3 Reasons Why You Should Use FTTB For Your Small Business

There’s no question about it, as technology has escalated how the business environment operates, things have become faster paced than ever, and if you can believe it, even more competitive. One of the outcomes is that fibre is set to replace older network versions as businesses look for the edge that will propel them forward.

Given that slow internet can seriously impede your success, fibre is simply the better product. That said, while fibre optic internet connectivity has weaved its way into South African big business, it has become a common fallacy among the growing SME market that fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) solutions are restricted to the corporate sector. In fact, the superior performance of this internet capability and all the associated benefits can just as easily be transferred to small business.

In truth, FTTB should not be limited to big business as this 5G internet solution most assuredly has a place in the small business arena – and is often the better choice over a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) solution. This is something that we have previously unpacked, discussing the differences between FTTB and fibre-to-the-home FTTH so that businesses are better able to understand their options and make a more informed decision.

Today, however, we want to unlock the three most important reasons why your small business should consider investing in FTTB as soon as possible.

The Three Crucial Benefits of FTTB For Small Business

Before we leap in, it is worth remembering that FTTB or ‘business fibre,’ is a generic term for a type of fibre optic cable installation where the fibre cable goes to a point on a shared business property. This is what creates such incredibly advantageous connectivity, in that it provides a more secure system, lightning fast internet connections, reduced latency, and other generally enhanced connectivity benefits. Moreover, there are also several unique benefits to FTTB that could make all the difference to your business.

Here are the three main reasons why you should consider FTTB for your smaller enterprise rather than relying on an alternative option – including your home fibre solution.

1. Improved Performance Levels

The reality is that FTTB enables performance that far exceeds what is available through FTTH. Simply, home fibre offers a more basic setup for residential homes, which have less demanding internet requirements. While it’s more cost effective, it’s also subject to more downtime, more contention, and lower line speeds – all of which hampers productivity and can have a negative impact on your business. This where FTTB offers a superior solution, ensuring that your link to cyberspace remains open at all times and creating a more reliable status quo.

Regardless of whether your business is large or small, your availability to your customers could make or break a deal. With FTTB in your corner, you can rest assured that your ability to meet their needs and empower your employees to do their jobs is more reliable.

2. Contention is king

We mentioned that FTTH is vulnerable to more contention. To the uninitiated, contention is when various people are all connected and competing for the internet on a single line. The number of users sharing the data capacity on a provider’s line leads to a contention ratio. It hardly goes without saying that the lower the contention ratio the better the quality of service, with the ideal ratio being 1:1. This is a ratio that FTTB enables, it being the only solution capable of offering a specialist fibre line designed with the capacity to handle a high load and a static IP address where unique and bespoke services can be built in.

By way of example, imagine an office with more than around 85 employees, each of whom requires a fast, reliable internet connection at all times. A strong, fast connection that won’t slow down when in use by the entire office. FTTB provides such a line capable of handling hundreds of devices simultaneously, including their mobile devices and tablets, which could easily surpass 170 devices in total being used.

In contrast, the contention enabled by home fibre, where it’s expected to handle five users at a time, pales in comparison and will certainly be unable to handle more than 10 users without running into issues.

3. Increased Internet Uptime

Most of us understand that downtime is when your network is unavailable and typically, FTTH experiences more downtime as the needs for fibre at home are a lot lower. Conversely, uptime refers to the percentage of time that you have broadband service availability in a month.

There are very few businesses that don’t experience even a fraction of downtime, but the truth is that in a highly competitive environment, your small business needs as close to 100% uptime as possible. So, while home fibre solutions focus less on ensuring 100% uptime, FTTB places this as a high priority by utilising higher line capabilities, designed to provide the best possible uptime.

Let Huge Connect Find Your Fibre Solution

Ultimately, the right FTTB package will level the playing field so that SMEs can compete with industry giants by operating with a faster and more reliable internet platform and minimising their costs of unplanned downtime.

At Huge Connect, we understand that quality connectivity is more than a utility. It is both the key to your business’ survival now and its future success, especially now that businesses are connecting to remote employees, and cloud platforms and services. Seeing as the quality of your connection is so critical, it has to be said that connectivity absolutely cannot be treated as an afterthought – and FTTB is the right vehicle to empower your business to do what it does best.

The Huge Connect team is standing by to assess your small business’ needs and provide expert advice on the best options when it comes to your business’ fibre optic internet connectivity. We are well positioned to help you find the most cost-effective FTTB product that gives you only what is needed.

Give your smaller enterprise a stronger chance against the multiple challenges of running a business in today’s environment. Talk to Huge Connect.