Since businesses and consumers have very different functions, it follows that their Internet connection needs wouldn’t be the same either. DSL is a viable option for both businesses and consumers. However there is a broad range of services that DSL offers. Fortunately, DSL is not a one size fits all type of deal. Instead, options are customizable depending on your needs.
Consumer Internet Uses
Anybody who has an Internet connection at home- which at this point is most people in North America- knows what consumer Internet needs are. These are the activities that you do on the Internet on a daily basis. Some activities are common among all users such as checking your email or Facebook account. These days, most people also download music from sites like iTunes, or watch movies on YouTube.
Since the majority of consumers are using the Internet for downloading music, videos and other multi-media, they need to have the bandwidth to support this. High bandwidth and high transfer rates are essential to making the consumer Internet experience successful.
Rarely do consumers use the Internet for uploading. Yes, occasionally people will upload their photos to Flickr or make a video of themselves singing along to their favorite song on YouTube. But generally speaking, consumers don’t upload data nearly as much as they download it.
Consumer Internet
DSL providers have come up with a way to give consumers exactly what they need without wasting bandwidth by giving them more than they will actually use. Since consumers download more than they upload, it makes sense that they would have more download bandwidth than upload bandwidth. This is where ADSL comes in.
ADSL stands for Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line. The asymmetrical part of ADSL is that the download and upload bandwidths and transfer rates are not equal- they’re asymmetrical. Download rates are around 8 Mbit/s whereas upload speeds are only 1 Mbit/s. This difference accounts for the fact that most consumers download far more than they upload. So instead of wasting space on something consumers don’t use, DSL providers give them more of what they do use.
Business Internet Uses
Businesses, whether they are small, medium-sized or huge corporations use more bandwidth than consumers. Hence, their Internet needs vary greatly from that of the consumer. Since businesses are doing business, they need to interact with their customers and therefore need to be able to upload information. Web sites become a gateway for businesses to interact with their clients.
On a daily basis businesses will upload forms, movies, pictures, data, articles and everything else that has to do with their business. Depending on the size of the business, this can amount to a lot of information uploaded every single day.
Like consumers, businesses are also downloading tons of information. In order to keep in contact with clients they need to have access to their information. This may be as simple as online form, or it may be more complicated like downloading entire presentations or video conferences from another branch. Whatever the use is, businesses need just as much bandwidth and speed for uploading as they do for downloading.
Business Internet
With their needs being so different, it wouldn’t make sense for businesses to have the same type of DSL services that consumers use. To meet the demands of businesses that need large bandwidth for both downloading and uploading, DSL providers have come up with SDSL.
SDSL is another form of DSL, where the ‘S’ stands for Symmetrical. Instead of having different upload and download transfer rates as with ADSL, SDSL offers transfer rates that are the same for both uploading and downloading. In this way, SDSL caters to the need for businesses to both upload and download at high rates.
No matter what your needs, if you’re a consumer just wanting to watch some funny videos on YouTube, or if you run a business that needs to upload information every day, there is a DSL service that is right for you.
By: Saleh Tousi
Posts Tagged ‘Email’
Business Vs Consumer Internet – One Size Doesn’t Fit All
January 27th, 2010Is Choosing an Internet Provider Important?
December 24th, 2009
Is choosing an Internet Service Provider an important decision? It is to the service providers all vying for your business. That is why they come up with special package deals and business or personal packages ideally suited to accommodate your needs. That is why they spend so much money on advertising and marketing, to try and attract you to their side. The decision is of the utmost importance to them indeed.
But is it important to you? It is if you like to shop around and get value for your money or if you have specific needs and are looking for a specific package. It is if you want to take advantage of a specific deal or special offer from a specific provider. It is if you have had previous good or bad experiences with providers or have heard of people who have had good or bad experiences with specific providers. It is if quality of service is important to you because all things being equal in the world of business and customer service, not all companies offer their customers service of the same high quality.
What do you look out for? That depends on your requirements and whether you have business or personal needs. Your first concern more than likely will be the connection, will it be reliable and resilient and will the broadband be clean and fast? There is very little worse than a dodgy connection that hangs up on you every ten to fifteen minutes out of temperamental spite or that shuts down if you open up more than three pages at a time or that works at a snail’s pace. In fact snails would probably make it across your office floor and be half way back before you’ve managed to open a page.
Second, perhaps, is security. Do they offer protection from spyware, spam, viruses and hackers? There is a company that offers 100% protection against known and unknown viruses, spam and spyware. Now that is confidence. Who wouldn’t want that kind of guarantee backing them up?
The ability to communicate effectively and manage your email might be another concern. Most service providers either provide an email management system or work in conjunction with an already existing system. A lot of service providers work in conjunction with Microsoft Outlook. Outlook can be configured and personalised to reflect your business and personal needs. Outlook can also be set up for intranet for inter-office communication as well as Internet so that you can communicate globally.
If you’re a business you might be concerned about an extension to the office for your employees to enable them to work from home or while they’re traveling or visiting clients or whatever the case maybe, in order to increase mobility. You would like that connection to be as secure and reliable as the regular office connection. They should be able to connect up anytime and anywhere with confidence.
Even though you have to pay for a good service provider, the advantages of having one should pay for themselves. They include a reduction in costs in support overheads and removing problems involved with running an in-house solution. The costs themselves should be in the form of an all inclusive fixed monthly fee so that you know exactly what you are paying for every month and the payment can be easily arranged e.g. debit order.
So to answer the question we asked right at the beginning, “Is choosing an Internet Service Provider an important decision?”: Yes it is. It is very important if you run a business or have very specific personal needs. There are more than likely package deals out there that will seem tailor made for you if you just shop around a little and do a little research. Many people however, go with the flashiest adverts because they remember them, or the ones that advertised the latest sale. People like that are a marketers dream because they are the most easily influenced. Not too sure how the service providers feel about that though.
By: Sandy Cosser
Dial Up Service Providers Still Have Their Place
December 14th, 2009
Do you know that that dial up service providers still exist? Well, it’s certainly difficult to believe that they are still around because most people have made the switch to cable high-speed Internet. Modern technology has really come along way. You can now even roam throughout your house with just a 12 inch Mac in hand. This pure technology that weights only three pounds is probably one of the coolest machines to date.
Do you own anything that can actually do more or accomplish more tasks than a computer? I seriously doubt there is anything that can surpass PCs and Macs in this regard. You can take care of your bills, your banking, order a pizza, chat with friends, do all of you shopping, arrange a trip, plan a dental appointment, schedule an oil change, and just plain surf the web for current events with a contemporary computer. This ultimate machine is utterly phenomenal. In fact, I don’t think I could live without it now.
Can you still recall the dial up service providers? If you can, then you are probably familiar with AOL. I bet that you have tried the service of this dial up service provider at some point in your life. There’s also a good chance that your memories with AOL are not very memorable. In my case, I ended up getting kicked off line every time I would log on by dialing in. This can be very irritating when you are in the middle of some long and drawn out email to a buddy or relative.
I can suddenly discover that I’m offline after writing about three paragraphs. This means that I have to dial back in. You are actually lucky half the time if you could dial back in with those old-school dial up service providers. There are times that they were so busy that there was no room for me to dial back in. This was very irritating if you had some research to do for a school project or something. I simply blamed the dial up service providers if I received a bad grade.
I guess it’s not a very big deal if you are still taking advantage of dial up service providers. I personally could not endure that annoying screeching sound and waiting 2 years for a page to open up. My older sister has to deal with dial up service providers again due to his rural location. It’s an easy guess that she hates it.
By: Morgan Hamilton