Some businesses are still using T1 lines, while others have moved on to broadband. Now, there’s wideband, which will allow business users to download data at up to 50 Mbps per second, says Taylor Nipper, director of marketing at Comcast.
“With the faster speeds available through a wideband connection, you’ll spend less time waiting and more time being productive,” Nipper says.
Smart Business spoke with Nipper about how using a wideband service can cut costs and send productivity soaring.
What are the benefits of wideband over broadband and DSL?
First and foremost is the download and upload speed capabilities. A full T1 is 1.5 Mbps, DSL is typically 3 Mbps, and the typical business broadband is 12 MG per second. But with wideband technology, businesses can download files at up to 50 Mbps and upload at 10 Mbps. That’s more than 30 times faster than a T1 line, which is traditionally the phone company’s fastest pipe.
A lot of businesses have historically used a T1 connection for the Internet because it was the fastest available, then broadband came along and offered a faster pipe, but until recently, it was capped out at 6 MB to 12 MB. Now, with the new wideband technology, that throughput can be increased to 50 Mbps and, in the future, will have the capability of increasing to 100 Mbps. The new technology uses channel bundling, which allocates more channel space for the downstream and upstream. Internet over cable uses spectrum, and there are more channels allocated for the Internet.
How can wideband grow with a business?
The advantage of wideband technology over a traditional T1 line or DSL is that it is scalable and future-proof. With traditional phone company technology, you have to keep adding multiple T1 lines, which is infinitely more expensive than growing with a broadband or wideband connection and can require a long time to deploy.
With wideband, you aren’t physically adding lines. Because it’s through a cable modem device, that device can deliver multiple speeds depending on the service you subscribe to. There’s just one installation, and you could start out with 12 Mbps and, in the future, increase it as needed with a simple phone call to your provider.
