Networking

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.

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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.

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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

Broadcom reported better-than-expected fiscal second quarter results and projected strong demand ahead from service providers and cloud vendors. The company reported second quarter net income of $1.49 billion, or $3.30 a share, on revenue of $6.61 billion, up 15% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $6.62 a share. Wall Street was looking for second quarter revenue of $6.5 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $6.43 a share. Broadcom’s semiconductors are used in data centers, networking gear, broadband and wireless devices as well as industrial. The software unit features enterprise mainframe, cybersecurity and automation and monitoring apps. As for the outlook, Broadcom projected third quarter revenue of $6.75 billion with adjusted EBITDA of about 60% of revenue. Analysts were modeling non-GAAP earnings of $6.59 a share on revenue of $6.6 billion.  CEO Hock Tan said the company saw strong chip sales across its portfolio and the third quarter will also be better than expected. “Our third quarter outlook projects this year-over-year growth to sustain, as we continue to see strong demand from service providers and hypercloud,” said Tan.

In the second quarter, semiconductors were 73% of sales with software, led by CA Technologies, representing 27%. Both units showed growth from a year ago. More

The joy of Webex. Apparently.
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So you think the last year’s been difficult, do you?

You think spending ten hours a day on Zoom calls and then being invited to a (compulsory) virtual Happy Hour wasn’t the ideal scenario for your turn of the decade life?You think being monitored to within an inch of your bathroom is somehow unreasonable?What a ingrate you must be. Working from home is a thing of uncontrolled joy.Please, I did write those words down, but they’re really not my sincere feelings toward you. They seem to be those of a brand you may know well. You see, I’ve been invaded by a piece of communication that has my eyebrows desperate for a fringe to hit and my eyes withering into tears.There I was wafting about Twitter and there was this promoted message from Cisco: “Webex: When work becomes joy.”

You miserable person, you. You’ve been using Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. No wonder your work life has made you want to ululate to the rafters in anguish.If only, if only you’d been using Webex you’d be gushing positivity of Scientological proportions.But wait, you’ll be wondering how Cisco justifies this. I confess I was. Well, the ad, which is constantly being promoted in my Twitter feed, begins: “When you’re having one of those days where work just flows and you’re energized by the outcome….”We all have those days. How many have you had lately? Or have you been more energized by seven Red Bulls and a vodka chaser?And then our warm, breathy voiceover really says the words: “THIS is when work becomes joy.”Surely she’s kidding, I hear you hope. Surely she’s not suggesting that just by being on Webex you’ll experience raptures bordering on the unbecoming.

Work doesn’t have to feel like work with Webex.— Webex (@Webex) May 12, 2021

Well, here’s her next line: “This is what happens on Webex.”Has Webex not heard of all the research — some of the most interesting coming from Microsoft — that many employees (but certainly not all) are in despair at their working-from-home experiences over the last year? They’re burning out. They’re far, far more miserable than, say, their bosses.What will they think when they hear Cisco telling them working from home would be a joy if only they’d used Webex?And even those who have found working at home an unusually liberating experience, are they going to believe that all that stands between them and euphoria is Webex?I’m sorry if I sound oddly intemperate, but please could you do some research for me? Please could you ask all your Webex-using friends and colleagues how many have experienced such uncontrolled rapture that their eyes bulge in wonder?There does seem to be something peculiar going on in Webex’s marketing department. Not so long ago, it emitted an ad that tried to make Webex seem sexy rather than, say, Webex.In advertising, there’s suspension of disbelief and then there’s suspension of all your human and critical faculties.I’m sure Webex has many aspects that are very useful. [Editor’s note: Try Webex here to see for yourself if it delivers more joy than other popular conferencing platforms such as Blue Jeans, Teams and GoToMeeting.] I’m equally sure that using Webex does not suddenly transport you into paroxysms of celestial working-from-home uplift.Because it can’t. More

