Networking

As everyone knows, working from home (WFH) has been the norm for the past year. Enterprises are now gearing up for hybrid working arrangements and that means home internet connections remain critical for people who need to hop on a Microsoft Teams or Zoom video call while the kids are homeschooling, playing Fortnite, or watching Netflix. Home broadband connections were put to the test during the initial COVID-19 phase of pandemic lockdowns around the globe as employees en masse logged in from managed and BYOD devices to business applications, Office 365, and Google Workspace over VPNs. Broadband speeds are a top concern for Americans. US President Joe Biden’s $100 billion plan to bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to all households could be a game-changer, but massive infrastructure projects take time and FTTH projects often falter. The net neutrality debate is back on the agenda too with a Biden appointee Jessica Rosenworcel leading the Federal Communications Commission as the acting chairwoman. This has implications for Netflix, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft plus all the major ISPs, from AT&T to T-Mobile. Broadband speed tests could become a bigger part of the political debate about investing in America’s broadband infrastructure.  Rosenworcel noted that during the pandemic some Americans were sitting in parking lots using free Wi-Fi signals while students were falling in the “homework gap” because their broadband was too slow to join remote classes.Here are five broadband speed tests that ZDNet considers trustworthy. But to get a true picture of your broadband speed, you’ll likely need to run the tests multiple times and check results across different devices throughout the day. 

Customizing your speed test is a strength

Speedtest from Ookla, which also owns outage site, Downdetector, was one of the first broadband speed tests and offers a snapshot of download and upload speeds to an ISP via its website or a lightweight app for Windows 10 or macOS. It’s also available in 17 languages and if you set up an account, you can keep track of your speeds over time. The service displays the current download and upload speeds, and measurements for ‘ping’, ‘jitter’, and packet loss. There are also options to change the local server that the ISP speed test is conducted with — a configuration option that most other tests lack. Plus, results can be shared on social media.   Ookla has some helpful explanatory notes for people who aren’t familiar with the ping test. It’s a latency test. Ookla says that less than 59 milliseconds (MS) ping is very good for online games. The FCC wants satellite broadband providers to deliver latency of below 100 ms to bid for a slice of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). SpaceX says its Starlink satellites will provide a latency of 20ms to 40ms.   Also, if your Speedtest records 250 Mbps, you should be able to download a 1GB file in 30 seconds. 25 Mbps should be good for 4k video streaming.      Its website is useful for those who are curious enough to learn why a test on a mobile device returns a different result to a laptop or a device that’s physically connected to a router.  Each test taken with Speedtest uses Ookla’s server network of over 14,000 servers and reports back on key network health metrics, Nick Turner, a technical trainer at Ookla, tells ZDNet. “There are Speedtest servers in virtually every country and major population center worldwide,” Turner said.  He argues that Ookla’s distributed server network makes it more accurate than many other tests. “This enables us to more easily select ‘nearby’ servers or combinations of servers that are capable of delivering the sufficient bandwidth necessary to discover the most accurate maximum speeds to the device in question. Since our founding in 2006, an unparalleled total of more than 35 billion tests have been taken with Speedtest.”Pros:   It’s a general purpose broadband speed test in use since 2006   It’s not from an ISP or a service provider    Users can select the host server from which to test their ISP’s speed test Cons:   The site uses tech-lingo that some people might not understand    It’s full of ads and ad trackers 

View Now at Oookla Speedtest

A speed test for a specific web application

The Google Stadia online gaming platform has hit a few bumps since launching in 2019, but it is a massive platform and the company knows that consumer broadband speeds are critical for adoption.Google recommends a download speed of no less than 10 Mbps to stream games on Stadia, but recommends faster speeds for displays with a resolution higher than 720p HD. It teamed up with open source project Measurement Lab or M-Lab to run its speed test. The project is led by teams at Code for Science & Society and Google. The Google Stadia web interface is pretty simple — literally a one-click task at Google’s Projectstream website from the “Check Now” button. It’s focussed on Stadia users and so, for accuracy, it recommends people use the device and network where they want to play and have a strong wi-fi or Ethernet connection. It also recommends halting current downloads and file-sharing, and closing tabs that are streaming video. The measurement takes less than 30 seconds to complete and returns similar results to Ookla. At the least, it confirms whether you’ll have a decent experience when gaming on Stadia.However, as Google notes, the test only provides a general indication of the quality of a connection and does not guarantee Stadia will work. Other factors include the device, ISP, and other activities that are consuming bandwidth.Pros:   It’s a general purpose broadband speed test in use since 2006   It’s not from an ISP or a service provider    Users can select the host server from which to test their ISP’s speed test Cons:   The site uses tech-lingo that some people might not understand    It’s full of ads and ad trackers compared to other tests

View Now at Stadia speed test

Can you trust your ISP’s speed test?

