While NBN Business may have “business” written on the box, it is in-fact still the same old NBN that has had nothing but growing infamy over the past years.

NBN Co. has been pushing its business plans since it shifted focus to Australian business in late 2017. Many business owners will have seen the letters come through since then of a more business-oriented service that they can get connected with.

A sound assumption would be that these plans will feature increased reliability with speeds, and decreased downtime. Sadly though, that is not the case, as they operate on the sole NBN network that also services residential customers.

What these business plans will typically include is prioritised support, which is still only provided at best effort based on availability of technicians. No SLA (Service Level Agreement) is provided, which means no guarantees can be given that your business will be without connection issues.

So, what are your other options? Many other services providers are available in this space, so for your business it’s important to choose a provider that can give these 3 things:

• Reliability to ensure you never lose connection at those vital times like urgently needing access to systems, or during important phone calls
• Speed so that no users need to find themselves waiting for web pages to load while also trying to get large files downloaded
• Cost within reasonable budgets, that is competitive and of good value for the service being provided

While business NBN plans typically falter in reliability and speed, it tends to be the cost that entices business owners to sign the dotted line. However, when looking at the reliability and speed concerns from a productivity standpoint, this decision can result in significant losses.

A far more business-grade option is a dedicated corporate fibre link. Providers of these services adhere to SLAs that guarantee you both reliability and speed. If these aren’t met, there are typically discounts or refunds that are given due to your business not receiving the service being promised.

In the unlikely event of outages on these business-grade connections, urgent support is more readily available to resolve any issues.

When it comes to keeping your business connected in this digital age, very careful consideration should be taken when deciding on which provider will keep you online.

If you would like guidance on which provider would best suit the needs of your business, get in touch with the Altitude Innovations Team to assist with making the right call.