Navigating Business Internet Providers: How to Make the Smartest Choice
July 1, 2024
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7
min read
Highlights
When researching business internet providers, look for ISPs with their own network infrastructure dedicated to businesses. Reliability, speed, and capacity are also big considerations, as well as the onboarding process, contracts, and quality of customer service.
Internet connectivity is the lifeblood of businesses, powering operations, communication, and growth.
In this guide, we'll explore key factors—network, service, and people—to consider when selecting the ideal business internet provider to keep you connected and thriving.
You should ask these questions to assess whether you're getting what you need from your current provider or ensure you pick the right one.
Network
What infrastructure do they use?
When exploring business Internet Service Provider (ISP) options, it's crucial to distinguish between providers utilising state-of-the-art infrastructure and those relying on legacy networks.
The network build is the foundation of your internet connection, determining the reliability and performance of your business' online operations—now and in the future.
However, you may not realise that many internet providers resell legacy Openreach infrastructure.
ISPs that build their own networks are more likely to have modern infrastructure that can accommodate the growing data demands that every business is experiencing.
Fibre optic networks offer higher speeds, lower latency, and increased reliability compared to traditional copper-based systems. Choose an internet provider that uses the latest technology available to ensure they will provide the data-intensive connectivity you’ll need now and in the future.
What speed do you need?
In today’s business landscape, having abundant internet is non-negotiable. You shouldn’t have to think about speed and capacity, as they are fundamental to everyday business—whether you’re a large corporation or small business.
Bandwidth (or lack thereof) can be the difference between making a landmark deal or dropping a business-critical call.
Consider how much bandwidth your business needs to operate seamlessly now. Then, consider what it will need in five years, taking into account that data requirements are growing exponentially.
Next, compare the upload and download speeds offered by different ISPs. Pay attention to whether their service is contended, meaning the line is shared. You want to ensure that the speeds advertised are what you will actually get so there are no dips in service when your data needs peak (when many people are in the office at once, for example).
Many businesses are transitioning to 10Gbps internet (or above) as a strategic investment, enabling them to handle large data volumes and adopt advanced applications. Some networks are even 100Gbps capable.
The bottom line is that you should never even come close to outgrowing your digital capabilities. Consider the trifecta of speed, capacity, and scalability to make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals.
Can you rely on them?
Every minute of interrupted connectivity can result in financial losses, missed opportunities, and frustrated clients.
Reduce the risk of downtime by assessing business ISPs on their reliability. Compare their Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which set the expectations for uptime, response time, and issue resolution. A robust SLA indicates how confident the ISP is with their network and ensures your business has a safety net.
You should also look out for ISPs that use diverse lines. This is when they install backup routes that will be unaffected if the primary connections go down. The data can, therefore, travel down a separate route whilst they fix the connection on the other line.
Be thorough in your research to ensure you minimise financial losses, decreased productivity, and customer and employee frustration.
Are they dedicated to businesses?
Providers dedicated exclusively to businesses have an in-depth understanding of the distinct needs and challenges businesses face.
Unlike providers serving residential and business customers, business-only specialists have exclusive infrastructure for their business clients.
These ISPs are well-versed in the essential features that matter to enterprises. Whether it's advanced security protocols, reliable connectivity, or specific bandwidth requirements, they prioritise features that contribute to the success of businesses.
They are also more likely to offer tailored solutions that align with the specific requirements of businesses, from custom packages to scalable plans.
Service
How smooth is the on-boarding process?
The installation process for your business internet should be seamless and designed to minimise disruptions.
Whether transitioning from a previous provider or setting up a new connection, a quick and easy installation process reduces downtime for your business.
Ask about timelines to assess the level of support you will receive during the onboarding process. A provider prioritising a smooth experience demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction, setting the tone for a productive and lasting partnership.
Vertically integrated ISPs, who do everything in house, will be more efficient in delivering your connection. From the Installation Technician who surveys your building to the Wayleave Officer managing the legal component, the fibre delivery journey will be drastically better than industry norms.
How clear is the contract?
Transparency in pricing and contracts is paramount. The last thing you want is to discover hidden costs or navigate through convoluted terms that can impact your budget and flexibility.
Signs of a transparent provider include a clear pricing breakdown, open communication, flexible contract options, and no hidden clauses. This allows you to assess the overall cost-effectiveness of your chosen plan.
Here are some questions to ask:
What is the contract duration?
You should look for providers with contracts that give you the flexibility to adapt to changing business needs, whether you need to scale up your services or adjust.
A clear and concise contract eliminates confusion and ensures that both parties are on the same page regarding the service’s duration, terms, and conditions.
Is the pricing straightforward?
A transparent pricing structure lets you accurately plan your budget and effectively allocate resources.
Unpublished prices indicate that they could inflate pricing on a case-by-case basis. All charges should be clear upfront, helping you avoid unexpected fees emerging during your contract.
Does the SLA include fair compensation measures for downtime?
