A reliable fast Broadband service is now an essential utility and with Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and slowly but inevitably Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) connections growing across the UK, our home connections are now able to support us to do more. Whether that is online gaming, the use of streaming services and even working from home.

In a world of attractive consumer packages & offers, for many small businesses the question arises of why they should pay the additional outlay for business broadband, when seemingly a standard residential service would meet their requirements.

In this blog, we have identified the biggest differences between a specialised business broadband connection and home consumer broadband.

Customer Support

Customer support is often where the biggest differences lie and for businesses, this is usually the most important element. With business broadband, you tend to have business dedicated customer service and better technical support resources when there is a problem. Your call being answered faster and feeling you are dealing with more informed tech support can matter in a moment of stress.

Whilst break-fix Service Level Agreements on standard business broadband are often the same as consumer services, business broadband services often offer additional add on options that promote faster fix times and sometimes service credits if those targets are not achieved.

All SLAs have limitations though, nothing will guarantee a fix time 100% of the time but priority can be given to business customers over consumers through such SLAs.

Priority on the Provider Network

Business Broadband services also often offer prioritisation options for their broadband traffic as it travels over their providers network (at a price). There is debate about how useful this can be but the reality is that broadband providers are always managing capacity and sometimes broadband networks are very busy.

Some users claim to experience a drop in their speed or service quality at certain times of day often corresponding with times of peak demand, such as in the evening. There are providers, like ourselves at Atlas, that focus on business customers so have less mixing of consumer and business traffic. Whilst others are consumer dominated in their customer base.

The use of prioritisation can also offer other advantages for some businesses. For example, the increasing use of the Internet as a driver for cloud services such as apps and hosted telephone services, means that prioritisation may provide reassurance for businesses whose use of cloud applications demands a stable, consistent connection.

Enhanced Features

Aside from being able to access the Internet, a business broadband service can also offer enhanced features that many consumer services don’t provide.

One such feature is a static IP address, which you can usually get either relatively cheap or free of charge with a business broadband connection but not with a residential one. By providing a fixed (static) location for your broadband service you can do things like access your in-office applications such as files and folders remotely. Other business services that you consume via the Internet may also have a strong preference for you to have a static IP address. Consumers on the other hand, tend to get dynamic IP addresses, i.e. it changes.

In addition business broadband tends to have unlimited usage in the truer sense of the word, compared with their consumer equivalent where some packages still come with allowances. The small print in the provider’s Fair Usage Policy may also see consumers more tightly managed and restricted if they are considered heavy users, compared with business counterparts.

Summary

Even though business broadband does tend to be more expensive than residential connections, when you consider the critical nature of the service, not just for you but for others in your organisation, the benefits are worth the few extra pounds a month.

Atlas offer a range of business broadband solutions to meet different business needs and budgets. You can view our full Connect range by clicking here.