Business Connectivity Articles
The connection everything else depends on, explained without the sales pitch.
The internet circuit into a UK office is an operations problem. Staff, Microsoft 365, payments and hosted phone calls all leave the building through it. Firms of 20 to 200 people often inherit a product sold as business broadband because the download figure looked high enough. That number doesn't say whether neighbouring premises share the capacity, or how long you wait when the fibre is cut. Upload is the part of the quote that gets ignored, even though files and backups leave the site all day.
A reserved circuit costs more because the bandwidth is yours and the repair clock is written into the contract. Full-fibre broadband is cheaper and often enough for a lighter office, until a slow upload or a next-day repair wipes out the saving. Open a second site and each office needs its own path out, without hauling every request through head office. Wayleaves and street works set the lead time, so a move has to start with the circuit.
5 articles in Connectivity
Connectivity: common questions
What does contention mean on a business internet connection?
Contention means the local fibre or cabinet is shared with other premises. The speed on the quote is a ceiling, not a reserved amount. When neighbouring offices and homes get busy, your share drops. That shows up when cloud files crawl and video meetings break up. A leased line is uncontended: the capacity you order is assigned to your site.
What is a wayleave and why does a leased line need one?
A wayleave is legal consent from the property owner for a telecoms provider to install and maintain apparatus on the premises. For a leased line it often covers a new fibre entry and a termination point in your comms cupboard. The carrier can't book street works until it's signed. If you're a tenant, your landlord or managing agent holds the pen, and that is usually the slowest part of the order. Existing building fibre avoids a lot of this.
Can you run business VoIP over broadband?
Voice is sensitive to delay and lost packets, so a contended circuit that looks fine for email can still make calls break up when the office is busy. Prioritising voice on the office network helps, but it can't invent capacity the incoming circuit lacks. If calls are the customer path, a reserved circuit or a second link for voice is the safer design. Test at peak hours rather than trusting a quiet-morning demo.
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