Your business’s connectivity is essential to running your business. Without reliable connectivity, your business will likely experience slow speeds, loss of productivity, and possibly even downtime.
Your business connectivity needs to be adaptable and flexible to your needs but ultimately, it needs to be reliable. We have three connectivity paths for you to consider; Business Broadband, Ethernet, and Mobile Broadband.
Discover more about your business connectivity options.
Contended vs Uncontended
A contended connection is when you share bandwidth with others; once the line leaves your building it is no longer just you that uses it; if you are using it for personal use, you might not notice the difference (except at peak times) but in a business’s environment, this can cause your connection to be unreliable when you need it most.
When a service provider says a broadband circuit is ‘uncontended’, it means is a dedicated internet connection and you don’t have to share bandwidth with others, all the way to the data centre which means that you shouldn’t experience slow speeds at peak times.
Business Broadband connections like, ADSL, FTTC, G Fast and FTTP tend to be contended circuits and Ethernet tend to be uncontended.
Synchronous vs Asynchronous
Synchronous means you get the same bandwidth for uploads and downloads. E.g. If you choose 200Mbps you get that 200Mbps for uploads and 200Mbps for downloads.
Asynchronous is where the service bandwidth is higher weighted on the download compared to the upload. For instance, 1Gbps for downloads and 50Mbps for uploads.
Business Broadband connections like, ADSL, FTTC, G Fast and FTTP tends to be asynchronous and Ethernet tends to be synchronous, although there are some asynchronous Ethernet options, too.
Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)
What happens when your connection drops or there is a fault? How will your provider respond? How long will a fix take? It all boils down to what kind of SLA do they offer? When something goes wrong you need to ensure that a fix won’t take too long that it significantly affects your business operations.
With Ethernet faults and dropped connections are exceptionally rare; ethernet availability is often in excess of 99.9%, however, should there be any issues, fix times tend to be much shorter. Ethernet SLA’s typically tend to be a few hours (usually between 4 and 8 hours) fix time compared to the 1-2 days for FTTC.
Also, with Ethernet SLA’s they tend to cover not only the fixes and faults but also data speed (also known as latency), variability in the speed and how accurately data is transported. It means if you have systems like IP telephony you can ensure that those applications are prioritised.
Business-grade broadband is generally a residential product with some added benefits like an enhanced level SLA but you need to check the exact description of the SLA. As a business customer you are likely to get a reasonable service level but if you see it at a lower price, it’s likely that things like the SLA length has been compromised to offer that priceBusiness Broadband Connections
ADSL connections
ADSL connections were traditionally one of the most common types of broadband connectivity businesses used to connect to the internet however this has been outstripped by Fibre broadband (FTTC/FTTP).
These shared broadband connections offer you a choice of speeds and features to suit the size and requirements of your business.
ADSL is only chosen if in the rare instance there is no FTTC available.
Speeds: Up to 24Mbps for downloads and up to 1.5Mbps for uploads.
Fibre Broadband (FTTC) / SoGEA
FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet is where fibre-optic cable is used from the telephone exchange to the green, roadside cabinet and then, copper cable to the business.
BT is phasing out the use of copper cables in 2025, so SoGEA will replace FTTC which currently uses copper cables (alongside fibre) to deliver connectivity. Usually, you’d install a phone line with broadband but with SOGEA, you have broadband without the need for an underlying voice access product.
You can get contended and uncontended services with SOGEA. The bandwidth is asynchronous, however with SOGEA you can have an uncontended synchronous 20Mbps / 20Mbps service, but this is dependent on your distance from the street cab.
SoGEA and FTTC offer the same data speeds.
Speeds up to 80Mbps and 20Mbps for uploads.
G Fast
G Fast is similar to FTTC but with faster speeds. There is simply an added box at the cabinet which has technology to ensure the speeds are super-fast, however availability is limited due to distance from the cabinet.
Speeds: up to 330Mbps for downloads and 30Mbps for uploads.
Fibre Broadband (FTTP)
FTTP is Fibre to the Premise is where fibre-optic cables are used to transmit from the exchange all the way to the business’s premises.
FTTC is more commonly available but FTTP will eventually become the standard of business broadband.
Speeds: Up to 1Gbps for downloads and up to 50Mbps for uploads.
Ethernet; Enterprise-grade Broadband
Ethernet is an enterprise-grade broadband internet technology. Ethernet has been around for many years but it’s gained popularity since the progression of cloud-based, business-critical apps and the phasing out of copper cables.
Unlike Broadband, Ethernet was designed for businesses, not the residential market. The internet is worldwide, switching data packets over the network. Ethernet delivers those data packets as the carrier, within a smaller network; usually across one or a few sites. Its key advantage lies in its use of dedicated high-capacity fibre optic lines.
Ethernet services are dedicated, uncontended broadband services with guaranteed bandwidth, synchronous speeds and SLA’s.
