If you’re one of the millions of people working from home full-time, or at least working in a more hybrid way, you’ve probably thought about whether your broadband connection is up to the task.

Chances are, when you bought your broadband deal, you hadn’t considered that you’d be competing with video streaming on Netflix and Amazon, or members of your family completing school work – or maybe even working from home themselves.

And if you’re completing tasks that rely heavily on data, like video conferencing or file transfers, you may have even noticed your home broadband performance falling.

This isn’t good if you’re working and can’t host video calls without static and delays causing disruption, or you can’t send or receive files because your broadband doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the data.

One answer could be to get business broadband at home – instead of a regular ‘consumer’ deal.

But is that realistic, or practical to do?

That’s what we look at in this blog.

Can you even get business broadband at home?

Yes.

While you might think that business broadband is reserved for commercial spaces, you can get it installed at home.

And it would work just the same as having a domestic connection.

While with business broadband, it’s possible to get a Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) connection – which gives you a direct line into your building for your broadband – at home, you could get a Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) connection instead.

This means you’ll get your broadband connection from the street cabinet just like a regular connection (which is also cheaper), and you’ll also get the benefits of business broadband.

Won’t business broadband at home cost more?

Potentially, but not necessarily and likely not as much as you’d think.

Like buying a domestic connection, you can choose from plenty of business broadband deals, so it’s just a case of finding the right provider with the right deal based on what you need.

One thing you can do is look at your likely usage levels.

The highest price business broadband is typically for large organisations with high levels of use on their network.

These are businesses with dozens or hundreds of employees working on multiple devices and regularly sending and receiving large files or using video conferencing.

You’ll likely fall into the low to medium usage category for a home office -mainly because you won’t have as many people doing so many data-heavy tasks.

Plus, because you get more bandwidth on a business broadband connection, you could potentially go on the low side of the business broadband spectrum and still get a lot more capacity than you would from an expensive domestic connection.

Also, with a business broadband connection, you won’t be competing with every other internet user for capacity from the street cabinet – because you’ll have preference over the best connection.

And if you run your own business from home, it’s worth thinking about the productivity benefits you’ll get against the cost of the connection.

If you’re constantly struggling to send files or host video conferences, you’ll waste a lot more money – and time – than you would by having a more reliable broadband connection.

Potentially, you could also claim some of the costs against your end-of-year tax bill – although you should talk to an accountant or financial advisor to get the details of any tax benefits.

What are the benefits of business broadband at home?

The benefits you’ll get from having business broadband at home will depend on your situation and the capacity you need from your broadband.

As we’ve already mentioned, having a reliable broadband connection that can handle large amounts of data and ensure you can host or attend video conferences without the connection breaking can save you a lot of time and money.

We’ve already written extensively about the benefits of business broadband at home, so we won’t go over everything again.

But the main benefits you’ll have are:

• Higher network capacity (because business broadband connections get preference over the fibre cables)
• Faster download and upload speeds (which are critical when you’re trying to send and receive large data files)
• Higher levels of security (because the security built into a business broadband connection is installed to deal with a higher level of threat than a domestic connection would face)
• Better tech support (because business broadband customers have more support to get issues resolved quickly because their livelihood is reliant on their broadband connection working correctly)

So, should you get business broadband at home?

While we’d love to say you absolutely need to have business broadband at home if you’re working or running a business from home, it depends entirely on your needs.

Overall, business broadband is a faster, more reliable and secure broadband connection that will help you deal with the challenges businesses face in a high data environment.

If you’re working from home regularly and are competing for bandwidth with family members using their own devices and streaming large amounts of video, then getting business broadband at home would be worth it.

Ultimately, investing in business broadband at home guarantees you a reliable connection that lets you get on with your work without delays or interruptions.
If you’re interested in getting business broadband at home, get a free quote.