There is more to broadband value than just low price—Posted on July 29, 2008

Brits are still unhappy with their broadband speeds ... and who can blame them given that they are paying for more than double the speeds they are actually getting, according to a survey by price comparison site uSwitch. Moreover, half the subscribers in the UK are technically unable to get the most commonly advertised headline speed of 8mbps. Disappointing indeed!

But even with the majority of ISPs effectively failing their customers when it comes to delivering the speeds they are being paid for, it is possible most customers could live with this - if only the service was reliable!

This lack of trust in the relationship between providers and customers is problematic for home users but leads to more serious questions and issues for business users. Whether you are a SME or a large corporate, a reliable service, delivering the speed of connectivity actually needed by a business, is a must have.

Companies need to look beyond attention grabbing deals based on speed or price and become more questioning of their service providers. By doing this, they can avoid entrusting their business-critical network services to companies with a questionable track record in service delivery and no apparent understanding of the unique communication needs of particular types of businesses.

What you should be looking for is a company which offers guaranteed low (or no) contention rates so you get the headline speed you are paying for all day, every day. You also need to watch out for any punitive penalties for breaching a ‘Fair Usage Policy’. Bandwidth-intense applications can easily eat-up download limits so you need to make sure that these are above what you expect you will need, taking into account any projected business growth.

Flexible, scalable, reliable, fit for purpose and delivering good value for money: these are key components of a communication infrastructure that will make any customer happy and serve their business needs well.