Finding the right broadband may not seem like an important factor to running a successful business, but it really can affect a number of things if it goes wrong. When the internet goes down, it can leave an entire staff force with nothing to do, and be incredibly costly, not to mention detrimental to staff moral. Even if you are a company that doesn’t use the internet often, you will not doubt have card machines and other hardware to run that rely on the internet, and anything going wrong that is customer facing can make your company look incredibly unprofessional. You can use a company like Broadband Choices to compare which is best for you, but there are a couple of standard things to consider when you are shopping around for business broadband.
Type Of Broadband
There are three main types of broadband, and depending on the type of your business, anyone of the could suit you, even if some are slower than others. If the nature of your business is small and you only need the internet to use a card machine, then there is no point in wasting money on all singing all dancing broadband. If you use the internet all day everyday, then you need to consider spending some money as an investment. Get good deals on broadband using usave .
DSL
DSL works through telephone lines, and although it is considered primitive by today’s standards, it has advanced a lot more than dial up, and you can in fact use it when you are using the telephone. It is not well known for being a fast option, but if you only need to use broadband now and again this could be perfect for you without wasting money monthly.
Cable
Cable is the mid-market, step up from DSL. Cable is a lot faster than DSL, and in some area’s it can be really fast. Cable works through the television lines, but it will not effect anything else you have running through these lines. Most places that can’t get fibre optic will have perfectly adequate cable in place. If you use the internet a lot, but have back up systems that don’t rely on it, then cable is probably a good option.
Fibre optic
Fibre optic broadband runs off of its own, super fast cables. This means not a lot interrupts it, and it is the best type of broadband to get currently in the UK. If you are an internet based company, and there is no back up plan for the internet failing, then this is something you should really look to invest in.
Bandwidth
Even if you have fibre optic broadband, if you have a low bandwidth it could still work out useless for you. The bandwidth is the amount of space you have for each person, so a bigger bandwidth means more people can be logged on at a time. Don’t automatically assume that fibre optic means the best bandwidth, or that you need it. Talk to the broadband provider and mention to them how many people work for you. You may need fast internet, but have a small team, so you won’t need that much bandwidth. Or, you may have a large team that all need to be logged on at once, but only occasionally, which could still work with DSL.
Customer services
This may not seem important at the time, but you should always ask what your potential broadband providers customer service arrangements are. As well as this,read as many reviews as possible on the customer services department. It is no good having the fastest broadband for your company with the best bandwidth if you can never get in touch with them if something goes wrong. A few things you may look out for are:
– Opening hours of the customer services department
– How long a technician takes to come out
– How do you get in touch with the customer services department
– What are their actual call out times compared to what they state they are
Try and find a few good review websites so you can see what existing customers are saying about the experience as a whole, not just the product.