Your Options For Business Internet Broadband

By: John Shepler

The range of broadband Internet connectivity solutions available for your business location is greater than ever before. Let’s take a look at what’s available and appropriate for companies of all sizes.

Starting at the Top
We’ll start at the top, since Gigabit Internet is the gold standard that everyone would really like to have… if they could afford it. Chances are, you probably can if you have a medium or larger size company in most locations or smaller businesses in select areas.

Where You Are Counts
This is an important point for all connectivity services. What you get and what you pay for it depends a lot on your particular business location. That’s because not all areas are built out equally. Major metro downtowns have a wealth of services and are highly competitive on price. Large business and office parks are also well connected. In smaller towns or out in rural areas, pickings are slim, as they say. Even so, you can get some form of broadband Internet connection no matter where you are.

Options at 1 Gbps
The most popular form of Gigabit Ethernet or GigE service for business right now is Gigabit Ethernet over Fiber. It is a more modern technology than SONET and excels in both ease of connectivity and price. The ease of connectivity comes from the fact that Carrier Ethernet is really just an extension of the same switched Ethernet that runs on your company LAN. Features necessary to long distance operation and maintenance have been added to the Ethernet standard. Otherwise it’s the same packets you already know and love.

Gigabit Ethernet is priced at a fraction of what traditional SONET OC3, OC12, OC48 etc costs. These are still viable options and are embedded into many, many regional and national networks. Ethernet can run over SONET or be natively hosted on the fiber. Competitive providers have pushed prices lower and lower, to the point that if you really need this much bandwidth you can probably afford it.

Another advantage of Carrier Ethernet is that it is easily scalable. You can install fiber services with a Gigabit speed port today but only take 100 Mbps service if that is all you need. The price will be considerably less and you can upgrade to 200, 500, 750 or 1,000 Mbps whenever you like. No equipment changes will be needed.

Even Higher Speeds
The relentless migration of data centers to the cloud and higher performance hosted business applications have pushed demands on WAN networks to higher and higher speeds. While most companies are getting used to the idea of having Gigabit connectivity, some, like video producers and larger medical complexes, find that bandwidth a bit limiting. No problem. If you can get Ethernet over Fiber, you can likely get 10 Gbps as easily as 1 Gbps. In larger markets, 100 Gbps is readily available for business use.

Fractional Gigabit Options
If your needs are more modest, say in the range of 50 to 500 Mbps, you have multiple options for service. Certainly, rate limited GigE can work in this range. You can also opt for traditional DS3 service at 45 Mbps. This bandwidth, which once was a corporate standard, is provisioned on copper coaxial cables. Most of the delivery is done over fiber, however, running as a service on OC3 fiber to the curb.

How about business cable broadband? The price is certainly right and you can easily get bandwidths to 100 Mbps, and often 300 Mbps. In some areas Gigabit service over cable is available. Limitations of this service are that the bandwidth is shared, and thus varies during the day. It is also asymmetrical with download speed 10x that of upload speed. Finally, there are usually no service level agreements. Its a best effort service. Even so, if the cable runs by your location and the service will meet your needs, you’ll pay only a fraction of what equivalent fiber bandwidth costs.

The Low End
Small businesses may find 50 Mbps more than they need, especially if the Internet is used primarily for email, purchasing, web browsing and similar applications. In this case, cable broadband at 30 Mbps can be your lowest cost option. Ethernet over Copper will give you symmetrical bandwidth from 5 to 50 Mbps and is also very cost effective.

Have you considered a T1 line? Yes, the bandwidth is only 1.5 Mbps, but it is rock solid and suitable for things like credit card verification and email. Not so much for video or other demanding applications. The beauty of T1 lines is that they have been around so long they are available just about everywhere you can get landline telephone service. That means out in rural areas where just about nothing else is available.

Business satellite broadband is another option for just about any location where power is available and you have a clear view of the Southern sky. The downsides of satellite are that usage is limited to a fixed number of GB per month, just like cellular, and the latency from the satellite being so far up make applications slow to respond and telephone calls more like two-way radio conversations.

How About SDN?
Software Defined Networks are taking the industry by storm. These are collections of similar or dissimilar broadband services that are managed by a special controller that makes instant decisions about which path each packet should take. The effect is that your WAN connection becomes more robust and even lower cost options can be integrated to create a high performing network.

Which business Internet option is right for your business? Get quote for multiple business Internet broadband services and see which fits best to your requirements.

