All Broadband Not Created Equal

Been looking for broadband for your business recently. It’s likely that you would have come across a range of both business and residential broadband packages.

“But what works for your home might not be up to standard for your business” explains New Zealand-based leading business VoIP and broadband provider UFONE NZ.

Contention Ratio
When assessing or comparing different Internet Services, one of the most important factors is the contention ratio of the service. The contention ratio is the number of users sharing the same bandwidth. This is critical as it affects the speed of the connection. A high contention ratio means that there is a large number of users trying to use the same pool of bandwidth at any one time. “This affects the amount of bandwidth available which in turn will lower the speed of the connection, especially at peak times,” says UFONE CEO Nigel Rayneau.

Each service provider makes a policy decision about their service contention ratio. Residential commonly has a much higher ratio than business service, which is why a residential service can be priced at a lower level. However even between different business offerings the difference in contention ratios can be significant. “Our policy at Ufone is to maintain one of the best contention ratios in the industry” asserts Rayneau. “This is because Ufone is about quality, rather than price.”

Higher Speeds
The Business broadband offered by UFONE is also available in faster speeds than are usually available on a residential connection. This results in faster uploads and downloads which makes it easier and faster to work on the web.

Static IP
Another service you may need as a business is a static IP address. You can usually get an IP address with a business broadband connection but not necessarily with a residential one. Do you need to access your computer remotely, set-up a VPN, update a website, host a server, make VoIP calls? Then a static IP address is the way to go. An IP address is the unique ID from your ISP that identifies your connection on the Internet. Residential IP address are usually dynamic or behind CGNAT (Carrier Grade NAT) devices shared by multiple users and may change on a regular basis or if your connection resets. “A static IP doesn’t change, allowing for better connectivity to resources attached to your network,” advises Nigel.

Phone Service
Residential broadband can come with a standard phone line but as a business you are going to need a more complex phone system. With business broadband you can reliably run multiple lines, non-geographic business numbers and a business VoIP PBX system.

With UFONE’S business broadband packages you’ll get fast and efficient customer service, advanced tech support and quick response times if there’s an issue.