A new report by commercial sector internet provider, Talktalk Business, claims that many UK small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) could potentially lose out on VoIP opportunities because they have inferior broadband connections.
According to the report, only 30% of SMEs across the UK enjoy business grade broadband capability, whilst the remainder are merely using cheaper domestic quality broadband connections.
The problem with domestic standard broadband, Talktalk Business advises, is that the former may not be able to cope with the higher levels of activity and sophisticated applications required for modern commercial usage.
As Andy Lockwood, Talktalk Business’s Transformation Director, explains frankly:
‘While being perfectly suited for all your online needs at home, domestic grade broadband is not designed to cope with the demands of running a business’.
The adoption of key value-added services such as business VoIP is one such area likely to suffer as a consequence of firms using domestic broadband.
This could put many companies at a financial disadvantage since VoIP enables businesses to bypass traditional business phone systems by allowing them to make all their telephone calls via the internet. When communicating with other VoIP-enabled firms all calls are free; and even when communicating with a conventional telephone user calls are still cheaper in comparison with traditional telephone to telephone communications.
As well as their possible inability to exploit the cost savings of business VoIP technologies, the report states that UK businesses relying on domestic broadband connectivity could also be losing £367 million through wasted labour costs as a result of the slower access and increased technical problems they often encounter when using domestic broadband connectivity.
Rather worryingly, the report also claims that over half the country’s SMEs are not even aware of the difference between business and domestic broadband connections.
