This article originally appeared in the November 2008 Sensis “Small Business, Big Opportunity” newsletter.
There are few areas in business that change as fast as the Internet, particularly when it comes to business connection plans. What was good value two years ago can be pretty ordinary today.
Now we’re in uncertain times it’s a good opportunity to review what your Internet provider is giving you for your money. The right plan can help your business get the most from the Internet.
It’s often said there are three factors in an Internet plan: price, speed and reliability. You can choose any two of them.
I’d like to say price shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but in reality none of us have bottomless budgets. So the first step is to look at what you currently spend and decide what you can afford.
Budgets can vary dramatically between businesses. A $50 a month plan is fine for a home based business while tens of thousands per month isn’t out of the question for a larger business with heavy needs.
Regardless of your business size, forget the super cheap consumer plans. You need a supplier you can rely on. Business grade providers will also offer important add on features like fixed IP addresses and priority support.
Nothing breaks a technology consultant’s heart more than seeing a business struggling with a substandard Internet connection. The lost productivity dwarfs the fifty or hundred dollar a month saved from scrimping on connection charges.
So having set a realistic budget, we have to choose between speed and reliability.
Reliability is non-negotiable. The net, and in particular email, is a key business function and telling customers “sorry, the Internet is down” simply doesn’t wash anymore. As businesses move more towards Voice over IP, software as a service and web 2.0 applications, always-on fast Internet becomes essential.
This leaves us with speed. Internet speeds are split into two parts; download, the data that comes into your system, and upload, the data that goes out.
Internet plans usually state their speeds along the lines of 1500/256 which in this case means the download speed is 1500kbps and the outgoing speed 256. This is called an asynchronous connection which is the “A” in ADSL.
Home plans usually use ADSL connections because web surfing downloads far more data than it sends but office applications like email, remote access and Voice over IP need a higher upload speed.
So if you have lots of people working remotely, or you’re making phone calls over the Internet you’ll have to consider plans that have higher upload speeds.
There’s also data allowances, these can be tricky for all Internet subscribers as the fixed price plans shape the connection, meaning they slow you down once you go over the limit. For businesses that rely mainly on email, these plans are fine.
If your business Internet needs are more demanding though, the alternative is excess use plans where you are charged once you exceed the limit. This can mean horrendous bills if the wrong plan is chosen.
The good news with data allowances though is this is one of the areas that has dramatically changed in the last few years. So this is an area where the canny business can get more value for their Internet spending.
Even if your Internet Service Provider won’t come to the party on reducing your prices, there’s a very good chance you can negotiate a better deal in data allowances and speeds to help your business have the edge in these uncertain times.