Green flags include a clear definition of what constitutes downtime, a transparent compensation structure, automatic compensation, and proactive communication if an issue arises.
People
Do they get to know their customers?
We’re in a digital world, but businesses prioritising strong customer relationships still reign supreme. Your ISP should take the time to get to know the specific needs of your business and engage in proactive communication, whether it's informing you about potential maintenance or updating you on service improvements.
Assess potential ISPs on their available customer support channels and browse customer testimonials to gauge how much they prioritise customer relationships.
Think about it this way—would you prefer ringing a call centre or a dedicated account manager? Having a single point of contact who works in-house will give you tailored support and take much of the frustration out of issue resolution. Don’t put yourself in a position where you’ll be passed from person to person.
What does the company stand for?
The team behind the scenes can tell you a lot about an ISP. The composition and mindset of the team play a crucial role in delivering innovative solutions that meet diverse business needs.
A provider that values diversity is better equipped to understand and cater to the unique requirements of businesses. Embracing diversity in their team often translates to offering versatile solutions that consider various business needs. Look for a provider committed to fostering an inclusive environment, ensuring their team reflects various perspectives and experiences.
Also, consider whether they prioritise training and development for their team. A workforce continuously enhancing their skills is better positioned to offer optimal support and guidance.
Finally, assess their mindset when it comes to innovation. A youthful and fresh approach indicates a commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements. A provider with a forward-thinking mindset is more likely to adopt cutting-edge technologies and services, offering your business the benefits of the latest innovations in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
These insights will help you get below the surface when choosing a business ISP because this is about more than connectivity. Your company should thrive in the modern data-driven landscape; if it does not, it will swiftly fall behind.
Finding a provider that aligns with your goals, empowers your team, and propels your business into a future where connectivity is seamless, reliable, and abundant will make all the difference.
London businesses are switching to Vorboss and seeing results. Find out why.
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According to our Reliability and Compensation Report, authored by Assembly Research, the UK economy lost £17.6 billion in economic output in the past year due to fixed business connectivity outages.
Billions of pounds were wasted. It's a sobering figure.
How do you, as a business, guard yourself against this?
By getting to know your internet provider's service level agreement (SLA), and what it really means.
A transparent SLA lets you gauge how robust a provider's infrastructure is. The more generous the SLA, the more confidence a provider has in their network capability and reliability. It also guarantees that you will be compensated if downtime occurs.
So, what should you expect to see in the small print? Let's explore the world of SLAs.
What is an SLA?
An SLA is a contract that outlines and defines the type of service you can expect from your business internet provider.
It should lay out how they measure your service and what compensation they will give you if they do not deliver the promised service level.
We all know reliable connectivity is paramount to your business’ internal and external functions, so SLAs are very important. They allow you to mitigate some of the impact of connectivity outages, but more importantly they serve as an indicator of the quality of the infrastructure you rely on. By scrutinising the terms, you can make informed decisions, ensuring that you choose a service that aligns with your demands.
Many businesses are in the dark
There’s low awareness surrounding business internet providers’ SLAs—and that’s an issue.
Our research finds that almost a quarter (23%) of UK fixed business connectivity customers were unsure whether their contracts even included SLAs or SLGs.
Among those familiar with their SLA, 21% didn't know if their contract specified compensation arrangements if certain service quality levels weren’t met.
If you're in the dark about your SLA, your business could be vulnerable. Commitment to high levels of compensation from providers acts as motivation to technical teams to pre-empt issues, therefore fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
The good news is you can request an SLA from your business internet service provider (ISP) if they haven't issued you one (or you haven't seen one).
The economic toll of outages
Consistent connectivity is not a luxury.
Ofcom finds that 83% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) consider communications services fundamental to their business, so much so they could not function without them.
60% of companies in London reported one or more service losses over the past year, with 28% experiencing at least three outages.
Our analysis reveals that over the last year, the average loss of economic output to London businesses as a result of internet outages was £18,620. This equates to an average 314 lost hours of productivity (nearly 40 working days) per London business.
Staggering numbers to swallow.
This highlights the importance of transparency in contractual terms, as well as auto compensation. Businesses should not be left with minimal or no compensation if the worst occurs.
As things stand, the case is clear: businesses across the UK are losing out to connectivity outages.
Don’t leave money on the table
Despite the average UK business losing over £11,000 in economic output due to connectivity outages in the past year, 61% of UK businesses surveyed reported that they did not receive compensation from their ISP.
For those that didn’t ask for compensation, the main reasons given were that they believed it was not worth the time and effort or they didn’t expect to get compensation.
Only around a third of businesses surveyed reported receiving any compensation for connectivity outages in the past year.
If only they knew it could be a seamless and automatic process.
As a result of our findings, we’ve urged Ofcom to introduce an automatic compensation scheme for fixed business connectivity providers; we want this to become the standard.
Why we love SLAs
Business internet providers can hold themselves to account by including automatic compensation clauses in their SLAs. This indicates confidence in their infrastructure and a commitment to their customers.