A bill seeking extra funding to ensure Internet access in Brazil’s public school network was passed to benefit millions of students and teachers nationwide. Under the proposed measures, a budget of 3.5 billion reais ($690 million) will be provided by the central government via the Fund for Universal Access to Telecommunications Services (FUST). The funding will ensure the connectivity required for teachers and students to continue schooling activities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The proposals were vetoed by president Jair Bolsonaro, but the decision was overturned by the Brazilian Congress and was later confirmed by the Senate. According to the bill, the funding should go mainly towards mobile internet offerings, with fixed broadband provision possible if that option is cheaper or in cases where mobile services are not viable. Schools can also benefit from the funding if local education authorities consider it to be essential for their activities. It is estimated that approximately 18.3 million students and 1.5 million teachers will benefit from the measures set out in the proposals. The priority groups to receive the government-funded connectivity provided by the state are the beneficiaries of social programs, as well as pupils and teachers of schools in indigenous communities, or quilombolas, which are habitants of black rural communities made by the descendants of African Slaves.A survey launched in May 2020 by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) noted that 71% of households in Brazil have access to the Internet. However, more than 20 million households are digitally excluded, with schoolchildren in vulnerable families being the most impacted. The issue of lack of connectivity is particularly noticeable in households in the poorest areas of the country: 35% of homes in the Northeast region don’t use the Internet, and that is also a reality for 45% of Brazilian families on minimum wage.Separate research from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics has found that millions of citizens are digitally excluded due to factors such as lack of technical knowledge to access the web and availability of Internet services. More

Shifting away from Google Chrome is hard. Regular readers will know that I’ve been engaged in a drawn-out process of dumping Google Chrome for several months. My last month of living and working off-grid while on my travels in Scotland made that more urgent because of how power-inefficient Google Chrome is when running on my laptops. When you’re relying on a battery power station and solar panels, getting an extra 90 minutes or so of runtime makes all the difference.

see also

The best browsers for privacy

If you’re like most people, you’re probably using Google Chrome as your default browser. It’s hard to fault Google’s record on security and patching but privacy is another matter for the online ad giant.

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The problem is that Google Chrome is less a browser and more a mini operating system that does so much. It’s also a repository for a lot of data that are needed to function in the modern world. Shifting to a new platform is super hard, and I find myself coming and going between different browsers, which itself is causing more problems because I’m spreading tabs and data in different places. I spent some time looking at what the pinch points were in making the shift and came across three things that I needed to do to pave the way for a clean break. Here’s what I needed to do. Must read: Do you trust Amazon to share your internet connection with others? #1: Get all passwords out of Google Chrome into a good password manager

Despite my best efforts to make sure that all my passwords are in my password manager, I still, annoyingly, had stuff that only existed in Chrome. There’s little way around this than to export everything from Chrome, manually go through the passwords and add the ones that were missing to my password manager. My current password manager of choice is Bitwarden, although LastPass and 1Password also come highly recommended (see right). But whatever you choose, I suggest you get something you’re comfortable using across all the platforms you use, and it’s worth checking to make sure there’s a browser extension available for the browser you’re switching to.

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The best password manager

Everyone needs a password manager. It’s the only way to maintain unique, hard-to-guess credentials for every secure site you and your team access daily.

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To export your data from Chrome, the process is different between the desktop and mobile versions. Desktop: Type chrome://settings/passwords into the address bar and press ENTERClick on the three vertical dots ⋮ to the right of Saved Passwords and click Export passwords…You may need to confirm the action and authenticateSave the file as CSV (comma separated variable)Mobile: Tap the three dots ⋯ and tap SettingsTap PasswordsTap Export PasswordsYou may need to confirm the action and authenticate, then save the file Rather than have a bunch of duplicates in my password manager, I like to edit the file so it only contains passwords that I don’t already have in the password manager (a CSV file is a text file).To find out how you import the data into your password manager, you will need to consult the documentation. Also, remember to securely delete that CSV file when you’re done — it contains your passwords! This is boring and time-consuming, but necessary.#2: Install must-have extensions into the new browser Take the time to do this. If you leave it until you need them, you’ll end up deciding that it’s quicker to use Chrome, and you’re digging the hole you’re in even deeper. However, given the size of the Google Chrome ecosystem, you’re not going to get a replacement for every extension (which may not be a bad thing from a performance point of view). This is also boring and time-consuming, but necessary.Also: Best Google Chrome extensions#3: Make your new browser the default This is a no-brainer. On desktops and laptops, browsers will offer you the chance to do this. On mobile devices, the option can be a bit buried. iOS: Tap Settings and scroll down to find your new browser Tap on the app, then tap Default Browser App and select your new browser Android: Tap Settings > Apps & notificationsScroll down and tap AdvancedTap Default appsTap Browser and select your new browser of choice Doing this prevents your muscle memory from taking you back to Chrome. Hiding the icon also helps!

