Which connection type is right for your business
Five connection types weighed against what an outage costs you, what your upload has to carry, and whether you need a repair commitment in writing.
What breaks if your connection goes down?
Pick your connection by what stops working when the internet drops. If a couple of hours offline is an inconvenience, shared broadband is the sensible, cheaper answer. If it costs you orders, calls, or payments, you want a dedicated line with a guaranteed speed and a repair commitment in writing.
What is actually on offer
| Type | How it behaves | Usually right for |
|---|---|---|
| Cable broadband | Fast download, much slower upload, shared with other buildings nearby. Speeds are "up to". | Small offices, retail, anywhere a short outage is survivable |
| Fiber broadband | Often symmetrical, more consistent than cable, still a shared best-effort product. | Offices of any size that want speed without the dedicated price |
| Dedicated internet | Symmetrical, not shared, the full speed is guaranteed and backed by an SLA. | Anything where downtime costs money — payments, VoIP, remote sites |
| Fixed wireless | Delivered over the air. Quick to install where fiber is not built. | Buildings with no wired option, or a backup line |
| Cellular or satellite | Slower and more variable, but works almost anywhere. | Temporary sites, backup, remote locations |
How to decide in two minutes
Name what breaks
List what stops if the line goes down: card payments, phones, cloud software, shipping. That list is your requirement.
Check your upload
Video calls, cloud backup and hosted phones all push data out. Cable upload is often a tenth of the download speed, and that is usually what people feel.
Decide whether you need a promise
Broadband is best-effort. Dedicated service comes with an uptime guarantee and a target repair time. If you need one, you need dedicated.
Then compare price
Only compare like for like. A cheap best-effort plan and a guaranteed one are not the same product.
What to ignore
- Headline download speed, if nobody in the building is moving large files
- Consumer plans at a business address, which rarely come with any repair commitment
- Bundled extras you will not use, which make two quotes look closer than they are
If you are comparing plans on Telecom.live™, each one shows whether it is dedicated or shared and what SLA comes with it, so the difference is visible before you order.
Last reviewed September 14, 2026