As the US leader in gigabit internet, Comcast’s Xfinity xFi broadband speed test is a popular choice for Americans. The speed test itself operates similarly to Google’s speed test, but the site has some pointers for customers wanting to explore why the speed results might not match the user’s plan. These are helpful but feel defensive, as if they were written to help reduce customer support calls for why a broadband isn’t as fast as advertised.    On the other hand, it provides more context about factors that can affect the home connection, such as an old home gateway lowering available bandwidth. The result also explains what the device being tested can do, such as streaming 4K video. The site prioritizes download speeds but does have a “Show more” option to see upload speeds, latency, the internet protocol, and where the host server is located.    Results may vary depending on where you’re located. The test designed purely for American internet users.   Pros:   The results are consistent with other speed tests   It’s dead simple to use and there are no ads    Test servers are located in the US Cons:   It is a test operated by an ISP    The information it provides appears to help reduce support calls

View Now at Xfinity xFi speed test

A test for Netflix’s CDN

The good thing about Netflix’s Fast.com broadband speed is that it is run by Netflix, which has an interest in its customers having a fast enough connection to stream its content. There are no lingering questions about potential bias from speed tests run by ISPs. Plus the tests are international, using servers where Netflix has installed appliances for its giant content delivery network (CDN).  Netflix has a vast CDN called Netflix Open Connect, which relies on Open Connect appliances installed within ISPs that peer with Netflix. That CDN is built around the principle of moving content closer to users and is how it delivers a fast streaming experience. Hence, the Fast.com test is designed to test the connection between a person’s device and Netflix’s CDN servers. That means the results are specific to Netflix’s own network, which makes sense for the company but also means it looks at speeds from a particular perspective.   The Fast website keeps things simple by only showing the download speed. In my tests, it reported slower speeds than Oookla’s Speedtest. And it produced wildly different results between wifi tests on a 2017 macOS MacBook Pro (160Mbps) and an iPhone 12 (330 Mbps), with both on a modern router’s 5GHz frequency.But on Fast.com you don’t even need to click ‘Go’; just opening the site in a browser tab starts the test. There’s also a “Show more” option, which provides latency speeds and upload speeds, as well as where the servers used in the test are located.  Pros:   It’s designed to test the speed of your connection to Netflix’s servers   There are no ads    It’s relevant to your connection wherever you’re streaming Netflix from Cons:   It’s not really designed to test your ISP’s connection speed    Results are specific to Netflix infrastructure 

View Now at Netflix Fast.com

Take two speed tests for yourself and one for the country

The FCC in April launched the FCC Speed Test app. It’s available as an Android app in the Google Play Store and an iOS app in Apple’s App Store. That means you can’t run the test from your desktop, but you are taking part in an important project for the commission to get a clearer picture of broadband quality across America. The test produces results once you press the button to start the test in the mobile app. The data collected is used to help the FCC improve its broadband maps. Under the Trump administration, Microsoft argued the FCC was severely overestimating how many residents had access to fast broadband. Microsoft’s data suggested almost half of America’s population had access to speeds of at least 25 Mpbs rather than the 24 million estimated in the FCC’s maps. Data is shared with the FCC’s Measuring Broadband America research program, an important national project that will help determine where funding is allocated in years to come. It’s a case where broadband speed tests aren’t just about your own connection speed, but the state of broadband across the nation. “To close the gap between digital haves and have nots, we are working to build a comprehensive, user-friendly dataset on broadband availability,” said acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Expanding the base of consumers who use the FCC Speed Test app will enable us to provide improved coverage information to the public and add to the measurement tools we’re developing to show where broadband is truly available throughout the United States.”

View Now at FCC Speed Test app

Why do you need to check your internet speed?

Speed tests are useful to remote workers who might need to figure out whether a poor connection is due to the ISP or something else, such as the home router, an internet routing issue, or even the device they’re testing from — be it a laptop, desktop or a smartphone. The tests can also be handy when disputing an ISP’s claimed speeds for a subscription. 

Are some internet speed tests more reliable or trustworthy than others?

Results can vary widely between broadband speed tests and day-to-day due to changing network conditions. ZDNet considers the five five broadband speed tests above to be reliable and trustworthy. But to get a true picture of your broadband speed, you’ll likely need to run the tests multiple times and check results across different devices throughout the day.

