broadband supplier?

Fast support

The first area is support. Clearly residential broadband customers need support too, but the difference here is all about speed. If your home internet stops working or if you move, your kids miss an episode or two of Spooks and don’t update their Facebook status for a few days.

If your business broadband goes down or you move premises, you need your connection back as fast as possible. Every missed e-mail is an angry customer and every web page that doesn’t load means an hour of frustration. When that day comes you don’t want to spend hours in a call centre queue. And you don’t want to be told it’ll be fixed in a couple of weeks. Only a business broadband provider understands and can react to the pressures your business faces.

Built for business

Whether it’s invoicing terms, VAT receipts, monthly billing or flexible payments a business provider will have the terms to suit your business. In addition, business broadband suppliers have experience dealing with the sorts of practical issues that are unique to business users. Changing premises, taking over another firm’s premises and making sure the number of lines tallies with the number of people who will be using the connection will be just a few of the challenges your business will face.

Speed

Most people understand that different broadband connections offer different speeds. What few understand, however, is that there are other factors besides the 8mb or 24mb headlines. One is contention ratio, the number of users sharing the same line into the exchange. It’s a bit like children queuing up to use a playground slide – the theoretical speed of the slide itself remains the same, but the more children queue to use it, the longer it takes for each one to have a go.

On a domestic connection contention rations can be as high as 50:1 whereas depending on exchange and package some broadband connections have ratios as low as 20:1. Another factor is network priority: few people realise that domestic connections are optimised to give good performance for applications such as streaming BBC iplayer, whereas a business connection might be optimised to prioritise business applications like e-mail.

Because the speeds you might get are determined by your property and local telephone exchange, it is well worth speaking to broadband companies direct and asking what speed you are likely to achieve on your line.

Spam protection

Spam protection is important for residential customers, but critical if you’re a business. Losing a few days to a virus, or even worse losing customer details to a hacker would be a disaster for any firm. Business broadband providers like XLN often provide online security software to help reduce the threat of malware, viruses and other internet scams to your organisation.

Good value for money

The final thing, of course, is that business broadband providers simply offer better value for money to a business user. We don’t try to bundle broadband with television services you don’t need. We don’t offer you loyalty points or online games or entertainment portals or any of the other add-ons that come with residential broadband. Instead we focus on providing you with low-cost broadband that gives you the fastest possible connection. Now that’s something any business owner can appreciate.

About the Author
This guide has been written for Bytestart by Christian Nellemann, CEO of business broadband supplier XLN Telecom.

The way most people access the internet has changed radically since the turn of the century.

It seems hard to believe that just a few years ago you had to dial up to get email unless you had an expensive internet pipe or ISDN line fitted.

And many people on dial-up rationed their net access to 20 or 30 minutes a week so they didn’t run up big phone bills!

And it’s so cheap that it’s a must have for every business. Even if you don’t rely on the internet to sell or communicate, the fast always-on access that broadband offers can revolutionise your business!

Here’s another essential Bytestart guide to getting broadband into your business, and ensuring you pay the right price for it.

Cable or ADSL (phone line)?

For domestic customers, there are two ways to get broadband: Either through their phone line (ADSL), or from their cable TV provider, such as Virgin Media.

Broadband through cable is limited to those areas and streets that already have cable put in. And that tends not to be areas where businesses are based. If you work from home, you may be able to get internet through cable (via Virgin Media).

So unless they have special high speed internet lines in, businesses tend to rely on internet through their phone line. The infrastructure is maintained by BT and the broadband is sold by hundreds of different suppliers.

Can you get broadband?

Access to broadband and the speed of the service you get depends on two things. The first is whether your local telephone exchange has been upgraded to transmit the broadband signal. The majority of exchanges have now been done, and unless you live literally in the middle of nowhere, you should be able to get access.

You can check whether broadband is available on your phone line with this handy tool.

How fast will broadband be?

The other factor is how far away you live from the exchange. In the early days of broadband this could be a serious problem; now new technology means a basic broadband can be delivered to anyone connected to an updated exchange, no matter how far away they are. But the fastest broadband speeds are only available to those closest to the exchange.

This is something to be aware of when signing a broadband contract. There’s no point signing a premium contract promising up to 16MB access, when your phone line can only give you 2MB.

What they don’t tell you about broadband

When you first get broadband installed on a telephone line, no-one can say for sure what speed access you will get. The estimate given by the phone line checker is just that – an estimate. One business that recently moved into rural premises was told to expect speeds of under 1MB – once they’d moved in, they discovered they actually had 2MB access.

BT says it can take up to 10 days to ascertain the actual speed of a broadband connection. To get a more realistic idea of actual broadband speeds in the area, ask neighbouring businesses to run this simple speed checker.

Picking a broadband supplier

Broadband is like gas – one company maintains the infrastructure (BT) and lots of companies can sell it. That means you need to shop around to get the best deal. Don’t just plump for your existing phone operator; compare their price first. Be aware that some companies will give you a discount if you do bundle your phone and broadband together (some will give even more discount if you throw your gas and electricity in too).

Domestic or business broadband package?

Don’t be tempted to go for a domestic package for your business broadband. You will miss out on essential support which will get your internet connection quickly back up in an emergency. And many domestic packages are geared around usage in the evenings and weekends, meaning you may find your access capped if you “download too much” during the day.

If you work from home, some suppliers offer a home office package which is cheaper than a full business package, but still gives high levels of support.

Installing your broadband

Once your phone line has been activated for broadband, it’s fairly simple to get your computers on line from there. You need a router which plugs into the phone line and can share net access between a number of computers. Many broadband suppliers will give you one of these free. A wireless router will allow you to use broadband anywhere in your office using a laptop.

Each phone will need to be fitted with a micro filter, again normally supplied when you first get broadband, but also widely available on the internet. These filter the broadband signal so it doesn’t affect the quality of your voice calls.

The future?

If broadband isn’t fast enough for you already, Virgin Media are currently offering speeds of up to 100Mb, and BT ‘Infinity’ promises to deliver speeds three times faster than that over the next few years.