Business Internet Buyer’s Guide: Bandwidth, Connection Types, and More

With the advent of the information age, we’ve seen the birth of SaaS, sophisticated CRM tools, social media, and other pieces of software that have made quality internet access vital to the productivity of a small or medium-sized business. Slow, unresponsive internet can decrease sales/marketing productivity and even lower employee morale, ultimately hitting the bottom line. A good connection has never been more important. 

Unfortunately, buying internet and related services has not gotten any easier. New network types, tech jargon, emerging providers, and varying contract characteristics can stand to make even an adept IT buyer’s purchase process difficult. Finding the best internet service for your specific needs shouldn’t be a pain.

Connection Types

All internet connections send and receive packets of information over some type of physical network, and the components underlying your physical last-mile internet infrastructure impact your connection’s speed and reliability. In almost every U.S. municipality, there are anywhere from two to five providers capable of providing business-grade internet access, typically offering business owners multiple network types to choose from.

Dial-up Internet

The granddaddy of them all, dial-up internet service is (unbelievably) still available in some corners of the world (mainly rural, underdeveloped areas). Some of the larger companies offering this retro hookup include NetZero, AOL, Earthlink, Turbo USA, and Juno.

At the risk of stating the obvious, you probably shouldn’t choose this for your business internet (unless you’re really going all out for a fashionably retro brand identity).

ISDN and DSL

Carried by the same trusty copper plant that’s used for POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), this is a rapidly diminishing option existing providers want to phase out and replace with faster alternatives.

Broadband / Cable Internet

This high-speed internet service uses the same coaxial infrastructure as cable television, and it’s usually considered as an alternative to fiber, for businesses looking for a “best effort” broadband service. “Best effort” services generally provide internet over infrastructure that’s shared with other customers and can be subject to traffic delays.Here are some things you’ll need to know if you’re considering cable internet services.

It’s quick to install. If you choose a cable internet service, you’re usually up and running in less than 45 days. And if there’s a buildout requirement, it’s almost always much faster than an equivalent fiber-base buildout.

Your download and upload speeds will be different. For technical reasons, cable internet offers asymmetrical bandwidth, with the result that upload speeds are much slower than download speeds. For many businesses, this matches their internet-usage pattern, so it’s not necessarily a deal breaker.

Latency? Not bad – but it’s not fiber. Cable internet performs well when it comes to providing a consistent speed of data transmission. However, it’s regularly outperformed by fiber.

Oversubscription. A slightly unwelcome side effect of sharing a cable network with lots of other businesses, the impact on day-to-day performance is mercifully minor, most of the time.

Pricing. When comparing like-for-like with a fiber solution, you’ll need to look at how the pricing measures up for both download and upload to get the full picture. Typically, while the download bandwidth prices for cable are comparatively cheaper, you end up paying over the odds for the upload bandwidth quota, due to the technical limitations.

Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) / Dedicated Fiber

For some time, fiber’s been comfortably leading the market as the “gold standard” against which all other connection types are measured. Fiber delivers high speed throughput with consistency over long distances, which makes it the perfect choice for business internet in many instances. There are a couple of fiber facts that are useful to keep in mind.

Best effort vs. dedicated. Fiber customers can choose for their data to travel coach class, on a “best-effort” service alongside everyone else (and consequently vulnerable to oversubscription issues, like cable). 

Alternatively, they can opt for a dedicated fiber connection, which costs more but ensures that your fiber connections aren’t shared with anyone, so you won’t be met with the oversubscription issues caused by heavy traffic.

Patience will be required for the install. Fiber connections take a while, and businesses waiting for an installation often need to temper their expectations.

Even on-net fiber implementations rarely happen in less than 45 days – the provider will generally quote a lead time of between 90 and 120 days. A near-net fiber connection isn’t likely to happen in less than 120 days and will often take much longer.

Off-net fiber build outs, as we said earlier, will require you to achieve Zen mastery levels of patience, and prepare for the possibility that your grandchildren may be the first people to enjoy your new business internet fiber connection.

Your best chance of freedom from latency. There isn’t really another service that can match the latency metrics of a fiber-connected internet service. 

Satellite

As the name suggests, satellite internet connectivity uses satellites in orbit around the Earth to wirelessly transmit data.