When Asymmetrical Bandwidth Works Just Fine

Asymmetrical bandwidth has been pooh-poohed for business applications in favor of symmetrical bandwidth options. In some cases, you can wind up spending too much for the service you really need. In other cases, picking the wrong option will leave you frustrated and unproductive.

How do these symmetries work? Symmetrical bandwidth means that the upload and download speeds are exactly the same. You’ll see this identified as 3 x 3 Mbps Ethernet or 100 x 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet. The classic example of symmetrical bandwidth is the venerable T1 line. It offers a fixed 1.5 Mbps in the upload or transmit direction and 1.5 Mbps in the download or receive direction.

T1, DS3 and SONET are all symmetrical bandwidth services. The reason for this is historical. These are standards developed by the telephone companies to transport phone calls in bulk. The same bandwidth is needed for talk as well as listen on both ends. Ethernet over Fiber and Copper also tends to be symmetrical. It’s because these services were designed as replacements for T1, DS3 and SONET when used in business.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is characterized by differences in the upload and download speeds. This can be as much as an order of magnitude or 10x. You might order a service with 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload or 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is dominant in consumer broadband services. These include DSL, Cable, 3G and 4G wireless, two-way satellite, WiFi hotspots and WiMAX. Why? It’s the nature of the Internet.

Most people browse the Web or download software and video while they are online. When you are doing these things, you are sending commands via your keyboard to the remotely located Web server. These commands are inherently low bandwidth and are based on text you type or links you click on. Neither of these has very many bytes of data involved. Downloads are another matter. Web pages, video clips and streams, music and other audio, software updates and large files are all bandwidth intensive because of their large file sizes. You want the maximum bandwidth available for downloads to minimize load times. You don’t need much bandwidth at all in the upload direction for the usual Web browsing.

What changes this picture? Any process that results in sending out large files as well as receiving them. Examples are remote backups, video conferencing, posting photos and movies online, and making large updates to Web servers. Most consumers do some of these things some of the time. Businesses are far more likely to be sending as much as they receive. But... not all.

If you are heavily involved in big data, cloud computing, enterprise VoIP, video production and distribution, medical image transmission or similar large file operations, you’ll want to opt for symmetrical bandwidth. Fast download speeds may not be so valuable when you wait forever to upload something or try to conduct an HD video conference.

Why pick asymmetrical bandwidth options? The primary reason is to save money. The asymmetrical services like Cable, DSL and 3G wireless are usually priced at a fraction of the cost for symmetrical services. This is generally due to more than symmetry. Asymmetrical services are most often shared rather than dedicated bandwidth. This reduces costs dramatically but means that your bandwidth will vary depending on what other users are doing. There are generally no service level agreements or performance guarantees on asymmetrical bandwidth services. That may be changing as business service providers begin offering dedicated asymmetrical bandwidth options.

What is the best bandwidth option for your business? Find out by comparing prices and features for a wide variety of asymmetrical and symmetrical bandwidth options on carriers serving your business location. Free consulting is also available to help you make the appropriate choice.

Business DSL Alternatives

Business DSL has been popular with small businesses because of its ready availability and low monthly cost. It works just great for some businesses and not so good for others. Some are out of luck completely. The service is just not available to them. Here’s a bit of explanation and some alternative ideas for companies that either can’t get business DSL or don’t like the way it works.

Business DSL is similar to residential DSL. It comes in on ordinary twisted pair telephone wiring. Usually this is just a single pair like a phone line. In fact, it is a phone line. This means that DSL is delivered by your telephone company. They own the copper and are the only ones who can connect to it. Often, though, they will lease out copper pairs to competitive carriers that also offer business DSL service.

One thing that often distinguishes business DSL from residential service is that the home variety is priced at bargain basement prices because it uses the same wires as your landline telephone. Filters are installed so that the low frequency voice signal and the higher frequency digital signal don’t interfere. Business DSL lines are often used only for the digital connection. The telephones have their own separate network.

Some things that business owners don’t like about DSL are the shared rather than dedicated bandwidth, relatively low speeds, outages that don’t get quick repairs and asymmetric bandwidth (for the ADSL variety).

If you’ve been disappointed with what you can get in DSL performance or can’t get DSL at all, consider these alternatives.