How did we choose these internet speed tests?

ZDNet doesn’t vouch for one test over another. As explained, there are multiple broadband speed tests and people should . Some of them are designed to test a connection for a particular online service, such as Netflix or Stadia, while others can help customer dispute speed claims with ISPs, and the FCC’s speed test might help fill broadband gaps in the community. 

Are there other internet speed tests worth considering?

OpenSignal for cellular networks

OpenSignal started out with mobile speed tests and regularly produces reports about 4G and 5G speed results around the world. It crowdsources its results and now also returns results for wifi speeds, but its focus is squarely on the mobile experience. 

ZDNet Recommends More

I’m no fan of being opted into things, even things that I agree with. So, while I believe Amazon Sidewalk is ultimately a good thing, I can understand why people want to opt out.Must read: I just found my lost AirTag… you’ll never guess where it went

If you want some background, you can get there here and here, but the short version is that Amazon is going to take a small part of your internet bandwidth and use it to create a shared network that other Amazon devices — such as Echo devices, Ring Floodlights, and Spotlight Cams — can connect to.The idea is that if someone’s internet goes down or a device is in a spot where your Wi-Fi coverage is poor, your Amazon devices can tap into a ‘free’ low-bandwidth distributed network to continue to receive things like notifications. You donate up to 500MB a month in exchange for access.The idea, as I said, is a good one. Problem is, Amazon has decided to opt people into this, rather than given them the options to opt in themselves (I wonder why…?).

Fortunately, opting out is easy. Well, if you know how.Don’t think it’s a worthwhile exchange? Here’s how you opt out:Find up your Alexa app and fire it upTap More and then SettingsTap Account SettingsTap Amazon SidewalkNow you can turn Amazon Sidewalk on or offNote that this is currently only available in the US, so this feature won’t be present in other territories. More

Zoom Video Communications is launching Zoom Phone Appliances, a combination of hardware from Poly and Yealink with Zoom video meetings, phone and collaboration software. The all-in-one desk phone has an integrated touch display to start and schedule meetings, take phone calls and collaborate. Yealink’s VP59 Smart Video Phone. Credit: YealinkVideo collaboration players are launching new products and revamping platforms to prepare for hybrid work arrangements.With its video collaboration footprint, Zoom is aiming to blur lines between video and audio and make it easier for enterprises to procure and manage hardware with minimal integration. Zoom Phone Appliances include:Deskphones that are always on. Poly’s CCX 600 Desk Phone and CCX 700 Desk Phone with integrated video camera and Yealink VP59 Smart Video Phone are the two headliner Zoom Phone Appliances with more hardware partners to be added. Centralized management via Zoom Admin Portal with remote provisioning and updates. No additional licensing and available through Zoom’s hardware-as-a-service offering. Synched user calendar, status, meeting settings and phone. Zero touch provisioning. Touch display with interactive whiteboarding. Certification from Zoom. More

Image: Qualcomm
Nokia, Qualcomm, and UScellular announced on Tuesday a millimetre-wave (mmWave) test had successfully been conducted on UScellular’s live 5G network that hit 748Mbps down and 56.8Mbps up at a range of 11.14 kilometres. At a distance of around 10 kilometres, the trio said the test reached speeds around the 1Gbps mark. The equipment used consisted of Nokia’s mmWave range-extending system, and customer premises equipment using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 5G modem and mmWave antenna. The test was conducted at Grand Island in Nebraska using 28GHz spectrum. The results were touted as showing mmWave could be used to provide rural fixed wireless connectivity. “These latest trial results reinforce the important role that fast, reliable wireless service plays in keeping people connected no matter where they live or work,” UScellular CTO Mike Irizarry said. At the start of the year in Australia, the company responsible for the National Broadband Network claimed it had hit close to 1Gbps over a distance of 7.3 kilometres. NBN had previously said it was looking at using mmWave over 10-kilometre distances.