While geostationary satellites have been used for internet services since the late ’90s, newer services such as Starlink are increasingly reliant on low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Their proximity to the ground reduces the distance data needs to travel, so latency is reduced — but it comes at the expense of coverage, so more satellites are needed to provide the same coverage you’d get with a geostationary satellite.

Cellular Broadband (mobile)

Wireless internet that is transmitted by cellular towers, cellular broadband is a term commonly used to refer to 5G or LTE services.

Fixed Wireless

A high-speed internet option, frequently used in rural or semi-remote locations, fixed wireless is provided by transmission between two dishes pointed directly at each other, with clear, unobstructed lines of sight.

Business vs. Residential Internet

It may be tempting to use residential internet for your business, as it is typically a cheaper option. However, business internet offers many unique benefits that can be invaluable for businesses. Business internet is typically faster and more reliable than residential internet, and often there will be clauses in your contract that will allow you to be reimbursed if the ISP fails to meet the terms of your agreement. Furthermore, business internet often comes with various additional features like static IP addresses and backup systems. 

Important Considerations

There are many factors you should consider before choosing your ISP and hammering out the details of your contract. You will need to understand what your organization’s internet needs and priorities are in order to properly evaluate your options.

Speed and Service

If you already know what type of internet and provider, there are still many decisions to be made. You’ll need to determine your internet speed and service tier requirements to make an informed purchase.

Bandwidth: This is the most often quoted “measurement” of an internet connection’s quality. Bandwidth measures how much data can be transmitted through your internet connection on a per-second basis (typically measured in megabits). If you frequently use high-bandwidth applications (video streaming, video conferencing, sending of large files), then you’ll need a high-bandwidth connection. You’ll also need to ensure that you have bandwidth to support all of the users on a given network (employees in your office or visitors using your Wi-Fi network, for example). As a simple rule of thumb, If you’re using low-bandwidth applications at the site, you’ll want to have 2-3 mbps of download bandwidth per employee working, and up to 10 mbps per employee for high-bandwidth applications.

Latency: Latency measures how long it takes your transmitted data to reach a server and then come back to you, understood as the time delay between when you click something and when you see it. A fast connection with high latency can still feel like a slow connection, and this is where network type is most important. Fiber and cable have low latency, while satellite has very high latency. Wireless connections can have high or low latency depending on utilization and network architecture. Fiber is typically the best latency option.

Upload vs. download: Cable connections typically won’t give you the same bandwidth speed when uploading rather than downloading due to how they provision networks. If you’re performing activities that require fast upload speeds (video conferencing, cloud backup, sending files), then you may want to ensure that you have a symmetric connection or adequate upload speed.

Internet speed requirements differ based on what type of activities you use the network for and number of users on the network. Some quick math can help you understand your needs. To get a reasonable estimate of bandwidth needs for your office, determine whether most of your network uses fall into low bandwidth or high bandwidth activities as described below. 

If primarily low bandwidth, multiply the number of users on the network by three for a reasonable estimate of the Mbps speed needed. If primarily high bandwidth uses, multiply the number of users by 10. You’ll likely find that you need less bandwidth than you may have thought from this exercise, but keep in mind it’s worth having some cushion in the amount of bandwidth you purchase, as incremental bandwidth is cheap and bandwidth consumption increases significantly with time due to new applications, devices, and network uses. 

Also, note that a cable connection may not actually give you the bandwidth requested during periods of high network demand.

Examples of low bandwidth activities include internet browsing, social media usage, email, text chat, small file sharing, and music streaming. Examples of high bandwidth activities include large file downloading/uploading (or cloud backup), video calling, video streaming, and online gaming.

Note that bandwidth doesn’t guarantee network uptime and that most cable connections are “best efforts,” meaning they give you up to the amount of bandwidth quoted, with significant service degradation during times of peak utilization. Also, most cable connections come with asymmetric speeds (fast download but slow upload).

Physical Location

No matter what type of internet connectivity your business needs, physical location is going to be a deciding factor in what you can have.

If connectivity is important, then you’ll need to be researching your internet-provider options before you choose your new location — it’s that important.

Locations usually fall into three categories or market tiers.

