UPD Virgin Media and TalkTalk Launch New Business Broadband Packages

Both Virgin Media Business and TalkTalk Business have today launched a range of new broadband packages targeted at small and medium sized businesses, although both ISPs seems to be producing options that somewhat mirror their domestic services; albeit with only a few differences.

In TalkTalk’s case the ISP have also accompanied their packages with the output from a survey of “1000 small business owners“, which claims to have found that 59% are experiencing problems with their provider and so unsurprisingly only half of those surveyed feel they’re getting good value for money. But what are the new packages?

VMB’s Packages

Red Value
Speeds of up to 50Mbps
Unlimited usage and calls
£50 Installation
Included SuperHub router
24/7 Support
Included Phone Line
No Traffic Management between 8am and 6pm (Monday to Friday)
24 Month Contract

PRICE: from £50 +vat per month, first 2 months free.

Red Speed
As above, except..
Speeds of up to 152Mbps
Included SuperHub 2AC router

PRICE: from £60 +vat per month, first 2 months free.

Red Performance
As above, except..
“Dedicated” Symmetric speeds of 30-100Mbps
8 Channel ISDN
FREE Installation
6 hour Service Level Agreement (SLA)

PRICE: from £500 +vat per month, first 2 months free.

Naturally Virgin Media’s service makes full use of their DOCSIS based Hybrid Fibre Cable / FTTN platform, which tends to only be available in urban areas and is usually faster and more reliable than the rival FTTC solutions.

By comparison TalkTalk’s two new packages, Simply Broadband from £4 +vat a month and Complete Broadband from £10.50, appear to be more focused on the budget side of the market and are arguably even closer to their domestic solutions than VMBs packages.

TTB’s Packages

Simply Broadband (Business)
Speeds of up to 17Mbps (ADSL2+)
Totally Unlimited usage
Static IP Address
FREE Install
FREE Router
12 Month Contract

PRICE: from £4 +vat per month (plus £14.50 line rental)

Complete Broadband (Business)
As above, except..
Unlimited UK landline and mobile calls
24 Month Contract

PRICE: from £10.50 +vat per month (plus £14.50 line rental)

Customers of TTB’s service can also add 76Mbps capable “Superfast Fibre Broadband” (FTTC) from £15 extra per month. Unfortunately there’s no mention of any SLA or even whether Internet traffic will be prioritised for business customers. The lack of any speed commitment may not go down well with firms that often tend to seek a more assured level of performance.

Generally speaking we don’t tend to consider a broadband service to be a true “business” product unless there’s an SLA and traffic prioritisation, not to mention some allowance in the T&C’s for running web servers and other business style Internet systems.

UPDATE 23rd September 2014

One of TTB’s agents informs that their packages can be taken with an SLA if needed (you may have to enquire personally about this as the public details seem unclear) and business traffic does get some prioritisation on the network. In addition, TTB has 600 UK based customer advisors available 7 days a week.