With ever-increasing speeds being rolled out on mobile networks and broadband now being the standard for most domestic users, the question of how a business should connect to the internet is even more complicated than it used to be.
Here are the most important aspects of connectivity that any size business must consider before deciding whether or not a leased line is appropriate.
1. Uptime
A huge multinational business with thousands of employees will have very different demands in comparison to a one-man start up – but any business must have a basic e-commerce strategy with a complimentary infrastructure in place in order to compete in today’s market.
One of the very basic factors to cover is uninterrupted uptime, as a loss of connectivity can mean a reduced online presence and the potential of losing new customers to competitors.
2. Speed
The need to know how fast your internet connection is has almost overtaken old favorites such as keeping an eye on property prices as a dinner table topic. But there’s really no denying that when it comes to online activity – faster really is better.
Recent Ofcom research suggests that the difference in speeds is narrowing for domestic customers in urban and rural areas, with average speeds now about 13.6 Mbps, compared with 22.9 Mbps in suburban areas and 33.4 Mbps in cities.
However, for a business the ability to access the best speeds has to be combined with a confidence in connection stability too.
3. Stability
A big advantage of a leased-line for business use is that there is a contracted speed that is guaranteed and never drops, unlike consumer-grade internet services.
One of the main reasons for this is that a leased line is for exclusive use, whereas most broadband bottlenecks occur because shared-usage means a bandwidth throttling at periods of high activity.
So, a leased line always delivers the same speed, even at busy times, which is particularly important for businesses looking to avoid anything that might have a negative impact on customer experience.
4. Security
The exclusive use of a leased line also means that security issues can be highlighted too.
Private voice and data connections can be difficult to achieve in any other way for a geographically-dispersed organization, for instance, if a company has its head office in one location and a regional office in another.
A leased line can create a single private network solution without the need for a VPN operating over potentially hackable public connections, giving it another advantage for commercial concerns.
In short, leased lines are still a worthwhile consideration for any business due to their reliability and additional security.
[Image credit: Andrew Morrell, Flickr]
