Three reasons why you need Business Grade NBN

The NBN has announced it will ready to connect to 11.7 million homes and business by 2020 , thus replacing the old copper telephone phone network with higher speed dedicated internet services. The NBN has also released a range of business grade services which have significant advantages over the residential grade services that have been rolled out initially.

Many businesses who have taken up NBN may not realise that the service they are currently using has been designed for residential use and may not be optimal for business use. This article covers the main differences between residential and business grade NBN and why business should consider upgrading to business NBN.

The purpose for the NBN is to provide faster internet speeds. Prior to the NBN, the internet for most homes and small businesses was provided using ADSL technology which runs over the existing telephone lines. This had the advantage of low cost because it didn’t require new lines to be installed in the ground. The big disadvantage was slower speeds, especially if your home or business happened to be a long way from the local telephone exchange. NBN has been designed to specifically carry internet traffic using a mix of technology such as fibre to the node, Fibre to the curb, satellite and HFC cable.

The NBN is like a new freeway promising faster speeds and uninterrupted web browsing and downloads. However like a freeway it can become congested, especially during peak evening times. NBN residential grade services effectively lump all traffic together and make every-one compete for bandwidth at the same time. NBN refer to this grade of service as TC4 which is basically best effort traffic throughput and no guarantees.

Reason 1 – Voice Traffic. Businesses who now need to run their telephone systems and PABX’s over the NBN need to consider using business grade services which NBN refer to as TC1. Voice traffic is particularly sensitive to variations in internet speed. Any short interruption in traffic immediately becomes noticeable as distortion or breaking up. These short interruptions are not noticeable when browsing the web or downloading email but are extremely annoying when trying to hold a conversation. NBN business grade services allow you to portion a part of the NBN service for voice. This is similar to having a bus lane on the freeway. Voice services only require modest amounts of bandwidth but it does need to be steady and uninterrupted.

Reason 2 – Data Centres, Cloud and Video Conferencing. Businesses may also be running their own data centres, or run video conferences. In this case NBN recommend using an enhanced level of service they call TC2. This provides for more consistent throughput and lower delay for more critical services. Like TC1 for Voice, a portion of the NBN bandwidth can be allocated for a higher priority service. This is akin to having a priority lane on the freeway for taxis’ or cars with more than two people.

Reason 3 – Better Service Levels – The NBN standard service level for service restoration in the event of a failure is 5pm next business day. Many businesses won’t function without internet access and need a higher level of service than this. Business can sign up on a higher service level which can promise reduces outage time measure in hours rather than days.

Excelero IT solutions are NBN accredited business advisers. If you need impartial advice about your options for NBN please book a no obligation initial consultation by calling (03) 9555 4986 or contacting us via the contact page.