Choosing the right broadband plan and provider is an incredibly important business decision. Some plans simply aren’t suitable for businesses needing consistent speed and rock-solid reliability.
NBN Co. offer three wholesale traffic classes to phone and internet service providers that these resellers use to create packages to sell to households and businesses. Each class has different capabilities and support.
THE THREE TRAFFIC CLASSES ARE:
- Traffic Class 1 (TC1) – primarily used to support Voice over IP (VoIP)
- Traffic Class 2 (TC2) – designed to provide access to high performance data for applications and services needing consistent download and upload speeds; such as video conferencing and critical cloud services. TC2 also offers low latency, jitter and loss characteristics.
- Traffic Class 4 (TC4) – primarily for general internet and standard data services, including residential connections. Upload speed is significantly slower than download speed, and latency, jitter and loss is higher.
When you're seeking a business grade service, delivered over the NBN, do you know what traffic class you are being quoted?
TC4’S “BEST EFFORT” MAY NOT BE GOOD ENOUGH
When considering using TC4 for business purposes, what is the potential impact to your business if your connection drops out? For many businesses, this is definitely not okay. Having your connection down can mean a loss of productivity, customers and revenue.
A major drawback of services based on TC4 traffic class is they are “best effort”. Your speeds aren’t guaranteed and if you run into problems, getting support and a resolution may take longer.
Using a TC4 based plan may also limit activities due to the difference between upload and download speeds. For example, video conferencing where multiple staff members are participating concurrently could be problematic.
None of this is ideal for businesses. A TC2 traffic class based NBN service is the logical choice for commercial ventures that demand guaranteed and symmetric speed (upload as fast as download), reliability and support. But these TC2 traffic class services are far more expensive than their TC4 equivalent.
However, while making up the vast majority of internet service providers in Australia, NBN resellers are not the only show in town for full-strength enterprise-grade broadband services.
THE LIGHTNING BROADBAND DIFFERENCE FOR BUSINESS
The first very important point distinguishing Lightning Broadband’s business internet services from all NBN resellers is we’re not part of the NBN. We have our own low-latency direct fibre and hybrid 5G wireless + fibre broadband technology infrastructure. Because it’s our own network, unlike NBN resellers the buck stops with us. In other words, it’s very much in our interests to ensure ongoing superb reliability and stellar performance.
FAST, ROBUST – AND CHEAPER
Lightning Broadband provides custom enterprise plans with symmetrical speeds of up to 500Mbps/500Mbps for fixed wireless links, and 1000Mbps/1000Mbps for direct fibre. These speeds are guaranteed along with defined latency, jitter and loss.
The superior level of performance we offer doesn’t mean pricier. When comparing to similar enterprise plans from other providers based on TC2 (and even some TC4 services) you’ll find Lightning Broadband to be very competitive.
Added to all this is our ability to install rapidly – within two weeks and even faster if required. Lightning Broadband also offers very flexible and shorter contract terms than other providers, and we tailor plans to suit your specific requirements rather than try to put you in a one-size-fits-all type box.
Finally, we ensure superior customer experience end to end; all backed by our industry-leading service level agreement (SLA).
