I believe one of the foundations for a successful implementation with Business VoIP is reliable internet service. Each business has several different choices for internet service which have positives and negatives associated with each one. Over the last several blog posts, we’ve reviewed the choices for internet services while highlighting speed and reliability. This post will review cable companies and their offerings.
Cable – These are high-speed options provided by the local cable company. Cable companies typically provide these options both with a coax (the same black cable in your house) or fiber product directly built to your building.
Speeds – Coax speeds can reach up to a 100 Meg and Fiber speeds can reach 1 Gig.
Reliability – With the coax products you get two different speeds (upload and download) for your internet service. You also get a “best effort” contract which means they will do everything possible to provide you with the best internet service possible. (Basically no refund for downtime) With the cable company’s fiber products you get the same bi-directional speeds (both upload and download) which are guaranteed at 99.999% uptime. (You can ask for a refund)
Positives – The coax products offer clients low-cost internet and free speed upgrades. The cable company’s fiber product is highly competitive to the traditional CLEC or phone companies T-1 service. If your business needs high-speed low-cost internet service (streaming, downloading, VoIP) the coax products are a potentially good choice for you.
Negatives – Most cable companies are not built out everywhere (provide service in your building) like traditional phone companies. The coax product set is not the most reliable product in the marketplace. Since it is a “best effort” product, you could have some occasional outages due to network congestion and outages.
Coax Summary – Depending on your needs, Cable company coax internet speeds and reliability can work for smaller VoIP Phone system implementations. (Up to 10 handsets) It is our experience that no two cable company internet services work the same. (Even on the same block or in the same building for that matter) It also appears most cable company coax internet products to work well after the first 90 days of implementation. We are not sure if it is because the cable companies work out the kinks during this time but after this initial period, it seems to work fine. We suggest to everyone to put in cable coax internet as a backup first then if the reliability is there consider it for full-time VoIP service.
Fiber Summary – When it comes to the cable companies fiber products, we suggest that you take a look at them. They are a great alternative to traditional and CLEC offerings for dedicated internet service.
We welcome any input you have regarding your cable internet products, speeds and reliability stories.
Visit Clarus Communications here or call us at 855-801-6700 to speak with one of our knowledgeable staff so we can work with you on finding the right service for your business at the most affordable rates. Our goal is to ensure high levels of customer service plus building and maintaining a system that enables your business to run well.
Clarus Communications is a national leader that specializes in providing over 60 telecommunication and technology provider solutions and we would appreciate the opportunity to become your technology partner and help you find the best solution for you and your company.