If you are running a business from home and looking for high-speed internet, then there is more than a couple of options to avail. Among these, the basic categories are of three types namely, Residential Internet, Business Internet and Dedicated Internet Access. But as the dedicated internet access doesn’t come with any oversubscription, people in general who run a small business from home rule out this option and tend to choose among the other two. Here is a brief discussion on the home and business internet features that would help you choose the right one for your home-run small business.
Oversubscription
Oversubscription is one of the most common practices in the world of Internet service business. It is generally found both in residential and small business internet connections when a provider is trying to get the most from its internet promotion. It is a common thing for many Internet Service Provider to oversubscribe their residential or small business connection base by 5x or 10x.
But as Residential and Small Business services both are oversubscribed, every user who chooses anyone among the two has to share the internet access with the people around. As the number of local internet user increases, the internet speed decreases.
Now, in peak hours data usage tend to be much more in business internet connections than home internet. Thus, the business internet becomes more expensive, as it is unable to provide the speed what home internet is able to provide at the same cost.
Though the ISPs are in constant effort to provide the best possible service, it has yet not achieved perfection. In this regard, a Dedicated Internet Access wouldn’t let you face this, but the cost might not suit a small business running from home.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
A service level agreement (SLA) is a basic contract signed between a service provider and the customer in which the level of service from the service provider is defined. Apart from providing a guarantee of uptime, SLAs also address the issues if the guarantee of reliability fails to meet.
But both in residential and small business internet services, customers are often not provided with SLAs from the service providers. The primary reason is generally in relation with the quality of infrastructure that has been invested in and the kind of hardware used in order to deliver the best possible service.
To keep the overall cost low for both the cable internet and DSL subscribers, many providers start compromising on the quality of the hardware used and they come with a shorter span of life. All this causes more number of failure, and the service is faulted with interruption or speed fluctuations. So, here both the internet services deliver the same quality of service without much difference and again the DIA wins the show.
The Deciding Factor
Depending upon what kind of business you do from your home, the service type needs to be selected. While a dedicated access could offer you the best-uninterrupted service, the business and home internet service can be sought for a lesser price but with lesser quality too. Hence, a business that needs moderate data usage might start with a home internet service till it grows big enough to afford the cost of either Business Internet and in quick succession to a Dedicated Internet Service to increase productivity.