A budding business needs a steady internet connection, but what business owners don’t need is wasted money on something they’ll never use. Find the right speed for your business with this simple overview and see what you can do with each.
100/100 Mbps
100 Mbps is a good amount of speed for a small company with up to 10 users at a time doing simple things like sending emails, browsing the internet, and downloading document files. If your business is a startup and you’re still working to get off the ground, 100 Mbps is perfect for you. However, if you’re running a multimedia company that is regularly uploading large files, you might want to jump to the next tier of internet speeds.
300/300 Mbps
300 Mbps is just what you need for a company of between 15-20 average internet users. With these speeds, you’ll be able to comfortably perform typical tasks, in addition, you’ll find the bandwidth to accommodate more creative ventures that require larger files, such as video production.
1 gig
One gig of data provides upload and download speeds of 940/880 Mbps, which gives your company a cushion to expand with ease. With nearly parallel upload and download speeds (940/880), streaming conference calls, running reports, and creating multimedia projects can be easy as pie. Meanwhile, you’ll also be able to lessen your reliance on a hard drive, as this service is fast enough to let you run applications from the cloud. Choose 940/880 Mbps if you have an average of 30 or more users.
While looking for business internet, consider a Verizon Fios business plan. With Verizon Fios, not only do you get impressively fast internet but, unlike traditional internet services, you get nearly equal upload and download speeds. While typical internet services throttle upload speeds to save bandwidth for downloads, your business deserves better. When you’re a multimedia production company working with large files, uploads can take a lifetime, but with Verizon Fios business internet, your big projects can take a fraction of the time to upload.
It’s a valid question, especially for small-business owners squeezing as much as they can out of every scarce dollar. With fiber broadband-wired neighborhoods popping up everywhere promising low cost pricing and high speed internet, the choice between business internet vs. residential seems simple. This Quora thread sums it up: residential internet is cheaper, and now it’s almost as good as a business-level connection, so why pay the difference? You have a handful of employees, and they can easily get by on fewer Mbps than MegaCorp downtown. But, is this the right choice for your business?
Business internet vs. residential
Business internet has more features and benefits than residential, and is worth the higher cost. Residential internet often has restricted upload speeds and comes with only best-effort service agreements, while business internet demands faster upload speeds in order to perform operations. In addition, ISPs provide guaranteed service and uptimes for business internet.
Saving a few bucks now could end up costing you down the line, since the differences between business internet vs. residential are critical—would you line up at FedEx Office self-serve instead of buying your own office printer? Or have an Uber driver make your client deliveries? The choice is really that cut-and-dried.
Here are the most important factors for your business internet vs. residential consideration:
Parity
Residential, and even some business internet providers, keep prices down by offering impressively fast download speeds while glossing over their far slower upload speeds. For streaming movies and web surfing, download speed matters. If you’re creating content and need to get it to clients, upload speed really matters—the same goes for backing up your data offsite. Business internet connections usually offer identical download and upload speeds, known as parity. In residential connections, throttled upload speed is the norm: 20Mbps down, 2Mbps up is a standard package, which would be advertised as “20×2,” or the upload speed left out completely.
Service Level Agreements
A service-level agreement (or an SLA) is a contract between a service provider and its customers stating what services the provider will furnish, as well as defining performance standards. Service providers use SLAs to manage customer expectations, as well as to clarify when they’re not liable for performance issues or outages. By being made aware these parameters, business customers (residential customers usually receive less-binding “best effort” promises) know what to expect from providers, and can compare them to the SLAs of other vendors. SLAs also define means of compensation should the service level not be met, either through credits or a refund.
Static IP
Business internet connections typically come with static Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, permanent numbers assigned by the Internet service provider (ISP). If it’s not included, you can add a static IP when you set up your service. A static IP address is also known as a fixed address. This is ideal for hosting a web site or email server from your location or for connecting to a whitelisted server so you can use a service that another business provides. Also if you have heating and air conditioning controls or video cameras at your business, you can access these controls remotely with a static IP.
Residential internet connections typically use dynamic IP addresses that are temporary and change each time the computer or device accesses the internet from your network. Your ISP will set this up so it happens automatically using a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). When it comes to security, both dynamic and static IPs are comparable, as long as you have a good security program or firewall installed.
Price
The lowest cost shouldn’t be the deciding factor in the business internet vs. residential debate. Think about what your business could lose in the event of an internet slowdown or, worse, a complete outage. The initial savings of going residential could easily be wiped out by loss of connectivity and productivity, and it might end up costing you even more in the end. It won’t, however, cost you anything to compare business internet features and pricing besides a few minutes of research into what might be best for the future of your business. To help get you started, click the following link to learn more about Verizon Fios business internet.
Speed
Business internet speeds tend to be anywhere from two to five times faster than those of residential connections, meaning more people can get more done, more quickly. Twenty employees sharing a 5Mbps residential-style connection at the office can makes little financial sense when you’re counting on it to help complete transactions and make you income. And, as annoying as the dragging downloads and eternal uploads of a slower residential connection can be for you, they’re even more tedious for your customers. It may predate the internet, but the old saying “time is money” still holds up.
