Residential vs. business broadband

[J P Dunford]

Hello,

I am looking at Virgin Media broadband. The business option is offered in one speed of 50Mb and costs £48 per month which would afford the top tier home package of 150Mb.

So it is a decision between the 150Mb home service* and the 50Mb business service.

*The reason I chose to compare the 150Mb option is this: I do not do anything bandwidth intensive such as video or large file download. I am more interested in "ping". However considering the amount of time I spend at the computer it is justifiable to choose the fastest package simply to have webpages load more quickly, e-mails loaded quickly, etc. It is not a deal-breaker that I need, just something I would select if I chose this route.

I am not sure on the technicalities and what the actual perks are of choosing the business service. I need some help deciding whether these perks, whatever they are, outweigh the 100Mb speed difference for me personally.

The thing I find annoying is how they sell the residential product. "Download a soap in 3 minutes and browse FaceBook from your sofa". I know it should not make a difference however something tells me that the people maintaining the service know that people who "download a soap in 3 minutes and browse FaceBook from your sofa" can afford to live without the most reliable internet (something that for me is the top priority), and that the business service would be dependable?

In other words a consumer would forfeit 1% reliability for a nice shiny new feature, but with me it is the other way around. I am hoping this is one of the differences? Is this what the different service is aimed at?

Thank you very much in advance

 

[Excel Expert]

I've never bothered with business packages and always stuck with the residential packages because it is good enough for my needs and my home office. I skype all day long on it with no issues, it handles video conferences without hassle and I can stream my Slingbox to my PC all day without it effecting Skype.

I dont believe you will notice a great deal of difference in the reliability stakes or the speed stakes if you are comparing like for like (I suspect they are in fact the same beast), where they will probably differ the most is when things go wrong.

With the business packages you will probably have more recourse should things go down i.e. your problem will get dealt with quicker and you maybe able to get money back in the event of a failure.

Last year we had some muppet in a JCB pull our cable out of the ground and the response from our company was it will take 3-5 days to sort as I was on a residential account. Last week our whole street got disconnected due to a damaged exchange box in the street. BT Openreach were there in a couple of hours and had it fixed in a few hours all because the box was serving a school and couple of businesses.

For some that peace of mind is worth the extra investment.

 

[it-comms]

SLA on fix for most broadband is 5 working days. if your business requires a SLA which would improve on this you may be looking at EFM / fibre leased line.

BT Open Reach / Virgin will book the next available slot to get someone out to you to fix the fault.

FFM / Fibre leased line is normally within 5 hours.

If going for Virgin, i would use residential as the Business Hub is buggy and as issues

 

[Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd]

Business-grade broadband generally offers far better support levels, and far less contention on the line (i.e. no competing with home users at peak times, such as kids getting home from school and firing up YouTube).

We'd always recommend business-grade broadband for business use.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[J P Dunford]

Thanks a lot for all of the responses.

I always disregarded leased lines as overkill as I am just a single person...I always thought they cost thousands per month however it seems they are available for ~£200 per month at the bandwidth I require. Considering all the features they guarantee this is not unreasonable. Unfortunately I am looking to move around which makes this option unviable (with the installation etc.) but maybe in the future.

If going for Virgin, i would use residential as the Business Hub is buggy and as issues

Are these issues still relevant if I will not be using the wireless hub? I am planning on simply having the line go straight into my computer, if this is possible.

Thanks again

 

[Page]

Well it sounds as if you do not need that mega speed so maybe the comparison is pointless/unfair

Instead compare business with a similar speed domestic offering and how much you save and is that worth enough to you if things go wrong

Business will be fixed faster and usually the support is better - Virgin cable domestic support is dire - wait wait wait - give up

For example you could spend the money saved by going domestic - on a BT line for failover - and a router box which handles this - which might be a better spend than more speed

If you dont need mega speed then I would advise a good mi-fi already sitting in place and ready to go as your failover

You need to decide what matters to you and what the cost is IF things go wrong to make the decision as to what you do

 

[J P Dunford]

Hi, thanks a lot for the reply.

I think I will go with residential. I was hoping the business line would be a better product to start with but it seems to be the same. It will only be a temporary solution, anyway, and I very much have my eye on managed internet/leased line if I ever get set up more permanently.

I already have a 4G broadband device, but would recommend it also, I often go weeks without using it but it is priceless when needed!

Thanks everyone for the replies. I hope to stick around here, and see you all again, I just made an account after a Google search to ask this question but it seems like a very nice community for support etc.!

 

[strikingedge]

I would avoid Virgin if you possibly can.

We have a Virgin residential account - 150mbs - at home for when we're working at home. We frequently need to transfer large files, up and down.

The good news is that the product is great....when it works. The bad news is that it doesn't always work and the outsourced customer services in India is utterly dire.

Outsourcing can work - Be Internet's team in Bulgaria were beyond fantastic - they understood the product, could talk tech or take you through the basics and if they couldn't fix it would get an engineer out to you.

But Virgin's does not. You get the impression that they have zero empathy for the customer and actually no respect for Virgin brand, which some of us still hold dear.

When our service went down for a period of several months - (every evening + sometimes the mornings and daytimes) we would call customer services.

The process is that you have to allow them remote access to your computer, they would poke around, change your wireless channel and then either announce it fixed (it wasn't) or tell you that your computer is old and slow and needs replacing.

You can argue that you have a new Mac that works brilliantly at the office, via tethering or on any other wireless network, so it can't be my PC - but you're firmly told that you don't know what you are talking about.

In the end, to get a fix I had to go through retentions, and only then did they get an engineer to look at it - they found a problem, fixed it, it worked. Whole process took four months.

That was the first of three times it went down for weeks/months at a time - so if you're going to get Virgin, I strongly suggest getting a Three Mobile account with tethering included - you may well need it.

One last point - if you upgrade your service from 60MBS to 150MBS, they will reset your minimum contract length. They don't tell you that on the web page or confirmation emails - they just do it - it is a way of keeping customers who try and leave