Are You Working From Home Right Now? Here's what to consider with Broadband

Thu, Apr 22, 2021 3:57 PM

An increased number of workers are working from home on a daily basis in the current climate. Although remote work, however, offers many advantages in terms of job satisfaction as well as physical and mental well-being, there are some primary practical considerations for sustaining standards of productivity.

Your internet access is a crucial component of efficient work from home setup; without this, workers would fail to function efficiently, as well as interact with colleagues and customers. In this post, in order to ensure that you and your employees can work efficiently while away from the workplace, we will detail how to select the best broadband for working from home.

Broadband for working from home: what to consider

There are some main factors that should hopefully determine your decision when determining the best broadband for working from home.

Data Usage Cap

Some internet service providers (ISPs) will offer contracts that include limits on data use. While this form of contract is usually a more budget-friendly choice, for those working from home, it is not recommended.

Your data use would eventually creep up if you are online eight hours a day, five days a week not to mention evening or weekend surfing. You can notice that your ISP charges a fee or throttles your connection if you surpass the broadband cap agreed in your agreement, all of which you would naturally want to avoid.

Traffic management

In order to ensure a secure broadband connection for all users, ISPs will also enforce traffic management at peak hours.

Although traffic management ensures that all users are equally able to access the internet, certain forms of traffic are typically prioritized. Check the contract on how they use traffic control before deciding to use a specific broadband provider if they do it all.

Number of Users

You are unlikely to need a significant amount of bandwidth if you are the sole user of your home broadband connection. However, if you work with someone on a daily basis, or have family members that will use the internet at the same time, a stronger connection will be needed.

When operating from home, what internet-based software would you use?

You will need to understand just what you are going to use on the internet and the problems that can emerge from each application.

IP telephony-Trunking for VoIP/SIP

Most organizations around the United States have woken up to the many advantages of switching to cloud-based telephony solutions, such as VoIP. Although the benefits are comprehensive, those that especially extends to home-employed businesses include:

• Free internal calls-Employees working inside one VoIP network can make internal calls free of charge, including foreign calls in some contracts, regardless of physical location.

• Remote working capabilities-all workers can make and receive calls as if they are in the workplace if their mobile device is configured to the office network or they are set up with a softphone.

VoIP allows for hassle-free virtual meetings via conference calls for both staff and customers.

You need a secure and efficient broadband connection to make HD VoIP calls while working from home. Poor quality calls risk restricting efficiency and presenting consumers with an unprofessional picture.

Although direct VoIP calls would not need significant amounts of bandwidth, significantly more will be required for multimedia messages and VoIP calls made over solutions such as SIP. Be sure to verify the broadband download and upload speeds provided by an ISP, as well as the dedication to quality when looking for a new provider.

Cloud storage

You will also use cloud storage applications when operating from home in order to both upload and update shared data. Although large quantities of data or increased bandwidth would not be needed for files such as Word documents, this is not the case if you upload larger things such as videos or ZIP files.

It is not only frustrating to be forced to wait for long periods to access your files while working from home but it is also guaranteed to limit employee productivity.

Also Read : Why Data Backup is Important for Growing Business

For working from home, Fibre vs ADSL broadband

The sort of broadband connection you have, fiber or ADSL, is probably the most important thing to consider when selecting the internet for homework.

ADSL Broadband

To offer broadband, ADSL broadband (Asymmetric Digital Line Subscriber) depends on conventional copper telephone wires. Usually, ADSL only has a maximum speed of up to 8Mpbs. Although this is adequate for sending and receiving emails, more advanced activities such as routine downloading/uploading files or video calls will fail to sustain it.

ADSL has the additional downside that it is notoriously unreliable. The copper wires that make up the ADSL network are vulnerable to harm, hampering your connection to the internet. It can be seriously harmful to business operations to encounter a broadband drop out while operating from home and should naturally be avoided at all costs.

Fiber broadband

Fiber-optic broadband is available mainly in two forms:

• Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), which provides a complete fiber internet service directly to your property at speeds of up to 330 Mbps.

• FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), which uses fiber-optic cables up to the cabinet on your street.

Although FTTP is more costly and less commonly accessible than both ADSL and FTTP, for home use it provides the fastest and most secure standard broadband connection. FTTC is perfectly adequate if FTTP is not accessible in your region, or is out of your budget.

It is always recommended to opt for a fiber connection where possible, whether it be FTTC or FTTP, for employees searching for the best broadband plan for working from home. This would not only make your homework set-up future-proof but also ensure a quicker and more secure internet connection.

Also Read : How to Maintain Security with Remote Employees

Business or home broadband?

Business broadband contracts are provided by most ISPs. Usually, business broadband plans provide a variety of benefits, including:

• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) promising a certain level of uptime and offering financial compensation if these negotiated standards are not met.

• Dedicated customer support teams.

• A priority for other traffic types.

• Prioritized repair in case of damage to a network.

• A static IP address is required to host a domain and establish a connection remotely from another device.

Business broadband packages, however, are not inexpensive, typically running exponentially more expensively than a residential plan. In most cases, it is doubtful that you would need a business broadband contract if you operate from home alone. It would probably only be acceptable if you run a company from your house, not just work remotely.

This would be perfectly sufficient for workers who work from home if you can get a residential package that provides fiber-optic broadband service.

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