For about the same or a little more money, you can get either 3G wireless broadband or Cable broadband. Cable is like DSL on steroids. The much higher bandwidth can make up for shared and asymmetric bandwidth. Like DSL, Cable is distance limited and only available if the cable happens to pass near your business location. Forget DSL or Cable if you happen to be located in the countryside.

Wireless is now an option for businesses in rural and metropolitan areas. WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers offer what amounts a giant WiFi hotspot. In order to get a far enough reach, special antennas are needed at each business location. Another flavor of wireless service is fixed microwave wireless. This is business grade service only available mostly in downtown business districts. The provider installs a small antenna on the roof of your building and an Ethernet jack in your office. Bandwidths range from 1 to 45 Mbps for standard service and 50 to 100 Mbps for high speed options. You typically need a line of sight path within 6 miles of the provider’s tower.

There is a type of wireless service that is nationally available and usually doesn’t require outside antennas. This is 3G cellular using the same towers and signals as smartphone cellular. These towers offer strong signals for most businesses, especially if high performance indoor antennas and modems are employed. The 3G service is similar to many DSL service speeds. Now 4G is becoming available, with bandwidth similar to Cable.

One more wireless service that you can get even if there is no cellular service is satellite. All you need is a dish on the roof with a clear view of the southern sky. Prices and bandwidth are competitive with DSL, Cable and 3G. It’s good for many applications, but not VoIP or video conferencing. The latency or time delay is just too long going to and from the satellite.

Consider T1 and Ethernet over Copper if you want high reliability professional wireline connections with low latency. T1 is the classic telecom service. What’s changed is that it is now available nearly everywhere you can get landline phone service and prices are a fraction of what they were a few years ago. Bandwidth is competitive with many DSL services and this is symmetrical dedicated bandwidth. It also comes with a service level agreement that ensures your line will get the highest priority if a rare outage occurs.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) has emerged recently as a competitor for T1. It is also dedicated rather than shared bandwidth, symmetrical with equal upload and download speeds, and service level agreements. EoC offers higher bandwidths that T1 that often rival the best you can get from Cable. Like T1, prices may be double what you pay for Cable or DSL, but the bandwidth is rock solid and highly reliable.

Are you dissatisfied with your current bandwidth options or simply want to see if you can get a better deal? If so, get complementary competitive business bandwidth options and prices to know the opportunities available for your business location.

What Makes Low Latency Bandwidth Important

Bandwidth is bandwidth, right? What’s really important is how many bits per second you can squeeze down the line, isn’t it? Or is it?

The speed of your connection is one important specification in a bandwidth solution that will meets the needs of your company. Others include availability, packet loss, jitter and latency. Don’t understate the importance of latency in providing a satisfactory WAN service.

What is latency and isn’t it related to bandwidth? In some cases, yes. Bandwidth increases latency when you don’t have enough for the job. If you have a huge file, say a radiology image, that you need to transfer to another location in 10 minutes and it takes 10 hours, you’ll feel the pain. If your VoIP calls are getting derailed by employee internet browsing, you’ll hear the pain. If your video conferencing breaks up so badly that it is unusable, your employee productivity can really be a source of pain.

Latency is the delay between sender and receiver. If you have all the bandwidth your equipment can possibly use, that delay is a function of how fast the packets can get through the line unimpeded. What slows them down is the speed of light in wire and fiber and any delays introduced by routers, switches and amplifiers along the way.

So, how is it possible to have plenty of bandwidth but too much latency? The perfect example is two-way satellite transmissions. You’ve no doubt noticed that on-location live TV reports seem to have a delay that prevents normal two-way conversations. The anchor and the reporter have to each pause before talking or they’ll talk over each other. That’s latency. Most of it is caused by the simple fact that the geostationary satellite relaying the signal is located about 22,000 miles overhead. Even in a vacuum it takes light and radio waves a millisecond for each 186 miles of distance or a full second for each 186,000 miles. This results in a minimum delay of a quarter-second for a one-way transmission or half a second for a round trip.

Is there a technical way to reduce this latency? Nope. As long as we use electromagnetic waves we’re stuck with Einstein’s speed limit. If you want lower latency, you need to use shorter paths.

One way that carriers are reducing latency is by establishing point to point connections that run in as straight a line as possible. This can mean new fiber installations with minimal length between cities. It also means removing as much electronics from the path as possible. Each box adds a little latency as the signals are converted from light to voltage to light again. Of course, bandwidth has to be high enough that it appears to be transparent to the application.

