The battle for bandwidth and how to improve your connectivity
EBC Group
It’s the last thing you need in your day. Watching that tiny icon circle over and over again, as you frustratingly wait for a page to load, email to send or file to open.
At some point, we have all been victim to slow Internet speeds.
It’s no secret that digital transformation in the workplace has increased significantly over recent years, with many business services, processes and data now accessed online.
But what happens if you’re not able to access this information quickly?
Chances are clients will become increasingly impatient, a backlog of work will quickly mount and your processes will become as slow as your Internet speeds.
As your business grows, so does your Internet demand.
Whilst some SME’s still adequately operate on shared Internet connections, anyone looking to grow their business may find they are inhibited by its inability to accommodate a growing workforce.
Quite simply, the more users and devices that are connected, the more your bandwidth will be stretched, which could cause a multitude of problems further down the line.
Anyone looking to move away from the limited capabilities of shared Internet connections may consider investing in a Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), which is simply Internet access and bandwidth that is dedicated to a business, and divided among a network’s users- all of which have a portion of bandwidth dedicated to them.
Unlike shared Internet connections that see speeds fluctuate throughout the day, a DIA guarantees reliable bandwidth, bringing with it a host of benefits including; synchronous upload and download speeds, quicker response times and the ability to expand into cloud based applications, including VoIP, video and remote desktop environments.
For businesses, a Dedicated Internet Access may also be referred to as a Leased Line, which are often delivered as a fully Managed Internet Access (MIA) that provides a host of benefits for businesses looking to make the most of their connections, from increased reliability to better customer support and security.
It also provides a Service Level Agreement (SLA) giving a guaranteed customer promise.
An MIA will be overseen by a chosen provider, who will be monitoring your services 24/7, ensuring your connection is running smoothly, and that any unexpected faults are dealt with quickly before you even notice your connection is down!
At it’s most basic, a MIA will take over all technical aspects of your Internet connections, removing the headache of maintaining and up keeping such a vital service for your business.
By choosing an MIA, you will only need to deal with one provider, who oversees all stages of your contract, from cabling to launch, and all the on-going support needed to ensure your connection is the best it can be.
A provider will also offer additional add-ons such as optional firewall, anti-virus and security services, backup connections and even high performing Wi-Fi.
Additionally high performing Internet connections will open your business to the possibilities of new technologies, such as VoIP and hosted telephony.
Most importantly, an MIA gives business the scalability and flexibility to adjust services as a business grows.
Whether you have a steady increase in growth, or have busy seasonal needs, an MIA can provide a variety of options, giving full control of bandwidth and the power to fine tune business networks to suit.
For regional charity Midlands Air Ambulance, investing in their connectivity was vital to the on-going success of the charity.
For an organisation that relies entirely on donations and public support, previous entry-level connectivity was not scalable, creating poor user experiences and bottlenecks in business efficiencies.
With a number of remote sites, separate and disparate phone systems were making for costly communications between offices.
Midlands Air Ambulance Charity have since benefited from company wide inter-office communications, thanks to a fully managed and monitored WAN.
All phone numbers have now been consolidated into SIP calls, and they have also received a new-hosted telephony environment.
Additionally they have also benefitted from enterprise level firewalling, routers and switches, which now accommodates new circuits and fibre across all sites.
For Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, outsourcing to EBC Group has enabled the organisation to make considerable savings across their connectivity, which has allowed them to re-invest the money saved into patient care.
Here at EBC Group, we understand that getting the correct connectivity can make a huge difference to your business.
We deliver a robust, reliable and secure choice of Internet connections, and as a Point of Presence (PoP) we are able to aggregate major UK carriers such as BT and Virgin on our privately owned network, connecting you with a partner who can deliver the best value service to meet your needs.