Broadband Essentials - Working from Home

If you're working from home, without the luxury of IT support, or a free internet connection you can take for granted on a day-to-day basis, then getting yourself hooked up to a reliable and speedy broadband connection should be top of your list of things to sort.

The good news is researching and setting up a broadband connection for business shouldn't be any more difficult than it is for general home use. Here are a few helpful pointers to see you on your way a perfect broadband set-up.

Home or business broadband?
Just because you're using your broadband connection for work use doesn't mean you're pressure to opt for a dedicated business broadband package. Generally, business broadband packages are priced a little higher (although set-up is usually free) but with this additional cost benefits include fairly fast download speeds (ranging from 8Mb to 20Mb) as well as far more generous download caps. Dedicated business support lines mean you can jump to the front of the queue if a problem does occur with your connection - you don't want to waste all day fixing IT hiccups when you should be working. Additionally, many business broadband providers also offer handy extras for the home worker such as Wi-Fi minutes if you want to get out of the house. On the other side, you may be able to continue very happily with your existing home broadband package. You should be able to get a good deal on price with a standard home broadband deal and with healthy competition in the market you could get great deals on download speed and data limits.

If fast downloads are important to you it might be worth investigating whether there's a fibre-optic broadband service available in your area

Contract length
The length of your contract will have a significant difference on price. Are you willing to commit to a broadband contract for 18-months or would you rather opt for a commitment-free rolling contract? Generally, longer broadband contracts offer up cheaper monthly subscriptions, but you will have a difficult time cutting a contract short if it's not all its cracked up to be.

If you'd rather test the water on a shorter contract there are some options available to you. Plusnet and Zen Broadband currently both offer one-month home broadband contracts and only require 10 days to cancel a connection. Alternatively, BE Broadband offers speedy "up to" 24Mb broadband on a rolling three-month deal.

Speed
If fast downloads are important to you it might be worth investigating whether there's a fibre-optic broadband service available in your area. Fibre will offer you far more welly for your money than a standard copper-line broadband connection. Things are really picking up in the world of fibre-optic broadband and with BT's recent commitment to roll-out a speedier fibre network across the UK you should see prices falling within the next year or so. It's not as well advertised as download speed but upload speed could be essential to your business, especially if you regularly upload data to an FTP server or need to transfer over files to colleagues. A fast upload speed could also prove handy if you're working from home and want to exchange files with a remote network.

Data limits
Although it may feel like you're always downloading email attachments or online for lengthy stints during the day, most businesses actually have less demand for broadband than the average home user (it's far more data-intensive to download music or films than it is to download spreadsheets or PDFs). If your small business doesn't require you to upload or download large amounts of data then an 'unlimited' package or a business broadband option probably isn't right for you.

EC Computers are independant and provide service from a number of Internet Providers (including BT) so that you can receive the best service available for your budget and requirements - Please contact us: