Replacement For ADSL Broadband

We’re currently running fully managed ADSL 8mb Max Premium broadband connections at our two branches.  The problem with this is that ADSL is asynchronous, the download bandwidth being around 7mb and the upload bandwidth being around 700k.  We are finding that the 700k upload bandwidth is too small for sharing data between the branches, as the speed is then limited to the upload connection - 700k.

Today I had a meeting with a telecoms expert to advise us on our options, which seem to be:

So the cheapest solution, SDSL, which actually would reduce our download bandwidth, would still cost three times what we are currently paying, and we would need to pay six times what we are currently paying, in order to get the service that we need.

Other options that we could consider are:

For example, we could double our costs by purchasing two separate ADSL lines, and bonding such that the download bandwidth became 14mb with a 1.4mb upload bandwidth.  But is bonding reliable?  Our telecoms expert could not remember a successful example of ADSL bonding, i.e. where the customer didn’t end up ditching the solution after a short time.  Is that true do you think?

Ideally I would upgrade our connection for something that gave us 20mb+ download and 2mb upload.  Hmm, what about Virginmedia . . .

Virginmedia offers a 20mb connection for £50pm, but with an upload bandwidth of just 1mb, this wouldn’t actually address our main problem.

So it does seem as if there is no cost-effective solution, and the price gap between ADSL and Leased Lines seems very large - an additional £10,000pa for our business.

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