Elsewhere, Dell Technologies announced on Wednesday it was launching Project Metalweaver to allow carriers to deploy 5G edge, core, and Open RAN solutions, alongside a number of reference architectures.These architectures include core software from Nokia and Affirmed Networks, private networks from CommScope, multi-access edge computing thanks to Intel, and Mavenir and Dell teamed up for Open RAN on PowerEdge XR11 servers.  Related Coverage More

Image: Superloop
Superloop has announced to the ASX it has entered into an agreement to purchase fellow telco Exetel for AU$110 million. Exetel will bring 110,000 customers that use 185,000 services and AU$150 million in revenue to Superloop. After the acquisition, Superloop is expecting to post revenue of AU$261 million, and have 155,000 customers using 230,000 services. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) after the purchase is expected to be AU$34 million, consisting of AU$18 million from Superloop, AU$11 million from Exetel, and AU$5 million in synergies expected to be realised within a year of the deal. Superloop said the acquisition would pretty much double its workforce, with “no headcount synergies” flagged. The deal is expected to be completed by July 2021, and will be funded by AU$100 million raised from 108 million new Superloop shares, with Exetel shareholders offered AU$10 million in Superloop shares priced at AU$1.01 per share. Superloop will also be refinancing its debt facilities for an extra AU$20 million that will go towards integration costs and working capital. “Exetel services will be transferred onto the Superloop network without material capex spend, and the network will continue to have significant capacity to support future growth,” Superloop said. “The acquisition of Exetel enables Superloop to accelerate utilisation of its infrastructure assets, through scaling its consumer and business customer segments. It delivers increased financial scale and market relevance.

“The transaction is fully aligned with Superloop’s growth strategy, continuing to provide super fast, easy & reliable connectivity to now 3x more homes & businesses.” See also: Best internet provider in Australia 2021: Top ISP picks In prior years, Exetel has seen its revenue shift from AU$127 million in 2019, to AU$156 million in 2020, and AU$150 million for the 2021 fiscal year. Over the same years, EBTIDA increased from a AU$0.1 million loss, to AU$6.4 million in 2020, and AU$11 million in 2021; while net profit moved from AU$0.5 million in the hole, to AU$3.6 million, and AU$6.7 million respectively. Breaking down Exetel’s customer base, Superloop said it had 86% of its services used by consumers which provided 56% of the revenue total. The remainder consisted of business customers. By revenue line, 45% related to NBN connections, 28% was labelled as data, 13% was fibre connectivity, 6% for VOIP services, 4% for mobile, and 4% filed as other. For its first-half results announced in February, Superloop reported a 4.8% increase in revenue to AU$53 million and an almost doubling of EBITDA to AU$8.15 million. In net terms, the company posted another loss, this time closing the loss by 11.7% to AU$18.9 million. Related CoveragePaul Tyler takes reins at SuperloopFormer Nokia, Telstra, and NBN executive to take charge from October.Spirit Technology hits new highs as Superloop narrows net lossSpirit more than triples its revenue as it starts down a path as an integrated IT and telco business.Telstra and Southern Phone saw complaints rise over 2020Overall trend for Australia’s telco industry is complaints are falling after some pandemic spikes.Australian telco complaints to TIO continue to decrease despite rise in mobile issuesThe TIO third-quarter 2020-21 complaints report shows there were 30,393 total complaints, with 35% being in relation to mobile services. More

NBN’s pricing options: a reworking of the current model; its melded halfway house model; and its flat price model.
Image: NBN
The company responsible for the National Broadband Network has revealed the flat-price modelling it has been working on as part of a trio of pricing options to retailers. The flat-price option would see the loathed connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) capacity charge removed from all plans, with access pricing increasing as a result. NBN is also putting forward a reworked option of its current pricing structure, with the CVC charge dropping by AU$2 to AU$6, and a melded option that removes the CVC on plans of 100Mbps down and quicker, while keeping the current AU$8 CVC charge on lower speeds. Satellite connections have not been considered as part of the discussion paper to modify NBN’s Special Access Undertaking released on Monday. “All three options substantially address many of the concerns that have been expressed by retailers and provide a pathway forward to delivering a sustainable long-term pricing framework that supports the industry and meets the future digital needs of Australians,” NBN said. “While we are aware of some retailers’ preference for a flat AVC-only construct, NBN Co believes careful consideration needs to be given to the potential impact on affordability of the broadband network for low usage customers, equitable cost recovery between consumer segments, take up of NBN services, retail competition, and consumer choice.” Citing a report written for it by Accenture, NBN said the flat-pricing option would see price hikes of AU$120 a year for the 1.4 million customers on low data plans.

