Business internet vs residential internet — the critical difference
The most important decision when choosing business internet isn't the speed or price — it's whether the product is genuinely designed for business use. Many ISPs sell residential internet products to business customers, often at a slight premium, without explaining the fundamental differences.
Residential internet is a shared service. Your bandwidth is contested with every other subscriber on the same segment — and during peak hours (evenings, weekends), residential contention ratios can mean you receive a fraction of your subscribed speed. For a home streaming Netflix in the evening, this is tolerable. For a business relying on cloud systems, video calls and VoIP during working hours, it's completely inadequate.
What a real business internet product looks like
A genuine business internet product should include: uncontended (dedicated) bandwidth, symmetric upload and download speeds, a service level agreement (SLA) with uptime guarantees and service credits, static IP address options, and priority technical support with business response times.
If your current ISP contract doesn't include all of these, you're probably not on a true business product regardless of what it's being called.
Fibre vs fixed wireless for Cape Town businesses
Where fibre is available, it's our recommended product. It offers the lowest latency, the highest stability and no susceptibility to weather events. However, fibre isn't available everywhere in Cape Town — particularly in some business parks, industrial areas and newer developments.
Fixed wireless business internet is an excellent alternative. Modern licensed wireless links deliver symmetric business-grade speeds with low latency and high reliability. In some locations, fixed wireless is actually faster to install and can be deployed in days rather than weeks.
Always include LTE failover
Every business internet deployment should include an LTE failover router that automatically activates when the primary connection experiences an outage. The incremental cost is modest — typically R500–R1,500 per month — and the protection it provides is invaluable.
Questions to ask any ISP before signing
Before committing to any business internet product, ask: Is this an uncontended product? What is the uptime SLA and what are the service credits if it's breached? What is the response time for a critical fault? Can I get static IP addresses? What is the failover option? And critically: how long has this provider been operating?
The cheapest business internet product is never the right choice. The cost of a day's downtime will exceed the annual saving from a budget product within a year.