Speed and Reliability
Residential Broadband:
Residential broadband is designed primarily for general home use, supporting activities such as streaming, gaming, or browsing. Many residential broadband packages now offer the same speeds as business broadband delivers; however, the difference is found in the contention ratios. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) allocate a certain amount of bandwidth to a group of customers, meaning that during peak times, network congestion can lead to slower speeds and reduced performance. With residential broadband, the contention ratio is higher, meaning that bandwidth* is shared with more people. With residential broadband you often find that your speed drops at peak times, like when children get home from school or in the evenings when people finish work. As an example, a residential Full Fibre connection can have contention ratio of up to 100:1, meaning you share bandwidth with up to 100 other customers.
*Bandwidth: the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over an internet connection in a given amount of time.
Business Broadband:
Business broadband prioritises reliability and consistency of speeds as businesses often depend on the service for VoIP calls, video conferencing, accessing cloud applications and file transfers. Business broadband is usually subject to lower contention ratios than residential services, meaning that you share bandwidth with fewer people. To compare to residential Full Fibre services with a contention ratio of up to 100:1, business Full Fibre usually has a contention ratio of between 20:1 and 5:1 depending on the supplier. This lower contention ratio means that there is more consistency in speed, providing a more reliable service.
Service Level Agreements(SLA's)
Residential Broadband:
Residential broadband usually comes with standard support, but often there is no guarantee on how quickly any issues are likely to be resolved. If there is, it is often at least 40 hours or 2 working days.
Business Broadband:
Business broadband comes with a higher-level support agreement, with issues usually resolved by the close of play the following working day. This higher level of support is crucial for businesses that are significantly impacted by downtime.
A business broadband connection may offer other additional benefits that residential services do not, including being able to access static IP addresses on some business services (often at an additional cost), access to business grade routers, and often access to additional security measures on business services.Frequently Asked Questions
Is business broadband more expensive?
Generally, business broadband services can carry a premium over residential services due to the differences outlined above. Both business and residential broadband packages have a wide range of prices depending on the provider, the speed and the type of connection. You might be surprised at how little extra business broadband costs compared to some residential services, especially from business specific ISP’s, like CloudConnX. When considering pricing it is important to check whether the price is inclusive or exclusive of VAT, as often business broadband prices are exclusive of VAT so just keep this in mind.
Is business broadband faster than residential broadband?
Both business and residential broadband rely on the same infrastructure, meaning that business broadband is not necessarily faster than residential broadband. Both a residential package and business package may offer speeds of 1000Mbit/s (1Gbit/s). However, at peak times you would likely find that a residential broadband service would slow down significantly more than a business broadband service due to higher contention ratios (explained above).
Can I get business broadband at home?
Yes. Business Broadband packages can be delivered to residential addresses. If you work from home and feel you would benefit from a lower contention ratio and faster fix time should anything go wrong then it would be worth considering business broadband.
If you work from home a couple of days a week then a home broadband package with sufficient upload and download speeds should suffice. If there are multiple people working from your home address, your work involves lots of data transfer, or you have lots of video calls then a business connection could be beneficial for you.
Overall
Whilst at a glace business and residential broadband may appear to be very similar, some of the factors that set them apart can have a significant impact on the day-to-day operation of your business. Business and residential broadband are both tailored for different circumstances- where residential broadband prioritises affordability for the general public, business broadband focuses on reliability and support and delivers a business grade service.
If you are still unsure on whether a business broadband service is right for you and would like some guidance, or if you would like a quote to upgrade your connectivity, please reach out to a member of the team on 0330 122 0550 or email