An extreme example of lower latency requirements is high speed financial trading. It’s computers making trade decisions and placing the orders far faster than a human broker possibly could. Half a second delay is eternity to such systems. Every millisecond counts when you are issuing hundreds or thousands of buy/sell orders every second. Even an optimized fiber optic link from out of state or across national borders may have too much latency. The optimized solution is to move your computers into the same data center as the trading floors. This gets the delay problem from milliseconds down to microseconds and nanoseconds.

You may not need such highly optimized latency reduction solutions for your business. However, you should be aware that cloud services can become latency limited. Any signal delay through your own company LAN is likely unnoticeable. Stretch that connection out a thousand miles or two over the Internet and you may experience noticeable response delays in interacting with your applications. If you can’t live with the performance of the public Internet, you need a latency optimized bandwidth solution.

Big fiber optic carriers like Zayo, MegaPath and XO communications offer high bandwidth low latency private line connections that can improve the performance of your cloud based applications. You’ll also need this for high quality VoIP telephony and video conferencing. Be sure to investigate the impact of latency on your SIP Trunks and multi-location networking through MPLS. Low latency solutions are available for just about every need.

Do you need lower latency as well as higher bandwidth? Get competitive pricing on low latency high speed bandwidth solutions for local, interstate and international connections.

High Speed Internet For Business

Not many years ago high speed Internet access was hard to come by, even for businesses. Prices were high and service options were few. That’s all changed dramatically. Now there are multiple broadband options for your business even if you are located out in the boonies. Let’s take a look at a range of high speed Internet connections divvied up by low, medium and high bandwidth.

Most businesses don’t need a gazillion bits per second, even though they might fancy carrier level bandwidth services. One thing that’s always been true and is likely to stay that way is that the higher the bandwidth, the higher the price. It’s true that within bandwidth categories there can be quite a price differential. You can also get a lot more bandwidth if you elect for shared vs dedicated service. However, that shared bandwidth varies all over the place while dedicated services are rock solid.

The low end of the bandwidth range is dominated by wireline and wireless services. Twisted pair copper is a popular delivery medium because it is almost always available in the form of multi-pair wiring installed by the telephone company. Any copper pairs not being used to carry telephone calls are available for data.

T1 is the traditional data connection for business locations. It is a dedicated bandwidth solution with symmetrical 1.5 Mbps x 1.5 Mbps available at all times. There are generally Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime, bandwidth and other parameters like jitter and latency. Pricing starts at around $300 per month, sometimes less for a multi-year lease. Out of the way locations may find that pricing is higher for T1 lines.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is fast moving in as a direct competitor to T1. It uses the same multiple copper telco pairs but a different modulation scheme that is more efficient. T1 can be run just about any distance. EoC bandwidth is highly dependent on how close you are to the central office. Bandwidths from 2 to 30 Mbps are common, with 3 Mbps around the same price as a T1 line. A very popular EoC service upgrade is 10 x 10 Mbps for businesses that find T1 lines too restrictive and bonded T1 lines too expensive.

There are two other copper-based high speed Internet technologies. One is DSL, a shared bandwidth service that uses twisted pair copper and is relatively inexpensive. The other is Cable broadband, with bandwidths as high as 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload for about what you pay for a T1 line. Both DSL and Cable are asymmetrical bandwidth (higher download than upload speeds) and are offered without SLAs. The big attraction is lower costs, especially for businesses like quick serve restaurants that want to offer free WiFi and have email and Web access for the office. Availability is limited. Cable is pretty much only in-town where the main cable has already been run.

The other way to go is wireless. Many franchise operations use VSAT or Very Small Aperture Terminal satellite antennas. These are a bit larger than the ones used to pick up satellite TV and are set up for two-way data transmission. Recently, 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband has become a strong competitor for both VSAT and copper wireline solutions. The cost is about half the price of T1 for similar performance, with rural service often available. VSAT can be installed anywhere that you have power and a clear view of the southern sky.

The middle portion of the bandwidth spectrum, say from 10 Mbps to 100 mbps is dominated by bonded T1 lines at the low end, Ethernet over Copper throughout the range, and fiber optic services at the high end. DS3 or T3 lines running at 45 Mbps are the legacy service and are still very popular. In downtown metro areas, you may be able to get high speed fixed wireless in this bandwidth range. Cable is becoming a competitor with 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services displacing both copper and fiber when symmetrical and dedicated bandwidth aren’t mandatory and you can live without service level agreements.

