While broadband is never cheap, the opportunity cost of your video call freezing during a pitch is too big to play around with. Especially with everything cloud-dependent these days, poor connectivity is a huge problem.
Businesses lose an average of £3,600 per hour of internet downtime, yet many treat broadband as if it’s in their home: the minimum amount we can get away with.
But the truth is that not all broadband is created equal, and it’s not just about speeds, so let’s look at how to meet your business needs, particularly when considering ultrafast full fibre business broadband.
How much bandwidth does your business really need?
The “how much speed do I need?” question can’t really be answered by headcount alone because what employees actually do online is relevant. A five-person graphic design studio who regularly uploads 50GB client files has quite different needs to a call-centric consultancy.
At the same time, some downtime may not be the end of the world for the graphic design company because deliverables often have a 2-3 day turnover, while the consultancy that relies on live VoIP calls with clients cannot have any downtime. This is classic speed vs reliability.
Small operations can often get away with 50-150Mbps for basic cloud applications, while medium businesses with 6-20 employees need 150-500Mbps for multiple Zoom calls. But even for medium-sized firms and onwards, 500Mbps is often seen as baseline.
But here’s the trap: businesses obsess over download speeds whilst overlooking upload capacity. Upload speed determines whether your video appears professional or pixelated to clients.
Why symmetrical speeds matter for business
Asymmetrical broadband is where downloads dwarf uploads, and while this may be fine in the home, it creates bottlenecks at work.
Symmetrical connections are where your upload speeds are comparable to downloads, and this is super important for calls, sending large files, and so on.
When your 400Mbps works equally well in both directions, cloud backups don’t interfere with daytime operations, and video conferences remain crisp even when multiple employees simultaneously upload files.
Full fibre (FTTP) is where the optical cable runs directly to your premises – this is what you want, because part-fibre (FTTC) has copper telephone lines for the final stretch, creating wild variations and an unnecessary bottleneck.
Service level agreements (SLAs) and support
Once you have chosen the right infrastructure and broadband package, what’s left is the quality of service with your provider. Consumer packages might take 5-7 working days to resolve faults, and this isn’t good enough for businesses.
Business SLAs are what guarantee faster response, often within one working day, which reduces downtime. Static IP addresses are also found in business SLAs and these help with security cameras, VPNs, VoIP systems, and more.
Apply your own “Tuesday morning test” where you ring providers at 9:30am when phone lines are rammed. How long until you speak to a human? Calculate this downtime cost: if your operation generates £500/hour and a typical resolution takes eight hours, that’s £4,000 at risk per incident.
Making the right choice for your business
When considering broadband, you need to monitor your connection during peak hours. What most businesses find is that they’re upload-constrained rather than download-limited. But, you must also factor in growth – what your peak hours may look like in nine months time.
Apply the “80% rule”: regularly using 80% of capacity during business hours means you’re undersized. Calculate true cost, including downtime risk. What you often find is that paying, for example, £20 extra monthly for business-grade service, means that it only needs to prevent a single outage for it to pay for itself.
