Most businesses use Business Broadband for the additional benefits such as Static IP address, contention ratio, speed, security, downloads and support but there are different types of business broadband.
Standard Business Broadband is just not cutting the mustard for most businesses. When we refer to standard business broadband, we refer to ADSL which uses existing copper phone lines for transferring data whereas fibre uses fibre optic cables which are able to deliver high speed data.
Fibre Broadband is the next level up.
What is Fibre Broadband?
Fibre Broadband uses fibre-optic cables which aren’t affected by interference and signal issues that are typically experienced by copper lines. There are two types of Fibre Broadband:
- Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC): Fibre cables run from the telephone exchange to your phone line in your street.
- Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP): This provides end-to-end fibre connection but is limited by distance to the nearest telephone exchange.
Download and upload speeds can vary depending on the type you choose. Typically, you get faster download and upload speeds with FTTP.
What are the advantages of Fibre Broadband?
- Reliable Telephony – telephony that uses the internet needs a reliable broadband connection to work effectively, especially for call-voice quality.
- Video Conferencing – with a reliable and fast broadband service, you can run video conferencing and avoid a “face freeze” halfway through speaking which isn’t a great experience for whomever you are interacting with.
- Signal Strength – traditional broadband such as those use copper lines; the signal degrades as the user moves away from the switch. The signal strength of fibre-optic Internet does not degrade as quickly over distance.
- High Bandwidth Availability – it is easy to hit a cap on standard broadband because of the copper line but fibre-optics bandwidth is significantly higher and speed doesn’t decrease with demands.
- Increase Productivity – nothing is more annoying than having to wait for an internet page to reload or having to do send/receive on your emails because of slow internet. Standard businesses broadband may even struggle with your requirements if you have a large number of employees, fibre ensures your employees are as productive as they can be.
- Cloud Computing – a reliable broadband connection is needed to fully maximise the abilities of cloud computing technology. With Fibre, you would have the capability to utilise multiple cloud computing solutions without issue.
- Remote Working – you’d be able to maintain (or offer) a remote working work solution without being affected by internet speeds.
- Huge Benefits for Contact Centres – Fibre is ideal for contact centres, usually because of the number of staff using hosted telephony but also, many advanced companies have the online-chat facility for support and sales. A reliable broadband connection is required for this otherwise you could potentially, irritate a potential/existing customer by taking so long to respond or having to reboot your connection.
Connectivity Checker
Use our connectivity checker to see what business connectivity you can get for your business.
What are the disadvantages of Fibre Broadband?
The type of broadband that is available to you will depend on your location and what is available in that area. The download speeds available to you will also depend on your location but also, your connection.
Is there anything better than Fibre Broadband?
We recently attended a conference called Comms Vision and the essence of that conference was talking about connectivity, particularly the future of broadband. It seems that in the not too distant future, Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) will become the new “standard” business broadband option to choose, therefore if you were able to get FTTP, that is certainly the option we would recommend to you.
The roll out of FTTP is building steam under the likes of companies such as CityFibre but it will still take time. Additionally, if you have Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) available then it is likely you’ll be much further down on the list for FTTP.