High bandwidth Internet access over 100 Mbps is now a battle between SONET and Ethernet fiber optic services. SONET is the incumbent, but tends to be higher cost. Ethernet is the newer service, often lower in price but not as generally available. Ethernet is also more granular in its bandwidth and easier scaled up for businesses that are on a fast growth path. Both SONET and Ethernet can give you as much bandwidth as you need and can afford, up to 10 Gbps and higher.

What Internet service option is best for your business? Get high speed Internet prices and availability for a wide range of options, with complementary consulting to help you pick the right solution for your needs.

What To Do If You Hate Your Internet Service

I regularly get inquiries with comments that go something like “I can’t get any broadband” or “I hate my slow Internet access.” Unfortunately, most of these come in as requests for quotes on high bandwidth services that are totally inappropriate. So, is there any real hope for the frustrated individual or small business Internet user? You bet there is.

Broadband access is a hot potato right now. So much so that the government is spending billions to help service providers extend their coverage into small towns and rural areas where broadband is largely non-existant. This will help... eventually. But no way is there enough money available to create the kind of universal access we have with telephone service and electricity. In the real boonies, your best bet is wireless.

Before I get deeper into this, are you sure you don’t have broadband options? New build-outs are always underway and there might be something that serves your address that you don’t realize has arrived. Before you do anything else, check for broadband availability using a broadband finder service like the appropriately named “Can I Get DSL?” This free availability check will give you a list of DSL, Cable, Satellite and 3G mobile broadband services for your location.

Notice the inclusion of 3G cellular wireless. Cell towers have become so prolific that you can almost always get a signal, even out in the country where no one is stringing broadband wires. Nearly all cell towers are now transmitting both voice and data on different channels. If you have a smartphone, that’s how you get your Internet access. But you can also get a wireless modem aircard and a data-only plan so that you can put broadband on your laptop computer. Yes, it is also possible to plug one of these into a desktop computer, but beware. There is such a shortage of wireless channels that service providers impose a relatively small download cap. It’s generally either 2 GB or 5 GB depending on the service you order. Most people find this more than adequate for mobile use in checking email and browsing websites. But if you go downloading big software files or movies, you can hit that limit pretty quickly. Go over and you’ll pay overage charges that can be eye-popping.

A faster and less restrictive wireless service is 4G WiMAX, now in some 40 cities. Someday WiMAX may be the answer to rural broadband needs. But for right now, it is rather tightly deployed around major population centers. If you can get it, you’ll enjoy 3 to 6 Mbps downloads with unlimited usage. In fact, this service is advertised as being suitable for both desktop and mobile usage. The strong signals penetrate most structures, so you don’t need an outside antenna. WiMAX 4G isn’t available everywhere, but it’s worth your while to check 4G wireless availability and see if it has come to your town yet.

Another wireless option is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider. These are strictly local operations set up by entrepreneurs to cover smaller towns or subdivisions located too far from the city to get wired services. You’ll have to check your phone book or newspaper ads to see if one is nearby. If so, you can get DSL or Cable speeds delivered wirelessly line-of-sight to an antenna that mounts on your roof. Some of these look like a small satellite dish tipped downward.

Speaking of satellite, two-way satellite broadband is an established technology that will work just about anywhere you can get power and a clear view of the southern sky. Satellite has gotten a bad rap because of relatively high prices, low bandwidth caps and horrible latency. The latency is due to the radio signal having to travel some 22,500 miles up to the bird and back down. It introduces a half-second or so delay into everything. For email or Web browsing, that’s probably no big deal. Just forget about real-time gaming, VoIP telephone or video conferencing. You’ll drive yourself nuts waiting for responses. Even so, for many users, satellite is a decent option. Service prices have come down recently and are similar to many DSL and Cable prices.

A lucky few also have the option to get their broadband delivered by fiber optic cable. The Verizon FiOS service offers large bandwidth and the possibility of bundling telephone and television over the same passive optical fiber.

If none of these will do the trick, you may be tempted to look into business bandwidth solutions. Don’t do it unless you can pay $300 and up per month for T1 lines running 1.5 Mbps and even more for DS3 and Ethernet. Most providers won’t even install service unless your property is zoned for business. If you do have a business location and are willing to pay what rock solid reliable business bandwidth services demand, then by all means request a business broadband service quote and see what options are available to you.