“NBN is concerned that [flat-pricing] would not deliver a number of outcomes that usage-based charges were designed to achieve, and would impact not just the affordability of the NBN broadband network for low usage customers, but also the take up of NBN services,” it said. “NBN estimates that between 69,000 to 170,000 end-users would no longer be able to afford or be willing to take-up NBN broadband under [flat-pricing], primarily as a result of the removal of data-capped plans in market and retail price increases. The initial pricing proposal … has been adjusted to account for potential losses in NBN take-up.” The company added that in exchange for losing revenue from CVC, it would turn to indexation to recoup its investment. “In general, NBN proposes that where the pricing proposals outlined in this paper restrict or entirely remove NBN’s ability to recover its costs through usage-based charges in the form of CVC as applied to increasing bandwidth usage, NBN should have the opportunity to recover those costs by increasing fixed charge pricing components in real terms (i.e. an increase above the rate of inflation, reflecting the rapid growth in usage and hence capacity),” it argued. “This is critical to allowing NBN the opportunity to generate additional revenue to recover efficient existing and future investments needed to sustain growing bandwidth requirements as well as network upgrade programs to uplift the capability of the network. This approach also reflects that the increased utility derived by end-users of the service as their usage of the network increases should be appropriately reflected in the revenues that NBN is able to earn.” It added that removing CVC would result in traffic surges, such as when popular games are updated, and said it would need extra safeguards to manage capacity NBN said for its melded option, due to telcos having data caps and entry level pricing plans sitting below the 100Mbps mark, it would expect retailers to have “little to no overage exposure”. See also: Best internet provider in Australia 2021: Top ISP picksOn entry level pricing, NBN said there was not strong evidence for 20% annual increases on data inclusion on 12/1Mbps plans. It said it has noticed CVC utilisation on such plans was shifting downwards as some customers moved to higher speeds and was well below the 1.7Mbps deemed suitable for a AU$35 bundle. “NBN understands that providing pricing certainty on entry-level services is important, and that price controls on these services can provide a meaningful anchor on prices of higher value services,” it said. “Accordingly, we are proposing a price control of CPI for entry-level services, to enable the price to remain constant in real terms over time. In addition, we are proposing to commit to increase CVC inclusions on the [entry-level bundle] based on the actual usage growth of end-users on that service.” For some time the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which oversees the undertaking, has expressed concern at NBN’s use of discounts. NBN said in its paper that discounts allow it to trial pricing changes before offering them. Written submissions to NBN from those that make up its product development forum are due by July 16. NBN said it is looking to lodge the variation with the ACCC in the final quarter of 2021. “We believe the pricing options presented for discussion represent a balanced approach to meeting the objectives set out in this paper. The various pricing options include ones designed to reduce retailers’ commercial risk of exposure to higher than expected usage growth; support the continuation of cheaper data capped retail plans and promote a competitive environment that enables retailers to differentiate their respective offerings from their peers,” NBN executive general manager of commercial Ken Walliss said. “In evaluating a final pricing option, key considerations for NBN Co will be promoting strong outcomes for customers throughout Australia, creating the environment for robust retail competition and opportunities to support all customer groups as much as possible, and maintaining the company’s ability to earn a reasonable return on its investment to enable continued efficient investment in the network.” Related Coverage More

Picking an internet service provider (ISP) is a big decision for small businesses. Once the ISP is in, you’re stuck with them for upwards of a year, living with their claimed speeds, actual speeds, contract pricing and price changes after the contract period ends. With millions of people working from home over the past year, the importance of home broadband services has elevated from ‘nice-to-have’ for Netflix and Amazon Prime to absolutely essential for small and medium business and SOHO operators.  Spotty broadband directly impacts income, so it’s good to have backup connectivity options like a 4G fallback when things go awry. And when you’ve got deadlines, the last thing you want is to be waiting for an ISP’s support to debug and solve your broadband problem.  That means when hunting down the best business broadband offer, businesses need to look beyond price and speed, and also assess whether the ISP offers good service level agreements (SLAs) and reliable speeds. Reliability is critical.  The biggest ISPs in the UK include BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media O2, Sky, and Vodafone. According to UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, all the major ISPs had relatively high levels of customer service satisfaction. TalkTalk, a challenger brand to BT, had the lowest satisfaction at 77% in Ofcom’s survey, but it also offers some respectable deals and a broad range of speeds and support options for businesses.    All the download and upload speeds for various business broadband products listed in this guide are on an ‘up to’ basis, which means there’s no guarantee these speeds will be available all the time. Speeds are reported as download/upload figures in Mbps.    