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Cisco’s UCS X-Series. Credit: CiscoCisco launched the Cisco UCS X-Series, a new modular system designed for hybrid cloud deployments, as well as observability throughout the stack and network intelligence.UCS X-Series was rolled out during Cisco’s Future Cloud event that featured a host of product launches. With its UCS revamp Cisco joins an increasingly crowded field in the hybrid cloud space. Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM, which acquired Red Hat, are all betting on infrastructure that bridges data centers, clouds and edge compute. Todd Nightingale, general manager of Cisco’s enterprise networking and cloud unit, said the company is focused on providing observability across the enterprise stack. “The real focus is on observability top to bottom from server to application,” said Nightingale. While Cisco UCS X-Series is the headliner, the networking giant launched a series of products, integrations and applications for hybrid and multicloud deployments. Here’s the rundown of what Cisco launched:UCS X-Series: UCS is used in data centers by more than 50,000 global customers. Nightingale said that UCS X-Series includes Cisco’s UCS X-Fabric technology and aims to blend the best of rack and blade technologies. Intersight Cloud Orchestrator, a low-code automation tool for IT Ops workflows. Intersight Workload Engine, a Cisco operating system for Hyperflex that is built on open-source Kubernetes and Kernel-based virtual machine. Cisco Service Mesh Manager, an extension for observability and management of policy-based security. Cisco Cloud ACI will be available for Google Cloud in the fall of 2021. Cisco Cloud ACI manages hybrid and multicloud deployments and already connects to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Integration of ThousandEyes with Cisco  Catalyst 8000 Edge Series for SD-WAN and Cisco Nexus 9000 switches.Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator to manage policies across clouds and on-prem deployments.Cisco also rolled out a series of advisory services to go along with the rollout. More

When it comes to broadband connectivity, Australian small businesses with around 10 or fewer users are stuck in a product gap. There’s a good chance your premises’ NBN connection cannot deliver the speed your business really needs, but getting something faster can quickly get more expensive.

Speed isn’t the only consideration for a business-grade internet connection, of course. You need reliability because downtime means not just annoyance but also lost revenue, and you need prompt support when things go wrong. You might also need dedicated IP addresses so you can set up a permanent high-speed connection to a branch office or a VPN gateway for your staff to securely work from home — after all, hasn’t that become a thing during the pandemic? You might even want to look at getting a broadband package with a proper service level agreement (SLA), where the vendor commits to standards of speed and reliability where there are penalties if they don’t deliver. For example, vendors supplying NBN connections can offer enhanced SLA options. Instead of the standard business hours fault reporting with rectification by 5pm the next business day, you can pay for fault reporting 24/7 with rectification in as little as four hours. Remember, consumer-grade broadband is provided as “best effort”, but in business, sorry isn’t good enough. Here, then, are some business-grade broadband options for SMEs.

We haven’t listed every single option because there are a plethora of smaller NBN resellers with broadly similar offerings. Nor have we listed every option from the vendors we chose. Here are just some highlights that are featured in their offerings. If you see an add-on you like with one vendor’s product, ask others if they can provide it too. This is intended as a guide for shopping around — especially if you’re thinking about adding phone services or data service add-ons, such as email, security, or backups. Let’s face it, it’s all about the NBN or avoiding it For better or worse, the majesty of the national broadband network means that almost every premises in Australia has access to a broadband connection that delivers roughly the same basic performance options regardless of retail vendor. The problem is, however, some premises are more basic than others. What’s potentially on offer at any particular location will be a subset of what NBN calls Traffic Class 4 (TC4). The available speeds will be limited by the connection technology that’s in place. What each vendor then offers to sell will be some subset of that. The range of wholesale NBN options available for each connection technology, from fibre to the premises (FttP) to fixed wireless (FW) and satellite (Sat). 
Image: NBN
Typically, a retail vendor will offer a plan at 50Mbps download and 20Mbps upload speeds (50/20), and one at 100/20. A post-installation line test will confirm the actual speeds that can be delivered. Getting anything faster on the NBN relies on the luck of having better technology provided at your location, such as fibre to the premises, or at least to the basement, or HFC. In the case of FttP, speeds up to 1000/400 might be available, depending on the vendor. This is why every vendor will ask for your address before even thinking about offering higher speeds. If your business needs more than what your luck-of-the-draw NBN can provide, you have two choices. Under the NBN Technology Choice Program, you can pay to upgrade your location to full fibre. As the company warns, however, “costs can vary greatly” and that could easily run into the thousands of dollars, especially outside inner city locations. That said, under the NBN Business Fibre Initiative, “an estimated 90% of business locations within the NBN network footprint” are now eligible for a connection to the company’s Enterprise Ethernet plan with no upfront connection cost to your provider if you sign a 36-month contract. Or you can look at what the vendors themselves can provide using their own non-NBN connectivity options. Once again it’s all about where you are and what gear they already have in your area. Either way, if your business is located in premises you rent or lease, you’ll also need to check with the owner to confirm that you’re allowed to do any work required as part of the installation. The need for speed, and especially symmetry “High-quality symmetrical upload and download speeds are vital for consistent business-grade day-to-day functions such as video conferencing or utilising cloud-hosted platforms and services,” says NBN on its website. Which is to say, even NBN says that NBN’s generic business broadband options are not completely suitable for business. If your business generates large data files rather than just downloading them from others, good upload speeds are vital. Think graphics, videos, or large scientific data sets. You’ll also need good upload speeds if you’re participating in video conferences rather than merely watching someone else’s video stream. Each platform will list its recommended link speeds for effective use. Remember that three employees joining the conference from their own desks counts as three streams, not one. In these cases, the broadband plan’s upload speed is the one you should really be concerned about, not the download speed.

