The different types of business broadband connections
Typically, even a small business needs higher bandwidth and higher reliability of service as compared to home connections. With the increasing dependency on internet connections for businesses to function well, you need to look at all your options before you choose your business broadband connections.

What are the choices you have?
There are many types of broadband connections that can be used by a business.

Broadband is an umbrella term for any type of high-speed internet connection. The types of broadband connections mainly differ according to the technology they use to transmit data:

• Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)
• Cable Broadband
• Satellite Broadband
• Fiber Broadband
• Leased Copper lines Broadband

Internet Service Providers (ISP) offer broadband service over different media like copper lines, cables, fiber optic networks, etc.

What is a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)?

• Digital signals are transmitted over the existing copper telephone wires.
• These are much faster than the old dial-up connections.
• The speed may vary depending on how near or far you are from the ISP exchange.
• As they work over the existing telephone networks, DSL has the widest reach, over 90% coverage nationwide.
• While Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) is a common technology, business users might consider alternatives like Symmetric DSL, High data rate ADSL or VDSL, which is even faster than HDSL.

What is cable broadband?

• The broadband connections are provided over cable TV lines, coaxial copper cables.
• As these are already in place, there is a wide reach, 89% nationwide coverage, next only to DSL connection.
• These are much faster than DSL connections.
• Like with DSL, upload speeds tend to be much lower than download speeds. This is not much of an issue for home use, but not ideal in business broadband connections for larger organizations with high file sharing needs.

How do satellite connections work?

• Satellite broadband is similar to satellite TV; a satellite dish needs to be installed on your premises and needs to be hooked up to a modem.
• It involves three satellite communication points, the dish at the ISP hub, a satellite dish in space, and the dish installed on your premises.
• Each request has to go through the space dish to your ISP’s hub and back. This translates into high latency, which may not be ideal for business broadband connections.
• Satellite connections may also be affected by the weather and by obstructions in the line of signals, like trees or buildings.
• They can handle high bandwidth demands though, so many simultaneous connections will not have an impact on the connection speed.
• Satellite broadband speeds are not as fast as cable or fiber connections, but they do offer higher speeds than dial-up connections.
• They may be good options when you are in a remote area with no DSL, Cable, or Fiber broadband.

What is fiber broadband?

• For blazing-fast connections, fiber connections are the best.
• In fiber connections, data is transmitted in the form of light over multiple strands of plastic or glass; that is why they are known as fiber-optic cables.
• The connection quality is much higher than through DSL or cable lines.
• Fiber broadband infrastructure needs a lot of investment, so the expansion of coverage has been slow.
• Fiber broadband connections are available only to a quarter of the population.
• If it is available in your area, it might be your best choice for business broadband connections for sheer speed and bandwidth. The speed range is wide, between 10 Mbps and 1000 Mbps.

What are leased copper lines for broadband?

• These are dedicated communication connections for your business broadband.
• These connections take longer to install and set up, because they are dedicated lines and not shared lines.
• These lines were traditionally used for internal communication networks, but they can also be used for internet connections.
• T-lines like T1 and T3 have been around for long.
• While T1 lines speed is very low by current standards, T3 lines are faster.
• Then, there is the newer Ethernet-over Copper.
• T3 lines and EoC offer much higher speeds and are a good option for business organizations, as they provide business class service.
• No changes in speed due to too many users logging in at the same time.
• They provide the same upload and download speeds, which is critical for business needs.
• Copperline internet broadband can be used when your area does not have good DSL, cable, or fiber-optics coverage.
• They are also a cost-effective alternative to dedicated fiber lines.
• They allow you to take advantage of your existing network of copper lines that you have been using for your internal communication networks.

Business broadband connections need to meet higher demands in speed, bandwidth, availability, security, and so on.

While home broadband can work pretty well on shared connections and lower speeds, business broadband connections need to meet the bandwidth and data demands of many people and varied usage like cloud access, video conferencing, file sharing, etc.