This is how we use SLAs at Vorboss:
- To highlight our confidence in our network
- To ensure we compensate our customers fairly and automatically if outages occur
- To establish clear expectations between our customers and us (guaranteed uptime, response times, and compensation)
We’re raising the bar by providing the most competitive SLAs in the industry, automatically compensating businesses after just 4 minutes of downtime.
SLAs should be transparent and include automatic compensation to give customers greater trust in their providers—and encourage providers to improve service quality.
The bottom line
Read your SLA, whether it’s your existing one or you’re signing up for a new contract.
If there’s anything unclear, discuss it. If you don’t have one, ask for one.
If necessary, demand a more robust SLA to safeguard against connectivity issues.
If your SLA doesn’t include auto compensation, claim compensation for outages if they occur.
Every SLA should have a silver lining.
When was the last time you noticed your business internet's ability?
Whether it’s waiting to transfer a large file or trying to collaborate on a cloud-based app, your business internet directly impacts performance across your working day.
Yet, most companies are so used to the drawbacks of 1Gbps business internet that these time lags and glitchy delays have become normalised despite their drain on operations.
Simply put, 1Gbps internet limits the potential of ambitious businesses. It lacks the capability required in 2023, let alone in the near future, with peak internet traffic increasing 35% year-on-year and the imminent growth of AI tools.
But don't worry, there is another way (spoiler alert: it's 10Gbps).
1Gbps = accepting limitations
1Gbps is the standard business internet in London, which is like buying an old sedan to win an F1 race. While it satisfies the most basic functions, it’s unsuited to modern demands, slow to accelerate, highly susceptible to breakdowns, and increasingly outdated with every passing month.
In short, it’s limiting your ability to drive faster and compete. Here’s why.
Productivity
Software, data, people, and communication power modern businesses. Therefore, employee productivity is inextricably linked to internet capacity.
From Slack and Salesforce to Zoom and Zendesk, the average business uses 130 software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools for its communications, project management, accounting, and HR functionality.
Not to mention video streaming, file transfers, data analysis, and multimedia downloads. No matter your business’ core proposition, your operational efficiency relies on your business internet.
1Gbps’ low data bandwidth can slow down daily tasks, hamper productivity, and frustrate employees. With 10Gbps internet, teams comple tasks 10X faster, and productivity (and employee morale) soar.
The business impact of high bandwidth internet is immediate and tangible. So why limit your bandwidth in the first place?
Connectivity
Hybrid working is here to stay.
In April 2023, Central London workers came into the office on average 2.3 days per week, with most employers supporting remote work in some capacity. And a good corporate internet connection is essential for private VPNs that allow remote users to access private company data.
Reliable online connectivity enables remote employees to access resources easily, participate in virtual collaboration effectively, and work productively. On the flip side, frequent connection drops interrupt important tasks and adversely impact customer service and employee morale.
1Gbps business internet does not provide enough reliability to banish connectivity concerns. Wouldn’t it be great if you could ensure uninterrupted connectivity for all your employees?
Scalability
Think about how many cloud-based apps your business currently uses. Now, think about how much you will use in the near future when more game-changing AI products hit the market and quantum computing becomes the norm.
With data requirements doubling every two years, you need internet that can flexibly scale to your evolving data processing needs and easily handle more users as your business expands.
1Gbps business internet might satisfy your basic requirements today, but you need to plan for the impending surge of new data requirements to remain competitive. So why not get ahead of your rivals now instead of playing catch-up down the line?
Customer experience
How do you work with your clients or customers?
If your company uses real-time collaboration tools like Miro whiteboards to brainstorm ideas or Zoom conferencing services to host interactive webinars or even basic video calls, then reliable connectivity is your lifeblood; these tools don’t work if there isn’t enough bandwidth.
But, limited connectivity also impedes customers' online interaction with your business, such as unresponsive customer service or slow-to-load digital products, leading to frustrated customers, negative brand reputation, and ultimately a loss of business.
1Gbps’ limited connectivity might work now, but if you take on more customers or need to fulfil more orders, you may find yourself stuck in first gear with no way to accelerate. Why run the risk?
10Gbps = going limitless
It’s unlikely you’d accept ‘standard’ with any other part of your business, so why accept ‘standard’ with your business internet?
As technology develops, costs fall and the playing field changes. Netflix’s affordable subscription streaming made us forget about TV scheduling. Mobile network providers' unlimited packages made us forget about the cost of phone calls.
Now, 10Gbps is having the same effect on business internet, helping us forget about connectivity and reliability issues while making your business more productive and scalable. Businesses all across London are waking up to this, and the ship is turning. At Vorboss, we provide 10Gbps as standard (rather than the limit), as that's a sensible, technical minimum in 2023.
And, as we own the network, maintain the cables, and directly provide the customer connection, we can easily scale your data requirements as you grow, future-proofing your long-term business growth.
Without the limitations of 1Gbps, you’ll never notice your business internet again.
Book a consultation to find out why businesses are switching to Vorboss.
