Business internet providers offer high speed reliable internet suitable for business operations. Some of the top business internet providers in US include Verizon, Spectrum, Viasat, Frontier, and AT&T internet services.
Business ISPs also offer wide range of plans to choose, depending upon the speed and cost that they offer.
How to Choose Your Business ISP?
There are many significant features provided by the top business Internet Service Providers. But choosing the best one for your business depends on your requirements like the speed, budget, and others.
Choosing the Technology
Business ISPs operate based on technologies like cable, DSL, fiber optics, and satellite.
The cable service providers use the cables for data transfer. Its speed is higher than that of the DSL technology, which uses the phone lines.
But DSL technology is also able to provide a reliable high speed internet for business operations.
The fiber optic technology, which is a new entrant is capable of providing the fastest internet service.
Satellite technology is also used by the providers for providing business internet. Satellite technology exists even in rural areas, where other types of technologies don’t work out.
So, depending upon the availability of the type of technology in your area and the speed that is required for your business, you can choose the internet technology as well as your ISP.
Pricing and Speed
Business ISPs provide a wide range of plans to choose based on your budget and speed requirement. There are providers who provide cheap internet service for small business organizations, but the speed would be low to nominal for cheaper plans.
When you have to download more number of videos and files, conduct webinars or video based trainings, you might require high speed internet.
Best internet service networks provide high speed internet for such heavy business internet usage. But, such high speed business plans would be slightly costlier, as internet prices increase with speed.
Provider | Starting Price | Maximum Download Speed |
---|---|---|
Verizon | $39.99 | 940 Mbps |
AT&T | $39.99 | 1000 Mbps |
Spectrum | $59.99 | 300 Mbps |
Viasat | $175 | 100 Mbps |
Frontier | $19.99 | 150 Mbps |
Comcast | $65 | 1000 Mbps |
Reliability
If there is no consistency in internet, you would face lot of problems in your business. So, it is important to have a reliable internet connection for your business operations, in spite of having a high speed.
Reliability of internet depends on time during which you can be up online and also on the latency. Let us take a quick look at the reliability and latency guarantees that the top providers are able to provide for your business.
Provider | Latency Guarantee | Reliability Guarantee |
---|---|---|
Verizon | 45 ms | 99.95% |
AT&T | 40 ms | 99.90% |
Spectrum | N/A | 99.90% |
Viasat | N/A | N/A |
Frontier | N/A | 99.90% |
Comcast | N/A | 99.998% |
Contracts and Other Fees
Many top business internet providers require the business organizations to sign a contract period which ranges between 0 to 2 years. But, signing in a contract also has advantages like price guarantee.
So, it is always good to check for price guarantee during the lock-in period and then select your provider so that you may not experience any sudden hikes during the contract period.
Business ISPs also provide a trial period to decide upon whether the service suits you. The ISPs also charge for installation and activation of your internet service. But, you can avail a cheap internet service for your business, which suits your budget by comparing the below chart.
Provider | Contract Period | Trial Period | Price Guarantee Period | Installation Fees |
---|---|---|---|---|
Verizon DSL | 24 months | 30 days | 12 months | $50 |
Verizon Fiber | 24 months | 30 days | 12 months | $99 |
AT&T DSL | 12 months | 30 days | 12 months | $200 |
AT&T Fiber | None | 30 days | 24 months | $99 |
Spectrum | None | 30 days | 12 months | $99 |
Viasat | 24 months | None | 24 months | $300 |
Comcast | 24 months | 30 days | 36 months | None |
Frontier | 12 months | None | 36 months | None |
Customer Service
Top business internet providers offer an expert customer service and technical support, as the business organizations do not want their internet services to be disturbed.
The Service Level Agreements (SLA), which exist for business internet providers help the business organizations to obtain a good customer support for their businesses.
The reputed providers offer a good technical support as well to the business firms. This helps the business organizations to use their internet in an effective and useful way.
Coverage
When you try to opt for business internet, you need to check which business internet provider is available in your locality. Only then, you can choose your provider.
Satellite internet providers are present throughout US. For other types of providers, coverage aspects need to be checked.
Reputed providers are continuously focusing on improving their coverage in US, so that you may not face difficulties when you move your business locations. You can easily opt for the same provider, whom you were using before.
Business Bundles and Packages
You can get cheap internet service packages which are bundled with business phone services. These bundle packages are useful to your business operations.
In spite of having bundle packages available at cheaper prices, they can also be handled easily with a single bill.
An Overview of Few Best Business Internet Providers
Depending on the technology available in your area, you can choose the best provider based on your needs. It is dependent on the speed, cost, reliability, and other factors that you require.
Verizon: Verizon is much suitable for business operations. It uses both DSL and fiber optic technology to provide a reliable high speed internet.
DSL Speed | 1 Mbps to 15 Mbps |
Fiber Speed | 75 Mbps to 940 Mbps |
DSL Price | $39.99 to $64.99 per month |
Fiber Price | $84.99 to $214.99 per month |
As Verizon has both DSL and fiber optic technology, depending upon the availability of technology in your area, you can choose the speed and pricing as per your requirement.
