Business Internet Questions Answered

ISP coverage lookups are built from population data and assume residential coverage. Business connections — especially fiber and Ethernet — are often deployed building-by-building, not address-by-address. Your building might literally have fiber in the riser closet that the public lookup doesn't know about.

The only way to know what's actually available is to check directly with each carrier's commercial team for your address.

You can call each carrier's commercial line individually — typically a dozen calls and a few days of waiting on callbacks. Or submit your address once on this site, and we check every regional and national carrier serving that location in parallel. Either route works; ours is faster.

Several, depending on the address:

• Build-out request — some carriers will run fiber to your building if you commit to a 3–5 year contract, sometimes at no upfront cost.
• Fixed wireless — line-of-sight providers can deliver business-grade service in days, not months.
• Business cable — DOCSIS often serves buildings where fiber doesn't.
• Bonded copper / Ethernet over copper — older but still available in some areas.
• Starlink Business — viable backup, and sometimes primary, in coverage gaps.

We can tell you which of these actually apply at your specific address.

Residential is cheaper, but the differences matter for most businesses:

• SLAs — business plans typically include uptime guarantees with bill credits when missed. Residential has none.
• Static IPs — required to host VPN, on-premise software, security cameras with remote access, or VoIP systems.
• Support priority — business calls usually skip the residential queue.
• Symmetrical speeds — many business plans match upload to download. Residential rarely does.
• Terms of service — many residential ISP contracts technically prohibit business use.

A one-person operation with no critical apps is sometimes fine on residential. Past that, business plans tend to pay for themselves the first time something breaks.

Cable (DOCSIS) can deliver fast downloads — often 1 Gbps or more — but uploads are usually 35–50 Mbps, which throttles video calls, cloud backups, VoIP quality, and remote access. Fiber is symmetrical and generally more reliable.

For businesses with VoIP phones, video conferencing, cloud-hosted software, or remote workers, fiber is usually worth the premium. For email and light web use, cable is often fine.

Rough rule of thumb: 10 Mbps per person for typical office work (email, web, video calls), plus headroom for file sharing, backups, and security cameras. A 20-person office wants roughly 200 Mbps symmetric. Heavy users — designers, video editors, anyone moving large files — need more.

The bigger question is usually upload speed, not download, since most businesses end up bottlenecked on the upload side.

It varies by location and technology, but typical US ranges:

• Business cable, 300 Mbps–1 Gbps: $100–$250/mo
• Fiber, 500 Mbps symmetric: $150–$400/mo
• Fiber, 1 Gbps symmetric: $200–$700/mo
• Dedicated fiber with hard SLAs: $500–$2,000+/mo

Same speed at the same address can vary significantly between carriers — which is why getting actual quotes matters more than ballpark numbers.

Yes, almost always. Carrier reps typically have room to discount the monthly rate, waive installation fees, extend free-trial windows, or upgrade speed tiers at the same price. Longer contracts (3 or 5 year) generally get better rates than month-to-month.

You can negotiate directly, but having competitive quotes from other carriers in hand gives you real leverage.

A Service Level Agreement is a contractual uptime guarantee — typically 99.9% (about 9 hours of allowed downtime per year) or 99.99% (about 53 minutes per year). When the carrier misses it, you get bill credits.

If your business loses real money during an outage — e-commerce, patient care, restaurant POS, manufacturing — a real SLA is usually worth paying for. If a day of downtime is annoying but not catastrophic, you don't strictly need one.

You need a static IP if you:

• Host inbound services (VPN, on-premise email, custom software accessed from outside)
• Run security cameras or building controls accessed remotely
• Operate a VoIP phone system or on-site PBX
• Need to whitelist a fixed IP with a vendor or partner

Otherwise, dynamic IPs are fine and cheaper.

If your business depends on internet — meaning a several-hour outage costs real money or stops work — yes. Common backup patterns: a second wired connection from a different carrier (best), fixed wireless (good), or cellular failover (acceptable for short outages).

The cost of backup is almost always less than one bad outage at the wrong time.

Sooner than you think. Typical install lead times:

• Cable / DOCSIS — 1–3 weeks if service exists in the building
• Lit fiber (carrier already in the building) — 2–4 weeks
• New fiber drop — 60–120 days, sometimes longer if construction permits are involved
• Fixed wireless — 1–2 weeks once line-of-sight is confirmed

Start checking carrier availability the day you sign the lease, not after.

• Cable / DOCSIS: 1–3 weeks if service already exists in the building
• Lit fiber: 2–4 weeks
• New fiber drop: 60–120 days, longer for permitting-heavy locations
• Fixed wireless: 1–2 weeks once line-of-sight is confirmed
• Bonded copper: 2–4 weeks

No catch. When a business chooses internet service through us, the carrier pays us a small ongoing referral commission — it doesn't add anything to your bill, and the price you see is the same price you'd get going direct.

If you don't sign service, we don't get paid. That's the whole model. We're not a carrier, not a reseller, and we don't sell your information.