A question I’ve often come accross over the Internet.
Why is Business Broadband more expensive?
I can understand why a business owner, especially a sole-trader may ask this question. The answer is a simple one. “Quality“. When a business provisions a Broadband connection from Torindul Designs or any of our competitors as an industry you are treated with higher quality of service; some tech-bods may know it as “QoS”. Quality of Service is a way of ensuring an individual connection can be gaurenteed a higher down stream and upstreem compared to standard residential connections.
An easier way to imagine such expense is by picturing a telephone exchange as a rollercoaster within a theme park. Next to this rollercoaster is a fast-track lane which as the title suggests, allows fast entry to the ride by skipping the main que and paying for the privlage. Business Broadband connections follow the same principal. If you provision a Business connection; your telephone line is connected to a fast-track lane if you like; thus ensuring a higher quality connection.
This is known as a contention ratio. A contention ratio is the amount of connections that can share your bandwidth at the same time.
- Residential Broadband
Residential customers have a contention ratio of 50:1. In plain English this means that, in the worst case scenario; 50 customers could be sharing 500Kbps giving each customer 10Kbps. You should never experience speeds that low even with contention ratios in the equation. Even so, during peak times; your bandwidth will be shared. - Business Broadband
Business customers have a contention ratio of 20:1. This means that, in the worst case scenario; 20 Business Customers could be sharing 500Kbps giving each business 25Kbps. During peak times, bandwidth will be shared, however it must be noted Business customers recieve priority for traffic before residential users.
In summary, the main difference for the price in Business Broadband is the contention ratio mentioned above. The examples of 500Kbps are very rare occurances and it is highly unlikey that this should happen. Contention ratios are often put into play on Megabits of data rather than Kilabits upto the speed given out at your exchange, based on your plan.
Example: If you have a 7Mbps connection, each Megabit could be shared between 20 other Business lines.
Should you require additional information about the expense differences or to enquire about our Broadband services, please get in touch.
