The need for speed: super fast broadband for business

Patience may be a virtue, but try telling that to anyone suffering from a bout of ‘slow internet’. It can hit when you least expect it, is excruciatingly painful and often there are often no known causes – that’s right, slow internet connections are dreadful.



But that’s a sign of how far the digital revolution has advanced. Whilst 64kbps on dial-up were once the norm, people have become accustomed to instant internet on tap, with minimal buffering and no time wasted watching ‘page-loading’ icons.



Depending on the time of day, web traffic and – believe it or not – distance from the telephone exchange, individuals can experience varying degrees of internet speeds. But that’s all set to change.



To summarise, ADSL broadband uses a copper wire telephone line, which causes data-rates to fall considerably the farther away a house is from the source. But with fibre optic broadband set to become the norm, this will change the way both individuals and businesses interact with the web.

By 2012, 40% of the UK will have access to high-speed fibre-optic broadband, with many parts already enjoying the benefits of super fast surfing. You can actually check online to see if your area is already covered – if it isn’t, you can still be getting up to 20mbps which is still more than enough for many homes and businesses.



But when fibre-optic does become the norm, data transfer rates of up to 40mbps will be widespread and this will be of particular benefit to businesses, where the need for speed is of paramount importance.



Super fast broadband will enable double the bandwidth for downloads and up to ten times faster speeds for uploads, meaning that sharing large files and video conferencing in HD will become standard.



And given that we’re seeing a gradual shift away from the desktop into the ‘cloud’, fast web access will be vital. Google Docs and other similar virtual tools are helping many businesses cut costs and enhance collaboration, whilst many CRM tools, accountancy packages and even virtual hard drives are moving from away from being locally-hosted. Super fast broadband for business will go a long way towards facilitating this migration into the cloud.



Ultimately, faster broadband means multiple tasks can be completed simultaneously. So businesses can be downloading, uploading and browsing the web all at once, without any noticeable effect on the speed.



We’ve come a long way since the dawdling days of dial-up, and with the fibre-optic revolution in full swing, things are only going to get better.