Friday 22 February 2013

Is it time to think about increasing your speed?

As time moves on, technology improves and we all embrace new developments in the world of IT.

The way we communicate changes too, with the increase of social networking being used for not only personal relationships, but as a way of promoting your business. These are very powerful marketing tools which everyone should embrace if they want to success and stay ahead of the competition.

It is also becoming clear that the Internet is vital to the way we do business, with many software applications and storage solutions being migrated to the 'Cloud'.

People now need the ability to access their information and documents wherever they happen to be as modern day living has created a demand for this kind of flexibility.

To this end, many businesses have invested heavily in their internet connectivity, often installing super fast and reliable leased lines, and quite rightly too. But over time their speed requirements grow and many have been fearful that the cost of doing so would be prohibitive. However, having looked at a few examples it might not cost as much as you think.

Take one of our customers as an guide. They're currently paying £300 per month for a 10Mbp/s an internet leased line. This guarantees them a synchronous and uncontended service , along with an excellent service level agreement. However, due to their business growth they now require much more bandwidth so as to cope with their additional staff and new cloud based software application.

So to cut a medium story shot, we upgraded them to a full 100Mbp/s, which is 10 times faster that what they  previously had, and what was the new price I hear you ask.........?

Only £500 per month.

Yes, you read that correctly - 10 TIMES FASTER for only only £200 more per month.

So maybe now is the time to be re-evaluating your requirements and asking your ISP (or preffereably us), to quote you for upgrading the speed of your internet connections so that it can give you what you need.

Thursday 21 February 2013

Loss of Internet - How it could affect your business

“The internet connection is down again and the company is losing money as we can’t process orders and get the goods / services out, plus without email, we have ground to a halt.”

How often has this happened? It’s more common that you may think as standard ADSL Broadband connections (which includes BT Infinity / FTTC) do not have any service level agreement to speak of – what this means is that your ISP does not have any guarantees in place, or obligations to get your internet working again within a given time frame.
How much money would your company lose if the internet stopped working for a day? In one example, a firm which employs 40 staff and sells most of its products online, the answer was a staggering £32,000 per day. Don’t forget, the loss is not just lost sales, it is made up of the following;
  • Loss of sales 
  • Paying staff wages for not being able to perform their roles 
  • Electricity 
  • Time spent reporting the problem and subsequently chasing for updates 
When the internet is so important, surely it is worth considering having the most robust connection that is available? The rental for a much faster, uncontended and synchronous leased line would cost far less per annum than £32,000 per day in loss of service, plus it would come with a service level agreement (SLA) which would also guarantee that it would be fixed within a given time frame, should there ever be an outage.

The way we all work is changing, and a lot of applications are migrating to the cloud, which means that it is now more important than ever that we ensure that our connection to the Internet remains as constant as possible. We also need the flexibility to be able to increase the speed of our connections, in-line with our business growth. In this day and age, many feel that standard ADSL and FTTC products do not give us the reliability or guaranteed stability which we require, and given that the cost of renting fibre is coming down, these options are becoming far more affordable.

You can find out more about leased lines by following this link to our main website.

If this is of any interest and you would like to know more, please contact us and speak to one of our technical sales team. Please note that our sales people are highly technical and not commission based, are only interested in giving you the right advice and providing you with the right solution based on your requirements.