Verizon is able to provide the advertised speed that makes it suitable for business organizations. It is also able to provide more or less the same upload and download speed.
As the speed of internet is more and has a good upload and download speed, you can organize webinars, provide video training sessions, perform extended video streaming activities, and upload and download files and videos.
Verizon also ranks well in its customer service. Its customer service representatives provide 24/7 expert service to all its customers and has ranked the top in the surveys conducted during the years 2016, 2017, and 2018.
But, the Verizon DSL speeds are low and the price seems to be high compared to the speeds provided. But, with fiber technology, it is able to provide the required speed. On the whole, with Verizon, you can do your business operations smoothly.
AT&T:
AT&T has wide range of business plans offering high speed internet through its DSL and fiber technologies. There are gigabit plans available for providing the high speed required for your business.
DSL Speed | 25 Mbps to 500 Mbps |
Fiber Speed | 25 Mbps to 1000 Mbps |
DSL Price | $60 to $300 per month |
Fiber Price | $60 to $650 per month |
AT&T provides an excellent customer service. You can get answers for all your queries through the customer support representatives of AT&T. You can also get your issues resolved, if any, through your customer service representatives. It has a good ranking in its customer service during the years 2015 and 2016.
The business plans of AT&T offer almost the same upload and download speeds with which you can do several operations requiring uploading of heavy files and videos.
Your business would require many devices and systems connected to a single connection. AT&T provides a good reliability and speed even on connecting many devices with its Business fiber 1000 plan.
Thus, AT&T allows all your employees to stay connected with a business internet connection and perform all online activities smoothly.
AT&T internet services also provide facilities for cloud storage, unlimited usage of data, and many more for the business plans offered, which can be useful to your business.
Spectrum:
Spectrum provides many business plans with which you can effectively conduct your business. At the same time, spectrum also offers contract free affordable plans. This helps you to keep your budget on the mark.
Speed | 60 Mbps to 940 Mbps |
Pricing | $59.99 to $249.99 per month |
Spectrum uses TV cables for internet. So, it is able to give a good speed compared to the DSL technology. For a price range of 60 Mbps speed, you can get affordable reliable internet service at $59.99, which would be worthy to invest.
In spite of the contract-free plans, it is also able to provide a price guarantee for a year, which is actually a gift to the customers. As the prices are affordable and the prices would remain the same for a year, the customers would not face difficulty in business operations.
Web hosting, cloud storage, and Wi-Fi are the other add-ons provided by Spectrum, which would hold good for your business operations.
Frontier:
Frontier uses both DSL and fiber technology to expand its coverage in US. But, the significance of Frontier is that the plans have a wider range of budget, making it suitable for even small sized business organizations.
DSL Speed | 7 Mbps to 40 Mbps |
Fiber Speed | 25 Mbps to 150 Mbps |
DSL Price | $19.99 to $139.99 per month |
Fiber Price | $20 to $194.99 per month |
With Frontier, you can see that there are plans available at low prices starting from $19.99. Though the speed range is low for this price, you can do mild activities online. This would be suitable for small business organizations with lesser number of employees.
If you have a requirement of high speed internet for performing extensive online activities, you can opt for fiber internet whose budget is slightly high. This might be suitable for your mid-sized business operations.
Though Frontier is not on the top of the list of ISPs, it does have a good customer support capability. It is one among those having a good customer service ranking with millions of satisfied business customers.
Comcast:
Comcast is one of the best internet service providers providing a reliable internet access for your business to run smoothly. Comcast uses cable technology to provide internet.
Speed Range | 25 Mbps to 1 Gbps |
Price Range | $69.95 to $499.95 |
For business operations, Comcast provides static IP, which would be very useful for your business operations. It also provides a free trial period, which allows the customers to try the business plans of Comcast and then stick on to it, once they like it. There is a money-back guarantee for the trial period as well.
They also provide free installation and a good customer service for the business internet plans of Comcast. There are also bundle options to save money and to help you out in dealing with a single provider for internet, TV, and phone services.
Wi-Fi services are included for the business plans. It also has no data caps with more or less same upload and download speeds, making it very much suitable for your business.
Business Internet in Rural Areas
Fiber optics, cable, and DSL providers are expanding their operations in US. At the same time, satellite internet has already established its internet services in all the states of US including rural areas.
If you are running your business in some rural area, even if you don’t have other types of service there, you can be sure to get satellite internet service.
Satellite providers like Hughesnet and Viasat are the two best satellite providers in the US, who provide business internet. Their speed ranges are low compared to other types of internet services. It is also disadvantageous that they have data caps.
Though the satellite providers are a bit costlier, they provide reliable internet service suitable to your business needs.
Conclusion
Business internet has its own advantages which help the business organizations grow. The advantages include SLAs, static IPs, high speed, and bandwidth.
Their prices vary as per your requirements like speed, availability, and other factors. Based upon your business requirements, you can choose one of the reputed business internet providers.