Market tiers: Your market tier is an indirect measure of how many customers are available within an area — in other words, the market density. Markets are typically referred to as Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 markets. Tier 1 markets contain high-density locations – business districts in major cities, with high-ticket clients stacked up in high-rise commercial property.

Tier 2 contains the most locations, ranging from smaller city and urban areas to large towns and suburban areas.

Tier 3 markets, which include rural, sparsely populated spaces, offer limited business internet provider options — in this market tier, there is often only a single service provider available, and its range of services probably won’t include a lot of enterprise-standard connectivity.

In the middle and lowest tiers, your business internet options are going to depend on your proximity to providers.

Proximity to providers: To understand how your proximity to providers affects your business internet options, it can be useful to put yourself in their shoes. As we’ve already outlined above, location is everything — and the goal of most service providers is to maximize their return on investment, by prioritizing areas and markets with the highest density of customers.

It’s expensive to build out network infrastructure, and these costs are a defining factor in the calculation models service providers use to decide whether they’ll offer a given service in your location. The service provider will decide based on whether they see your location as “on net,” “near net,” or “off net.”

On net means the carrier already has some or all the network elements in place at your location, so it’s a cinch to get you up and running. You can expect to be plugged in and good to go within 30 to 90 days without a ton of complex installation steps (if you’re buying dedicated internet access), or within a week or so if you’re buying broadband.

Near net means your location is close enough that your business merits a small extension of their infrastructure, for little or no additional cost. It’ll take longer, though, because of the work required — a near-net connection usually takes about 120 days to set up.

Off net means there is no nearby infrastructure, which makes things trickier. A provider may be willing to develop the infrastructure for a fee, but otherwise, you may need to choose an alternative option.

Meanwhile, for businesses with multiple locations, site standardization is going to be essential for your procurement process.

Site Standardization

If you have many locations, standardization saves you time, allowing you to group your locations according to a rough estimate of typical requirements for that kind of site.

Obviously, on-the-ground requirements are going to vary. But it’s easier to modify an existing template, than creating an entirely bespoke connectivity strategy every time you add a location.

So, what might these templates, or tiers, look like? Of course, that depends on your business. But here’s a typical set of tiers a company might use to standardize their location requirements. Note how each tier is defined in terms of how much difficulty would be caused by service disruption at that site.

Tier 1: Tier one is extra-large locations like corporate headquarters, major distribution facilities, major production sites, and data centers.

A major part of the organization’s wide area network — service disruptions at a Tier 1 location will cause big problems across the entire network, affecting business-critical functions, so two fully redundant circuits from diverse carriers are going to be necessary. Circuit 1 of 2 is dedicated fiber with 1 Gbps symmetrical bandwidth, and circuit 2 of 2 is dedicated fiber from a different carrier (using diverse network routing) with 1 Gbps symmetrical bandwidth.

Tier 2: Large locations like offices in major metropolitan areas with larger than normal staff, large distribution sites, and large production sites.

Service disruptions at a Tier 2 location might not create organization-wide chaos, but there’ll be problems at a regional level.

Circuit 1 of 2 is dedicated fiber with 100 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth, and circuit 2 of 2 is broadband procured from a different provider than circuit 1, with 100 Mbps upload and corresponding download speed.

Tier 3: Medium-to-small locations like personal offices, small suites, and small offices with limited staff.

Usually, the third tier is the largest grouping, containing most of an organization’s locations or branches — it’s the “workhorse” tier, where the bulk of the everyday work happens. Service disruptions at a Tier 3 location usually only impact that location.

Circuit 1 of 2 is dedicated fiber with 50 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth, and Circuit 2 of 2 is broadband ordered from a different provider than Circuit 1, with 50 Mbps upload and corresponding download speed.

Tier ICB (individual case basis): Tier ICB is where we put the nonclassifiable items, with their hard-to-categorize specific connectivity needs. If your organization has a Research and Development site or an IT test bench, these are the kinds of locations that would require the ICB treatment. It’s not a template, but more an acknowledgment that you’ll need a bespoke strategy for each of these sites.

An extremely remote location might also fall into this category, due to the extra challenges it presents for network connectivity.

