Posted: 04th Dec, 2007 By: MarkJ
ISP
UK Online has reported that the speed of supply is actually the least important factor for small businesses when choosing a broadband supplier. The providers survey revealed that broadband service and reliability top the requirements, not speed:
Respondents, most of whom were sole traders or the owners of small businesses, considered reliability to be the most important factor, with service coming a close second, followed by value and price.
Although 75% of the researchs respondents said that they rely upon the Internet for the success and growth of their business, connection speed was still not viewed as essential. However, the fact that nearly 70% of businesses said they used the Internet for emailing suggests that, when it comes to business communications, security is as important as speed.
Steven Malpass, who runs a Stoke-on-Trent based kit car production company, Blitzworld explains why a reliable broadband service is so critical to his business, Over 60% of our business is done online, and by moving to broadband it now takes us a quarter of the time to manage and respond to the 20 to 30 email and web orders and enquiries we receive daily. As such, speed is a nice to have but reliability of the service is essential.
UK Onlines study may add a small degree of weight to those that do not yet see a need for even faster next generation broadband networks. Then again, small businesses arent the group most likely to be using IPTV or online multimedia services.