Sure Signs you need Ethernet
- Most of your business applications are cloud-based.
- You want to use SIP Trunks and/or a Hosted Phone System.
- You have been experiencing internet downtime.
- You have had slow download/uploads.
- Your business has more than one site.
- Your business in an area of poor connectivity such as a rural location.
Ethernet Options
Fibre Ethernet
Fibre Ethernet is an Ethernet Over Fibre service, the connection provides high-speed ethernet bandwidth from 10Mbps to 10Gbps delivered as Ethernet over fibre optic lines.
Fibre Ethernet uses bearers. Bearers are the bandwidth size of the available circuit, it’s the maximum speed that the circuit can go up to. With Fibre Ethernet you can get 100Mbps bearers and add on block of 10Mbps, 1Gbps bearers and add on blocks of 100Mbps up to 500Mbps then after 1Gbps or 10Gbps bearers that you can add on blocks of 1Gbps.
With Fibre Ethernet, you are guaranteed uncontended, high bandwidth, uptime and a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Speeds: From 10Mpbs up to 10Gbps
Discover how upgrading from FTTC to Fibre Ethernet helped improved Stressline's buiness operations
View our Case StudyEthernet Flex 1Gbps
Key Features of Ethernet Flex
- Guaranteed 200Mbps both up and down
- 1Gbps burst at no extra cost
- On-demand bandwidth with no need for portal requests
- 5 business-hour return to service guarantee
- 24/7 UK support
- Unlimited usage
Converged Ethernet Options
There are several choices when it comes to Ethernet and what you want it to support, you can choose to have Ethernet Data only, Ethernet Voice Only (used in conjunction with SIP Trunks and Hosted Phone Systems), or Converged Ethernet (Voice, Data and using SIP and a Hosted Phone System.)
Converged Ethernet is the fully managed variant of standard Ethernet and combines both Voice and Data on a single high-speed connection prioritising all voice traffic to guarantee the number of concurrent calls required and quality, without degradation of the service during periods when traffic usage on your circuit could be in high utilisation.
With Converged Ethernet you get dedicated, uncontented, guaranteed bandwidth speeds and SLA’s.
Benefits of Ethernet
- Dedicated, uncontended bandwidth – High availability and low latency connectivity.
- Voice and data convergence – Merge voice and data which means a significant cost saving for most businesses.
- 24/7 monitoring and helpdesk – We can respond immediately to any issues and ensure consistency in performance.
- Service Level Agreement – We offer competitive SLA’s to cover delivery, performance, availability and fix times.
- Resilient failover by ensuring there is a failover at your premises and resilient network links via DSL (ADSL and FTTC) /4G / Ethernet (FTTC / EFM /Fibre (R2 link).
- Maximise productivity – With uncontended bandwidth, you can increase productivity as you can be assured that you always have access to essential business applications and files.
- High-Bandwidth connectivity – We can deliver up to 10GBps connection using fibre optic technologies
- Improve site-to-site connectivity – An ethernet connection is essential if you are looking to improve site-to-site connectivity.
Mobile Broadband
Poor Broadband Service in your area?
Waiting for your Broadband service to be connected?
Does your machine require its own dedicated data access?
Then, you are going to need a Mobile Broadband Solution.
Mobile Broadband
Mobile broadband, is an internet service that's entirely portable. All you need is an SIM and a compatible device. Generally, an eSIM is put into dongles or routers.
Our eSIM’s are multi-network that are un-steered which means they can automatically switch to give you the best service. They can be reprogrammed ‘over the air’ which means you can manage your eSIMs without having to swap them out of different devices; ensuring that you always getting the best coverage with minimal delay.
It's a great way of getting broadband, higher download speeds, or a more reliable connection in areas where other fixed broadband services aren’t available or reliable.
Mobile Broadband is ideal for:
- Building contractors waiting for a broadband service to be connected
- Businesses in rural areas
- Mobile workers who are travelling and need good, secure connectivity to access company documents.
See how we helped Fuel Marketing with their broadband connectivity which was poor due to being based in a rural location.
We implemented a mobile broadband solution which was a dramatic improvement for them.
View our Case StudyM2M and IoT Sims
The terms “M2M SIM” and “IoT SIM” are often used interchangeably. They are essentially the same, however, M2M SIMs are used for devices that require high data usage and IoT SIMs are used for devices that require low data usage.
Devices with M2M/IoT SIM cards have fixed IP addresses and are primarily used for sending and receiving data; not for voice. These SIM cards are designed to be more durable so they can operate in harsh environments and are more resistant to vibration, corrosion, extreme high or low temperatures.
M2M SIMS are ideal for devices that need higher data usage such as
- Tablets
- CCTV systems
- Specialist machinery
IoT SIMS are ideal for low usage devices such as
- Fleet Tracking Sensors
- Point of sale card machines