Redundancy and Diversity

If internet connectivity is a major part of your business, then it’s important to give some thought to how redundant circuits and diverse routing can be used to protect your business network. Redundant internet can make a world of difference for businesses that rely on constant reliable access to the network, manage sensitive data, or are at high risk for outages for any number of reasons. 

Steps in the Purchasing Process

If you’re ready to make a purchase, there are some typical steps that you will have to take. Notably, you will need to:

• Determine what providers are available at your address.

• Talk to sales reps and get price quotes to submit a service order. 

• Determine what providers are available for the address 

• Call available providers to get price quotes. 

However, if you would like to skip much of this work, it may be to your benefit to consider using a telecom agent, who can accomplish many of these tasks on your behalf. 

Why Different Locations Get Different Internet Services

Something many people fail to consider is how your location can affect your options. By understanding why and how location affects internet service, you can more easily navigate concerns related to location.

Local market factors: As internet connectivity isn’t regulated in the same way as utilities, ISPs must think hard before attempting to penetrate any regional market for business internet. Calculating the Total Addressable Market (TAM) is usually a prerequisite for any planned expansion — considering the following factors:

• Current market size;

• Market growth rate (or shrinkage);

• Likely number of business internet contracts available;

• Average business size;

• Types of businesses;

• Current competition;

• Business location density.

Return on investment (ROI): For any ISP looking to expand their services into a new market, there’s a heck of a lot of capital expenditure (or capex) needed. If you’re a fiber provider, for starters, there are a few upfront costs you’ll have to carry:

• Sourcing and leasing/purchasing locations for your core points of presence (POPs) in the area;

• Constructing or upgrading existing facilities to meet requirements for functions like HVAC or redundant power;

• Purchasing core network equipment for transport, routing, and switching;

• Human resources — you’ll need to recruit, hire, train, and equip technicians and engineers;

• Creating fiber termination points, splice points, repeaters, and remote offices at regular intervals throughout the area;

• Exhaustive research into business district population densities, to make sure you get the closest possible sites to the largest number of customers. 

This last one can be tricky — if you think about the potential value of New York City as a connectivity market, then think about how obstacles like Central Park could make it difficult to reach customers, you’ll get the picture.

A mile of fiber costs roughly the same, wherever you lay it. It’s much easier to make a return on investment in densely populated areas — which is why rural areas are often underserved by ISPs. The federal government has provided grant funding in recent years to encourage more capex investment in rural areas, bringing much-needed connectivity to smaller communities.

Characteristics of different services: Each type of internet service comes with its own unique advantages and disadvantages, which add up differently according to the market circumstances.

Take fixed wireless, for example. It’s got a relatively low capex cost, it’s faster than cellular, and it’s less prone to latency than satellite. 

As a result, it’s a fast-growth service that works well with other carrier methods — a common deployment involves procuring fiber connections to an existing cell tower and creating a central fixed wireless point with line-of-sight connectivity to neighboring businesses and residences.

But there are plenty of other situations (and locations) where fixed wireless loses out to other services. Cable ISPs have managed to leverage the massive existing infrastructure of cable TV and keep their solution competitive at an enterprise standard for decades through pure innovation and relentless dedication to their DOCSIS technology. 

And the rest? Cellular is readily available in most locations, but until 5G was introduced, the limited throughput cellular provided simply wasn’t enough for most enterprise networks. And 5G, while great for throughput, fails as an enterprise solution due to lack of range.

Satellite has you covered almost anywhere on Earth — but often comes at a sky-high price, with unavoidable latency issues, even from low-Earth orbit-based solutions.

Though many areas are still heavily reliant on copper, the industry is intent on phasing it out, so it’s not always a given that your ISP is likely to continue the network maintenance required to keep ISDN and DSL lines in active service.

How To Find Out What My Business Internet Options Are

Until recently, it has been difficult for businesses to pinpoint which of the U.S.’s almost 3,000 business internet providers were active in your area.

Given the number of variables involved, businesses were reduced to asking around, taking advice from brokerage firms (who were often on commission), or developing RSI from clicking around on an exhausting website trawl.

You can overcome this issue by using an automated procurement platform. These tools will prompt you to provide a basic description of your connectivity needs, and in turn will supply you with a comprehensive, vendor-agnostic list of all your business internet connectivity options.