Currently the fastest NBN, plus bonus entertainment packages

Image: Asha Barbaschow/ZDNet

Optus offers the two standard NBN speed choices, 50/20 and 100/20, starting at AU$75 and AU$95 per month, respectively. If you have an eligible FttP or HFC service then there’s also the so-called Superfast with a “typical busy period” speed of 215Mbps down and 18.5Mbps up for an extra AU$35 per month, and the “Ultrafast” at 250Mbps down and 37.5Mbps up for an extra AU$55. All plans include unlimited data and automatic fail-over to the Optus LTE/4G network in the event of a failure, with the switch happening in one to six minutes. They also include the Optus-branded Wi-Fi modem, but you’ll need to stay connected for 36 months otherwise you will be charged for it. Your main upsell options are the “Ultimate” pack with a Wi-Fi booster to extend the range through your premises, and a security add-on to monitor Wi-Fi connections for threats; or the “Entertainer” pack with a Fetch TV set-top box and one premium channel pack. Or you can pay for both. All plans also include the Optus Sport and OS Fitness video streaming channels, with Premier League and UEFA Champions League matches live, plus the UEFA Nations League, UEFA Europa League, and European Qualifiers. Optus can boast that it’s currently rated number one for NBN average download speeds by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, although of course, that may not last forever. If you want symmetrical speeds, though, you’ll be needing something from their Optus Evolve suite of products. Given that they’re targeting “corporate offices”, that’s probably not for your small business.

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If you’re in Adelaide, you’re really in luck

TPG’s business plans start with a somewhat minimalistic NBN12 product, with 12Mbps download speed and a mere 1Mbps upload for AU$70 a month. That’s not enough for even one stream of reliable video conferencing, and it’s truly glacial if you have data to upload. But it might handle one or two workers with some point-of-sale transactions or other lightweight cloud services.The usual 50/20 and 100/20 products start at AU$80 and AU$100 a month, respectively. At that price there’s a 500GB per month data cap (250GB peak and 250GB off-peak), though it includes unlimited local and standard national calls. Add AU$10 per month for unlimited data, and another AU$10 per month for unlimited calls to mobiles.All of TPG’s NBN plans have a AU$100 set-up fee unless you sign an 18-month contract. There’s no charge for moving up or down speed. All business plans come with a static IP address.TPG also offers unlimited symmetrical fibre connections to “TPG lit buildings (excludes data centres)” at 400Mbps for an advertised AU$400 per month (plus GST so it’s actually AU$440 per month), and 1Gbps for an advertised AU$800 per month (actually AU$880).The bandwidth can be split among up to four services, so customers can allocate dedicated bandwidth to voice, or to links to branch offices, or specific cloud services.There’s a 99.95% availability SLA, backed by outage restoration targets and rebates. Contract terms are 24 months and up. If you’re in Adelaide, and specifically the CBD or North Adelaide, TPG has unlimited 1Gbps fibre for AU$400 per month (really AU$440) as part of the Ten Gigabit Adelaide network.