Deals to match any business needs

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TalkTalk, the UK’s fourth-largest ISP, has four business broadband deals ranging from £15.95 a month with speeds up to 18Mbps through to Dedicated Leased Lines with 1 Gbps speeds — with around the clock UK support and an SLA fix times from five hours.  The top dedicated leased line from TalkTalk, Ethernet Access Direct, is available from £274 a month and offers up to 1Gbps symmetrical speeds, no installation fee on a three-year contract, and a five hour fix time SLA.  The Ethernet First Mile package, from £150 a month, includes up to 20Mbps symmetrical speeds, while the Ethernet over Fibre deal from £70 a month offers up to 76Mbps download speeds.For businesses that don’t need SLAs and 1 Gbps speeds, TalkTalk offers a much cheaper Business Ultrafast Fibre 150 package for £25.95 per month on a 24-month contract average speeds of 145/25Mbps. There’s also the Business Ultrafast Fibre 300 for £30.95 a month that features average speeds of 290/40Mbps. These seem like sensible choices for most small businesses.The £15.95 Standard Business Broadband on a 12-month contract is an attractive starting price but only offers speeds up to 18Mbps. As more jabs roll out and businesses begin to reopen, TalkTalk has a range of fibre ‘reopening’ options with three months free, ranging from 100/20Mbps download/upload speeds for £29.95 a month to a 900/115Mbps package for £59.95 a month — these are 24-month contracts.  Pros:   A broad range of price points speeds.   An option with symmetrical speeds.   For those that pay, a five hour fix time promise.   Competitive pricing.Cons:   Ofcom found it had the lowest level of customer satisfaction amongst big ISPs.   It has a TrustPilot rating of just 2.5 out of 5.

View Now at TalkTalk

It’s premium and pricey but has the broadest coverage

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Incumbents are hard to avoid even with healthy competition and BT has the broadest coverage.BT’s business broadband deals start at 76/19Mbps for £35.45 a month on a 24-month contract. Most of the business broadband deals offer 76Mbps download speeds, but BT also has its Full Fibre product with speeds from 76Mbps to 900Mbps.  A lot of BT’s business broadband deals bundle in other products, such as a digital phone line and mobile phone plan (including phones like the Samsung Galaxy A42 5G and the iPhone 12 Mini 5G), leveraging its growing 5G mobile network under the EE brand — which BT bought for £12.5bn in 2015. One advantage of BT is that if there is a broadband outage, it will automatically switch to EE’s 4G network. BT boasts 24/7 support, and a solution for wi-fi blackspots around a building for £7 extra a month. While 76Mbps is not the fastest broadband service it does qualify for super fast broadband — many small businesses and retailers will find this sufficient. BT’s top listed offer is for superfast broadband and phone for £35.45 a month, which includes a digital phone line, the always-connected 4G EE guarantee, and a guarantee that prices won’t change over the course of the contract. Fortunately, for finance, tech, digital agencies and media companies, BT has much faster packages:Full Fibre 150 with 152/29Mbps speeds costs £42.95 a month.Full Fibre 300 costs £47.95 a month.Full Fibre 500 costs £59.95 a month. But for businesses that need extra bandwidth and speed, BT’s fastest offer is the Full Fibre 900 with download speeds of 900Mbps for £64.95 a month.Pros:   A broad range of products.   4G EE backup could be handy.    Broadest coverage in the UK. Cons:   Notable more expensive than business broadband rivals.    It has a TrustPilot score of just 1.3 out of 5.  

View Now at BT Full Fibre

Decent speeds at low prices

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Virgin Media, the third-largest provider, has a business broadband product called Voom with packages up to 500/35Mbps. All of the Voom packages are available as 24-month contracts and range from £32 to £62 a month. Higher-end packages include dynamic or static IP options and faster resolution times:Voom Fibre 1 costs £32 a month with download speeds up to 350/7Mbps. It promises customers a fix within 48 hours of the first issue report. Voom Fibre 2 costs £47 a month, has 350/15Mbps upload speeds, and a 24 hour resolution time.Voom Fibre 3 for £50 a month includes 350/20Mbps speeds, up to five static IPs and a 24 hour resolution time.  The premier Voom 500 for £62 a month includes 500/35Mbps speeds, up to five static IPs, and a 12-hour turnaround for resolving problems. Customers can add 4G as a backup for £7 a month to all these packages for occasions when the point of service (POS) terminal needs to be up and running during an outage.Pros:   Competitive prices for speeds.   Simple packages and a 4G backup option.   A 12 hour fix time for Voom 500 customers.Cons:   No Gigabit broadband option.   The SLA only applies from Monday to Saturday and excludes bank holidays.   Smaller coverage than BT, but you can use a postcode checker.

