What’s The Right Bandwidth Choice For Your Business?

From professional services and hospitality to healthcare and retail, businesses thrive when they have fast, reliable Internet connections. You need reliable connections to send sales transactions, upload files, transmit payroll data, and take advantage of cloud-based applications for sales, finance, and shipping. Then remember all of the different devices in your office – like mobile phones, wearables, tablets, and even desktop phones – and the need becomes even greater.

That makes your choice of bandwidth – and internet provider – a crucial decision for your business. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a provider, what should you look for? And if you already have a provider, are you paying too much, or should you be investing in a higher level of bandwidth. Just as important – are you getting the level of customer service you deserve?

Before you begin your evaluation, the best first step is to perform a quick assessment of your needs for internet connectivity. There are a few areas you’ll want to consider:

SIZING UP YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS

Devices

You need to count more than the number of people in your company – or even contractors and customers. It’s the number of devices that matter – everything from servers to laptops to mobile phones, tablets, and even wearables. Those numbers can change daily, weekly, and monthly, but all of them consume bandwidth – and those needs will only grow.

Applications

The fact is, different apps have different bandwidth requirements. And different apps have different priorities. For instance, a cloud-based accounting system used by your finance group will require a high level of speed and reliability. Online backups can be mission-critical. Other apps such as email or file sharing have more modest requirements, but you don’t want to be stuck with snail-pace internet connections or intermittent outages that can bring business to a halt.

Security Needs

Critical applications may require secure, dedicated network solutions like fiber-based dedicated Internet, while less-vital functions can run more cost-effectively on shared broadband networks.

Technical Know-How

Not every administrator or office manager has the time or interest in getting into the weeds with internet connectivity issues. Assess your comfort level and see what your vendors can offer you to make the process easy and hassle-free.

Local Market Expertise

It’s essential that your provider knows and understands your local market and can quickly install and service your network service