What Internet Speeds Do Small Businesses Need?

Ben Franklin’s quote, “time is money,” has never been more relevant than it is to business today. To compete successfully, businesses must maximize productivity. The Internet has become the most important tool to effectively communicate with customers, suppliers and employees.

Companies big and small rely on high speed Internet for email communications, sales and marketing efforts, research, eCommerce, and cloud applications.

Faster Internet allows for quicker downloads, crystal-clear video conferencing, buffer-free video streaming and more. Regardless of the application – no business can afford to wait on slow internet.

How Do Small Businesses Benefit?

As businesses expand their networks with new applications and users, they often have a need for higher speed and improved performance from their Internet access service. Bandwidth intensive applications such as cloud computing and video conferencing are just a few examples of how Internet access requirements are changing.

Faster internet benefits small businesses by increasing usage of the cloud, promoting effective collaboration, supporting telecommunications, increasing potential for scalability, and providing exceptional customer service and peace of mind.

1. Increased Usage of the Cloud

Unlike many applications that are more download oriented, such as web surfing, cloud applications require the ability to both download and upload large amounts of data.

As businesses move more and more of their operations to the cloud they not only need an Internet access service with more bandwidth, but also one that provides symmetrical speeds and SLAs for reliability and performance. An Internet service that meets these requirements will enable businesses to truly benefit from cloud applications.

2. Effective Collaboration

In the mobile landscape of today, your employees need to be constantly connected regardless of their physical location.

High speed Internet allows members of the team to communicate and collaborate seamlessly using tools such as online conferencing, video chat, file transfers, and screen sharing. Applications like these not only require high download speeds but high upload speeds as well.

3. Support of Telecommunications

High speed Internet is the foundation for many VoIP telecommunication tools such as Unified Communications and Hosted PBX solutions. With the right Internet service your business can increase the quality and improve the user experience of these tools and increase employee efficiency and productivity.

4. Increased Potential for Scalability

If your growing business is adding employees you are also increasing the number of devises connected to your network and using bandwidth.

Can your current Internet service support additional people and usage? It’s important to have an Internet service that easily scales to meet these growing bandwidth requirements so you can increase the number of employees without degrading the performance of your network.

5. Exceptional Customer Service

Imagine answering a customer call and experiencing poor voice quality plus long wait times due to the inability to quickly access customer records.

These are common problems that cause customer frustration and dissatisfaction as a result of slow performing Internet connections. That is why high speed Internet is an integral component for delivering exceptional customer service and ensuring that each customer contact is a great user experience for both your customers and your employees.

6. Peace of Mind

Internet services are available in a range of speeds, both upstream and downstream, and with a variety of service levels, from best effort to guaranteed SLAs.

Selecting the right one for your business can give you peace of mind and confidence from knowing that your Internet service is helping you achieve your customer service goals while giving your employees the tools they need to maximize their efficiency and productivity.

What Internet Speeds Do Small Businesses Need?

The number of employees/Internet users and content transferred also affects the speed and reliability of a network.

As a result, the Internet speed you used last year may not be the right one today, especially if your company has grown. To keep up with increased Internet demands and to ensure optimum performance it’s best to reassess Internet speed on a regular basis to ensure your speeds are optimal.