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Reasonable prices, but limited speed choices

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Sky’s Sky Connect business broadband offerings in terms of speeds look very much like BT’s. All three of its Sky Connect services have a 76/19Mbps service, unlimited data and a digital business phone line. All prices are available on a 24-month contract with phishing and malware protection, unlimited data, and a digital business phone line. Sky Connect has bundles are:The Advantage deal, at £39 per month, includes the aforementioned features, but not up to four digital phone lines. The Advantage Pro, at £55 per month, has the same but includes 4G backup and not four digital phone lines. The Advantage Max, at £95 per month, includes all features plus up to four digital lines. It also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if a business customer decides they don’t like the service. Sky Connect lacks higher speed options, but the pricing is simple and with a 30-day return period, it could be an attractive choice for many businesses.  Pros:   Competitive prices.   Simple packages.   A 4G backup option for those who need it.Cons:   No high-speed options.

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Cheap but slow speeds

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Plusnet sits within the consumer division of BT, but it does have an unlimited business broadband offer from just £17.50 a month. Plusnet is a budget ISP, and so it doesn’t offer many fancy extras while download speeds are limited to 18Mbps or 76Mbps. It is a 24-month contract, so you need to be sure that 18Mbps is enough for your business. However, Plusnet does offer an Unlimited Business Fibre deal for £22 with 76/18Mbps speeds. It probably won’t be for a digital marketing agency, but for a small retailer, 18Mbps download speeds might cut it. Plusnet users can download as much as they want, but there are none of the more sophisticated options like SLAs and symmetric speeds. It’s an offer that highlights that ‘you get what you pay for.’ Pros:   It’s a cheap service.   Includes line rental.   Unlimited data.Cons:   No high-speed options.   Basic support and service.

View Now at Plusnet

Which business broadband ISP should I choose?

Keep an eye on the contract period and how much the costs change afterwards. In all cases, UK ISPs charge more for business broadband after the initial contract period. That means putting a note in your calendar a month before the contract is up to review the experience. While consumer broadband options plenty of speed choices and are generally cheaper, there can be a benefit to businesses of having better upload speeds — even if they’re not guaranteed speeds.  While some packages are simple with relatively low or even free setup costs, it is worth visiting the ISP’s website and finding out what all the costs are, including VAT and whether a phone line is an additional cost or included, as a digital phone line.  If you’re running a small retail outlet with a few POS machines, a cheaper basic broadband option will probably suit you. Most ISPs included here offer these entry-level products, but not all ISPs have SLAs or 4G backup options for when things go wrong. The question comes down to how important internet connectivity is to your revenues and operations.   

How did we pick which ISPs to include?

All the providers included in this round-up are national ISPs with broad coverage. Each ISP had specific business plans available and most of them had products and speeds that were suitable for a variety of small and medium businesses in different sectors. It may be worth checking regional ISPs too or those with less than national broadband coverage. 

Independent ISP Zen Internet has business broadband offerings covering fast, superfast and ultrafast broadband, with a range of data usage packages with a static IP address. Its on-net reach covers over 500,000 postcodes, but customers need to use the postcode checker to see if they can get its service.     Zen’s entry-level product costs £27 a month and offers 10/1Mbps average speeds on a 24-month contract with the phone line included. It includes a free router and there is a “critical care” option for £27 that includes better support, 99% uptime and £25 service credit if fix times exceed 12 hours.The Business Fibre 2 product includes line rental and costs £46 a month, offering 66/17Mbps speeds on a 12-month contract with a £45 activation fee. It’s a Fibre to the Cabinet service. Zen’s faster costs £50 a month with a £50 activation fee and offers 150/25 Mbps speeds. Or there’s the Business Fibre 4 FTTP service from £57 a month with a £50 activation fee that features 300/50Mbps speeds and a free static IP address.  

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In my last column, I looked at three silicon providers developing low-power technology for the Internet of Things. But while the smart home has been the cradle of consumer IoT, it hasn’t evolved far beyond that, in part because of the high cost and power consumption of the cellular connectivity that might service consumer devices outside of the home. This has given rise to several low-power networking technologies such as LoRaWAN and GFSK that achieve longer range by operating at lower frequencies than today’s Wi-Fi.

