We know that a lot of businesses across the UK struggle with slow internet speeds. So we've complied a list of the top 15 tips for improving your business internet speed.
1. Shop around for different deals
The first step you should take to help speed up your business internet is to shop around for different broadband deals. With so many on the market, you might find that you can upgrade at a price that suits you.
We know that shopping around is quite tedious, especially for a busy business. As an independent provider, we can shop around for you—to find your business the best broadband deal at the best price. Get in touch for a full analysis of your broadband and to let our of our account managers find you the best deal.
2. Reset your network
Resetting your businesses internet network is a great way to ‘blow away the cobwebs’. By resetting your network, you can remove old devices, change your password to keep things secure, and ensure that your network is fully optimised.
While this may not have a dramatic impact on your business internet speed, it is good network housekeeping and may provide a slight speed increase, particularly if you haven’t done this in a while.
3. Find out if you have fibre available
Fibre broadband is being rolled out across the UK at lightning speeds. With an already 98% coverage, it is quite likely that your business will have access to fibre broadband. If you’re unsure, one of our team would be happy to run a coverage check for your business.
If you do have fibre broadband available, this is one of the best ways you can speed up your businesses internet connection. With average speeds ranging from 40 - 120mbps, it is significantly faster than traditional ADSL (copper) internet.
4. Limit bandwidth
By limiting bandwidth between devices, you can share your broadband load more equally among devices. Each device connected to a network has its own ‘draw’ on the network. If you have a particularly heavy user, they may be clogging the network with lots of traffic, therefore slowing down the connection for other user.
Limiting bandwidth per device ensures that everyone gets a fair connection, and that no single devise is hogging all of the
5. Upgrade your equipment
If you’ve been using the same hardware for a long time, upgrading your equipment may be a good way to speed up your internet. Often things like routers, modems, POE switches and other networking equipment can get old and prohibit you from getting the most from your business broadband.
Upgrading is often a quite low cost way of speeding up your broadband without installing a completely new broadband line and the associated contracts.
6. Invest in a leased line
A leased line is the best, fastest and most reliable form of business internet connectivity. They offer insane speeds up to 10Gbps download and upload. They’re seriously powerful and have no geographic restrictions, which means that you can install a leased line wherever you are.
Of course, they are not the cheapest option, but if your business relies heavily on broadband, then they are often very cost effective as they save your team lots of time and increase your efficiency. Leased lines also have a 99.99% uptime, which makes them one of the most reliable forms of broadband connectivity.
Out of all the options on this list, a leased line is by far the uptime option. They can guarantee hyper-fast broadband speeds and can be installed anywhere in the UK (even if you don’t have fibre optic availability).
7. Install a full WiFi network
Most smaller offices use a single router and possibly a WiFi extender to connect all of their employees to the internet. However, a better and more robust solution is a full WiFi network. WiFi networks ensure that the bandwidth is equal amongst locations, and helps to provide a more seamless WiFi environment.
A WiFi network is going to be much more efficient than a standard router and extender. Having a fully efficient WiFi network can improve your speed by reducing hardware latency and providing a strong signal to all of your devices. WiFi networks can be complex beasts, so we’re here to guide you and find a solution that’s right for your location and office size.
8. Upgrade to 4G WiFi
Many people consider 4G to be mobile only—but this is not the case. 4G WiFi can provide very reliable internet connectivity to businesses. Using 4G is a great way to speed up your business internet and is a brilliant replacement for fixed line broadband. 4G WiFi can be particularly helpful if your business doesn’t have capability for a fibre broadband line.
We’ve seen speeds in excess of 50Mbps using our 4G WiFi solution. With the UK’s 4G network growing by the day, coverage is exceptional and speeds are good across the UK. Often, businesses choose to run our 4G WiFi solution alongside their broadband connection, to help lighten the load on their fixed line.
9. Switch to wired connections
We all know that WiFi is the most practical and easy form of broadband connectivity. But using WiFi does have its drawbacks. If you’re far away from your router, or your router is obscured then this can impact on your browsing.
Changing your network to a wired connection can have a very positive benefit on your browsing experience. By increasing the speed and reducing the latency, you can help improve your efficiency and reduce buffering.
10. Find a voucher scheme
The UK Government are very keen to install fibre broadband in every property across the UK. However, there are a handful of businesses that don’t yet have access to this fibre network yet. That’s why the Government introduced the Gigabit voucher scheme.
Using the voucher scheme, broadband provides (like ourselves) are able to provide reduced cost fibre optic circuits to businesses who don’t have fibre availability. This voucher can be up to £2,500. For more information about how you can apply, get in touch.
11. Upgrade your cabling
Another great way to increase your businesses internet speed is to upgrade your broadband cabling. Poor quality, unreliable or old cabling can cause choke points in your businesses broadband network.
Most bottleneck’s are caused by poor quality cabling that slows traffic from your fixed line into your router. Upgrading this can be a very low cost way of speeding up your business broadband.
12. Let us advise you
We know that every business is different, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for speeding up your business internet. However, we’re here to help. One of our friendly team will be able to advise you what options are available to your business and which would be best suited to you.
No obligations, no sales talk, just good honest advise from one of our professional team. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses upgrade their communications, and we’ve got years of experience that your business can benefit from.
13. Find out about 5G in your area
The insane speeds that 5G is capable of means that it might well be a great alternative to fixed line broadband. Although 5G is currently not widely available, the main UK networks are rolling it out thick and fast.
From millimetre wave to wide band 5G, the rollout will soon provide lots more areas with 5G capabilities. Using a 5G router and SIM, you could provide your business with speeds even faster than standard fibre broadband.
14. Survey your premises
A simple way to help speed up your broadband is to do a WiFi survey. Apps such as Netspot are a great way to map our your premises and find out any WiFi blackspot. By doing a full WiFi survey, you can diagnose any problems and work out how to improve your WiFi speed.
Once you’ve completed your WiFi survey, you can make adjustments to your router positioning, helping to reduce those blackspots and improve the WiFi availability for everyone in the office. While surveying your premises is not going to transform your speeds, it is free and is a good way to minimise any latency and, when coupled with a few of our other suggestions, makes for an improved network.
15. Install another broadband line
Most businesses only have a single broadband line. While this is suitable if you have a good enough speed, if you’re struggling with yours, then installing another broadband line may be a good option.
Typically, we would only recommend this if you have no fibre broadband availability in your area. Dual broadband lines provide double the bandwidth to help spread the load of each line. Sharing this load can decrease latency and help improve your broadband. A common application of this is to have a broadband line running one part of your premises, and then a separate one running another part.
Hopefully these 15 tips can help you speed up your businesses broadband and internet speed. We know that each business is different, so if you’re struggling with broadband connectivity, get in touch with our team and we can discuss which options are available to you and do our best to improve your internet speed at the best possible price.
