Business phone Guides

Business phone and broadband packages

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Switching your company’s phone and broadband services to a specially designed business package could really help make your business more efficient, as well as save you money. (Updated 18/2/10)

Having a broadband and phone bundle that’s tailored to your company’s needs could help with the running of any business, whether you’re self-employed and run your own business from home or have an office with 20 employees.

Not only can business packages cut down your company’s overheads, but added extras such as security software, international calls and free webspace are included with many business phone and broadband deals.

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Benefits of business phone and broadband bundles

Getting a specially designed package for your business’ phone and broadband can have a lot of advantages. While choosing a home phone package such as Primus Saver could get you cheaper line rental, a business phone and broadband deal will have numerous benefits that could help cut your costs for other services, helping with the running of your business.

The benefits below will help you decide whether switching is right for your company:

• Cheaper calls - Some business phone and broadband providers, such as Plusnet (0808 189 1403), offer low cost calls to mobiles and international landlines, while BT (0808 189 1332) offers its business customers 500 free minutes a month.
• Business phone numbers - Many providers, such as TalkTalk Business (0800 542 6900), let you create your own phone number for your business. Choosing your own number, either a freephone or local number, could help attract potential customers.
• Line installation - Getting more phone lines installed for your business can help you manage your calls effectively. Business broadband and phone providers often offer discounts on this, but it will depend on the amount of work needed to be done.
• Priority network access - Priority network access means that any uploading, downloading or traffic on your website will take priority over other things being sent over the same lines (such as home broadband users). Some suppliers also offer business customers a lower contention ratio. This means that you’ll be sharing your phone line with less people, helping improve your connection.
• Faster broadband - Many business phone and broadband bundle providers offer faster download speeds, and some even offer faster upload speeds, of up to 2.5Mb.
• Customer and tech support - Most suppliers offering broadband and phone packages for businesses give priority customer support and technical advice to help resolve any problems as quickly as possible - this will help your business run more efficiently.
• Unlimited downloads - Because businesses have different needs from consumers, such as running multiple PCs, backing up their servers and uploading files to their websites, some suppliers offer ”unlimited” downloads or have very generous download allowances.
• Static IP addresses - Some providers also offer businesses a static IP address, which will help you to connect to your office PC from home, and share files with colleagues and clients.
• Webspace and email addresses - While bigger companies might pay someone to run their email system and create their websites, smaller businesses can benefit from the .co.uk webspace and email addresses offered by many business phone and broadband providers.

Who offers business broadband and phone packages?

There are a number of business phone and broadband package providers, including BT, TalkTalk Business and Eclipse (0800 156 0516). The providers offer a range of different bundles and deals, so it’s important you compare prices and make sure you choose a deal that suits your business.

And if your company currently has a home phone and broadband deal, it is definitely worth comparing packages to see if switching to a business tariff would help reduce your company’s costs.

Use our business broadband and phone comparison service online, and see if you can find the right deal for your company.