However, these technologies haven’t been adopted as broadly as LTE or Wi-Fi. The innovative team at Helium, for example, has enabled LoRaWAN proliferation by incentivizing consumers to purchase and host their own hotspots with cryptocurrency rewards. While the company has done a good job of expanding its ecosystem in the past year and is now expanding into offloading 5G network traffic, the proposition isn’t easy to convey to everyday users. E-scooter-on-demand provider Lime has been one of the few big consumer brands to bet on Helium’s network.Consumer IoT thus faces a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma, one that is targeted by Amazon’s new network initiative, Sidewalk. As its name suggests, Sidewalk addresses connectivity beyond the home, but not necessarily on the open road, at least initially. To do this, Amazon, like Helium, piggybacks a bit of traffic on consumers’ home networks. Unlike Helium, though, which requires consumers to purchase or build their own hotspots, Amazon can leverage select models of its mammoth installed base of Echo and Ring devices as gateways between technologies such as LoRaWAN or Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.Sidewalk is often described generically as a Wi-Fi sharing, but this is not about having your neighbor mooch your broadband to get their Netflix on. Sidewalk connections are limited to 80 Kbps, which is about 1.5x the peak download speeds of the final generation of dial-up modems (Team X2 Forever!). And Amazon caps the monthly amount of traffic per account to 500 MB, equivalent to about 10 minutes of high-definition video.Much of the concern surrounding Sidewalk has focused on security and privacy. However, improving the security and privacy of endpoint devices was a major part of its rationale. According to Manolo Arana, general manager of Sidewalk at Amazon, Sidewalk was developed to bring more consistency and raise the overall security level of the emerging class of IoT devices.Arana explains, “It is very difficult to find engineering talent and capabilities for any company in device security and hardware capabilities. Not all the hardware vendors are at the same level or make certain features available. As a consequence, we end up with disparity. Are you truly who you say you are? Is someone spoofing you?” He explains that device security involves multiple features, including the certificates on the device, anti-rollback (to manage OTA updates), and secure boot. The latter is required of Sidewalk-certified products as their chipsets support it.As my fellow ZDNet contributor Adrian Kingsley-Hughes explains in describing his decision to opt-in to Sidewalk, Amazon has developed three layers of encryption around Sidewalk’s IoT traffic. The first of these is a data layer that can be accessed only by the company deploying the application — say, a pet-finding service or a connected doorbell — that uses it. Amazon has no access to it.

This brings up another Sidewalk paradox. Simply because the technology was incubated within the company’s devices and services group that is strongly associated with Alexa doesn’t mean that Sidewalk shares its business mode or data collection practices. Indeed, while it relies on consumer devices, Sidewalk is a B2B business that has more in common with AWS, infrastructure that Amazon extends to third parties. In fact, the first Sidewalk customers — Tile and Level locks — will be using the network before any Amazon endpoint devices.

In the Amazon tradition, Arana keeps coming back to the customer. In Tile’s case, it’s easy to see how access to Sidewalk’s footprint provides a hedge in competing with the vast number of mobile devices controlled by a new competitor. And while all networks entail some security risk, Tile’s early embrace of Sidewalk represents a vote of confidence that Amazon can protect the location services company’s user data and privacy as well as speaks to Amazon’s incentive to preserve Tile’s trust. Sidewalk has also benefited from AWS’ extensive experience securing the data of some of the world’s largest enterprises.AirTags review: Tile trounced by the power of Apple’s Find My networkWhen Sidewalk gets turned on in select Amazon devices next week, it will mark a rare event: the near-instant activation of a new network with broad reach, one that can offer services such as item location, simplified device setup, and telematics, as well as potentially supporting whole new classes of devices focused on low-bandwidth media such as text and speech. Of course, everyone will have to decide if enabling Sidewalk is right for them. Consider, though, that Ring or Echo users already entrust Amazon with details of home conversations or images of themselves or their families.That said, as with many novel technologies, the cautious may hold back for a while. Arana accepts this and sees it as a challenge to improve Sidewalk’s participation value over time. That could entail new services and features, but it could also simply mean proving resilience in the real world. While Arana believes his team’s work should inspire consumer confidence, he joins with the realists within Amazon and its competitors in acknowledging that the quest to improve privacy and security will never end.PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGEAmazon Sidewalk will create entire smart neighborhoods. Here’s what you should know Launching June 8 on Echo speakers, Ring products, Tile trackers and more, Amazon’s low-bandwidth internet-of-things network lets your smart home stretch beyond Wi-Fi range.Amazon’s Sidewalk network to launch this year with new devices, support from IoT chipset manufacturersThe Sidewalk protocol is part of Amazon’s effort to spur the development of low-cost IoT devices that don’t rely on a cellular connection.Do you trust Amazon to share your internet connection with others? How to opt out Amazon Sidewalk is a new service that shares your internet connection with others in your neighborhood to extend the range and reliability of Amazon Echo, Ring Security cameras, and Tile trackers. More