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An all-Australian operation with an army of happy customers

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Competitors envy Aussie Broadband’s customer satisfaction ratings. Customers like its all-Australia support and clarity of communications.Business NBN packages are sold as a simple-to-understand selection from the options NBN gives Aussie. They start at AU$80 per month for 50/20 speeds, ranging up to AU$430 per month for 1000/400, all with unlimited data. Optionally, upgrade to priority or even 100% guaranteed bandwidth, or add on NBN’s enhanced SLA.Aussie also offers its own Fast Aussie Fibre product, providing symmetrical speeds and a 1:1 contention ratio. Speeds start at 250/250 for AU$300 per month (plus GST so it’s really AU$330), through to 1000/1000 for AU$800 (really AU$880), then through 2Gbps and 5Gbps options, all the way up to 10Gbps symmetric for AU$5,000 per month (really AU$5,500).Fast Aussie Fibre comes with a 99.95% uptime SLA, and zero set-up fee if you sign for 36 months, although 12 and 24 month contracts are available.

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An independent fixed wireless network provides another choice

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The rapidly-growing company formerly known as Spirit Telecom has transformed into an integrated IT and telco business. For some businesses, the ability to bundle internet, internal networks, voice, security, support, and applications into a single supported package could be a key advantage.Spirits offers the usual NBN TC4 and non-NBN symmetrical fibre products, from AU$130 and AU$420 per month, respectively, with the potential to use “all possible options out there in the market”.Another key difference is their Sky-Speed Internet, Spirit’s own fixed wireless network along Australia’s east coast. Starting at AU$300 per month and offering speeds of 25/25 up to 1000/1000, this might be a good option for high-speed broadband in regional areas.All business customers are supported by the company’s Australian support team, assisted by the network operations centre in Makati in the Philippines.Spirit says its core target market is customers with between 50 and 500 users, but for businesses with demanding data requirements they might be worth a look.

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Australia’s original telco is wherever you are

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It must be said: No matter what connectivity technology you want, or what add-ons you’re after, Telstra will be able to sell it to you. To describe Australia’s biggest telco’s product range as comprehensive is an understatement.That means it’s complex, and you’ll soon discover subtleties. One example is that the “Business NBN plans” sold to small businesses are slightly different from the “Business Broadband plans on the NBN network” sold to business and enterprise customers.If faster asymmetric NBN speeds are available at your location, prices range up to AU$450 per month for 1000/400.Symmetrical fibre links are available in the Telstra Internet Direct (NBN Enterprise Ethernet) and Telstra Internet Direct Lite (Telstra fibre) products, with a wide range of quality of service options. You’ll have to get a quote for your location.Telstra also offers a vast range of small business apps, including Microsoft 365, MYOB Essentials accounting, cybersecurity, digital marketing support, and even 24/7 general tech support.

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Getting the speed you paid forThe overall performance of any data network depends on its weakest link. Once you start looking at broadband internet connection speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second or more, the weakest link may well be something else. For the very best results, use a wired connection for every device on your office network. Make sure all your ethernet switches have ports rated for 1Gbps. Use quality Cat 6 ethernet cables and make sure to test every one of them. Dodgy connectors or kinks in the cable can dramatically reduce the data speed. If you prefer wireless, make sure all your wireless routers, access points, and extenders are correctly configured, and located where they’re getting as direct a signal as possible. Perhaps even use a Wi-Fi network mapping tool to make sure you’re not trying to use the same channel as other nearby networks, including those on the other side of a shared wall, or on the floor above or below. Some routers can automatically switch to vacant channels, some can’t. What counts as a business? Generally, business broadband plans are available to anyone with an Australian Business Number, or a company or other organisation with an Australian Company Number. This includes sole traders, even if they work from home. A vendor’s non-NBN options will usually have restrictions, however. Non-NBN business connections may only be available to commercial buildings, not apartment buildings or individual homes, for example. Shop around but don’t penny-pinch All prices in this guide are those listed by the vendors on their websites at the time of publication, excluding any time-limited special offers. NBN is currently discounting its pricing to vendors, for example, with a cheaper price for the first six months of a new NBN connection, and those discounts are being passed on by vendors to a greater or lesser degree. Always shop around, and always consider the price of broadband as just one component of your overall IT spend. It may well be that a broadband package costing a few dollars more includes extras that a cheaper vendor would be charging a lot extra for. If you’ll be using the NBN for your phone service as well, check how that can be packaged with data connectivity. Make sure to check the call rates too, especially if you make a lot of international calls or calls to mobiles. 10 bucks extra per month to move from capped data to unlimited, or to jump up a whole speed range, should be a no-brainer. If a long-term contract is required, be sure to find out whether you can change the plan, how often, and whether a fee is involved. Make a note of when the contract is due to end, and know what the subsequent monthly charge will be, should you decide to continue on a month-to-month basis. We recommend getting a detailed quote that includes all one-time charges as well as a firm estimate of monthly charges, including taxes and fees. Related Coverage More