Working from home: broadband guide
Do I need a broadband business package?
This will really depend on your needs. If you are running a business that has more than five employees then you should really choose a dedicated business broadband connection.
Business broadband costs more money and for the higher price you’ll get bigger capacity, better security and connection guarantees. There will be a dedicated team who prioritise you for minimal disruption if anything goes wrong.
But if it’s just seamless speeds and connection, without the need to keep an entire business network connected, a good regular home broadband plan should be fine for your home office.
Broadband speeds for your home office
Before picking your package, consider:
- The number of other people at home also using the internet
- The type of internet usage
- The number of devices using internet
If you are doing lots of video calls and meetings, the bandwidth requirements increase the more people are involved in the call. Group conference calls need faster speeds. And a job that requires you downloading or uploading large files will also eat into your speed and bandwidth.
We’d recommend picking packages of 49Mbps and over to avoid slow downloads or painful buffering moments.
This guide shows you what speeds you need for most internet-based tasks. Just add up how many people do each task daily, calculate the total and you'll have a customised internet speed total for your house.
Choose full fibre if available
Full fibre gives you the fastest broadband speed possible. This technology relies entirely on fibre optic cables that run from the broadband exchange to your property, which is also why they can be known as ‘fibre to the premises’ (FTTP). There’s no need for anything in between. Using this technique it is possible to get speeds exceeding 1,000Mbps (1Gbps). Issues like buffering and outages will become a thing of the past with full fibre.
This equipment is future-proofing businesses and homes because, once installed, there won’t be the need to invest in new broadband cables for decades. At the time of this article, full fibre is available to just over 60% of UK homes.
If a package is advertised as being around 38Mbps or 65Mbps, this will be ‘standard fibre’ rather than ‘full fibre’. These might be okay for your needs, but definitely look to full fibre (100Mbps plus) if it is available as this will deliver a much better service.
Does your home have access to full fibre yet? Find out with our postcode finder and then discover what are the best packages with fast fibre connections.
Is my current broadband good enough?
If you are already working from home, you’ll have a good idea of whether or not your broadband is doing the job. But if you are about to start working remotely or even have a change of role which will involve more internet-heavy tasks, you might want to run a speed test and see what download and upload speeds you have with your current broadband deal.
Make some video calls and download or send large size files to make sure your software will be okay with these. If you don’t think your broadband will be suitable, it might be time to search for a faster broadband deal.
Make improvements to your home office connection
It could be that you don’t need a whole new broadband package to make your remote working smoother. Some extra bits of hardware might just do the job.
Wi-Fi boosters
There’s a catch with Wi-Fi – its radio signals get weaker and more distorted the further you travel from the router’s antennas. Building materials such as concrete and brick also have a negative impact. So if your home office is further away from the router and in the loft room or garden, you might be experiencing slower speeds.
This can often be solved with Wi-Fi boosters – also know as Wi-Fi extenders – to strengthen and spread the signal through. These easy-to-use solutions simply plug into any mains and help boost the signal in parts further away from the router. These cost anywhere between £20 and £100 and don’t necessarily have to be purchased from your provider, there are plenty of Wi-Fi boosters on Amazon that work just as well.
BT Complete Wi-Fi
BT offers a service called Complete Wi-Fi. It will make sure you can get a reliable internet connection in every room or a £100 money-back guarantee. This add-on service offers gives you an extra upgraded router that connects to the main broadband hub, plus up to three extra pods (mesh router extenders), which all help the signal to go faster and further.
Sky WiFi Max
Sky has an add-on service that guarantees a minimum speed (of 10Mbps or 25Mbps depending on your plan) WiFi in every room, or your money back. You’ll get a new router (the Sky Max Hub) and up to three Sky Wifi Pods (mesh router extenders) to reach the parts your router alone cannot. If you need an engineer to visit to help you setup or improve your network, this comes free of charge.