Best Broadband for Working from Home: Wi-Fi That Means Business

While some big companies are mandating a return to office, it's clear that working from home isn't going anywhere. Over a quarter of UK adults work in hybrid roles (ONS) and 91% of respondents to a Buffer survey have a positive view of remote work.

While there are lots of benefits to working from home – like improved work-life balance, fewer distractions, and improved wellbeing according to Forbes Advisor – unreliable or patchy internet connections can (sometimes) make us miss the days of office broadband.

The wrong internet connection can ruin video calls, grind file sharing to a halt, and cause a critical hit to overall efficiency.

So, how do you choose the best broadband – and keep your boss happy with your WFH arrangement? Our handy guide will answer all your burning questions.

What's the difference between business broadband and home broadband?

Business broadband plans are usually more expensive than home broadband, because they're able to do more techy things than most home users would need. For example run a server, or create your own network. Business broadband tends to have faster upload speeds and enhanced security, too.

With the superfast speeds of some home fibre broadband packages, business broadband won't be necessary for the majority of remote workers. There are some exceptions, of course.

Can I claim broadband as a business expense if I work from home?

It's best to ask an accountant about that kind of thing. But, in most cases, self-employed people can claim internet bills on their tax return. If you're the Director of a Limited Company, it will be easier to offset the costs if you have a business broadband contract in your company's name.

Like all allowable expenses, you need to be able to prove that your connection is only used for business. Unfortunately, HMRC doesn't want to pay for your online gaming sessions!

If you're an employee, it's up to your employer whether they will pay any of your broadband bill. Check your contract to see if this is offered as a benefit, or speak with your work's Human Resources department to see if they'll consider offering it in the future.

How to choose the best broadband for working from home?

Whether you're going for a residential or business broadband package, there are some key factors that will affect the efficiency and reliability of your service.

Upload and download speeds

Speed is the first thing to consider when choosing an internet plan for working from home. Your upload and download speeds will have a massive impact on how fast you can perform your job and stay productive.

Inconsistent or low speeds can lead to connectivity issues, reducing productivity and creating stress. Especially during important meetings and coming up to deadlines.

These are a few examples of how speed can impact different parts of your day job (or side hustle):

• Video conferencing. Video calls are a staple of remote work, and poor speeds can lead to choppy audio, pixelated video, and dropped connections. This can disrupt important meetings, and make conversation all but impossible.
• File uploads and downloads. Low speeds mean long wait times when you're sending or receiving large files like presentations, videos, or CAD files. As well as causing frustration, it can also slow down your work and make it harder to meet deadlines.
• Accessing cloud-based platforms. Most remote workers rely on cloud platforms like Google Drive, OneDrive, or project management tools like Monday.com and Asana. A slow connection can make accessing, editing, and syncing files sluggish, slowing down the workflow.
• Streaming and online training. Slow internet speeds lead to constant buffering, low-quality streams, and wasted time while accessing webinars and important training sessions. This can make it hard to stay on top of important changes within your role.

Put simply, your broadband speed directly influences your ability to work without interruptions, communicate effectively, and stay productive. Matching your speed requirements to your work activities ensures a smoother and more professional remote work experience, free from frustrating delays or buffering screens.

Symmetrical speeds

Symmetrical speeds are where your download and upload speeds are equal. This is especially important for jobs that involve lots of video calls, cloud-based collaboration, and large file transfers.

Download speed is how fast your device receives data from the internet. This is important for activities like scrolling, watching videos, downloading files and anything else that involves receiving data.

Upload speed is how fast you can send data. This is important for sending emails with attachments, uploading deliverables to cloud services, hosting webinars and attending video calls.

Traditional broadband connections often prioritise higher download speeds over upload speeds, but for many remote workers, upload speeds are just as important, if not more so.

A symmetrical connection might offer 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload, as opposed to a typical home broadband plan that offers 100 Mbps download but only 10-20 Mbps upload.

Latency and ping

For remote workers in fields like tech support, customer service, or online teaching, low latency is as important as speed.

Latency is the delay before data is transmitted, measured in milliseconds. High latency results in lag, making activities like video calls, VoIP, and even typing on remote desktops feel delayed and unresponsive.

Ping is a test that measures how long it takes data to make the round trip. Most people use it as shorthand for latency, even though they're technically different.

Latency and ping impact the responsiveness of your internet connection, which can significantly affect work activities that require real-time website usage. For example:

• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls. High latency causes voice delays, echo effects, or voice clipping while using VoIP services like Skype or Google Voice.  This reduces the clarity of your voice, making conversations confusing. This is problematic for roles that depend on verbal communication, like customer services or sales.
• Remote desktop and virtual machine access. When you’re remotely accessing a company server or working through virtual desktops, high latency can make the experience sluggish. This is because it causes a delay between when you click or type something and when the action registers. This is especially frustrating for tasks that require precise inputs, like coding or graphic design.
• Collaborative cloud applications. High latency makes it hard to collaborate with your team in real-time using tools like Google Docs, Office 365, or project management platforms.

Connection stability

Even if you have high speeds and low latency, an unstable connection can lead to disruptions, frustration, and reduced productivity.

Connection stability is how consistently your internet connection can maintain a reliable and uninterrupted link to your internet service provider (ISP). This means no unexpected drops, fluctuations in speed, or excessive jitter (variability in latency).

Stability is a measure of how dependable your connection is over time, regardless of network congestion or external conditions like poor weather.

Like latency and ping, reliable connections are especially important for real-time tasks like collaborating with team-mates in real-time, making VoiP calls, and connecting to remote desktops.

Unstable connections can also negatively impact your video conferencing software in the same way that low speed can. This means video and audio disappearing at crucial moments, or the call dropping altogether.

Data caps

Whenever you do anything online, you use data. Some things -- like browsing websites and sending emails -- only uses a little data. Other things -- like viewing or sending large files, and joining video calls -- use a lot of data.

Data caps put a limit on how much data you can use each month. This is why mobile broadband isn't ideal for working from home, as it often comes with a limit.

Once you go over your limit, you might get slower speeds (known as 'throttling'), be charged extra or just lose your internet connection until your next bill is due.

Bandwidth

Unless you're the sole user of your internet, it's likely that other people in your household will also be using your broadband connection while you're working.

This can eat up your bandwidth. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data your internet connection is able to handle at a time.

Having more bandwidth is like the difference between driving on a six-lane motorway and a one-lane country road. The motorway can handle lots of cars at once, while the country lane will quickly become congested.

When one device is connected, everything is fine, but once you start adding more devices your connection will start slowing down due to the congestion.

High speed broadband plans, and those with symmetrical speeds,  tend to have high bandwidth to go with the faster connection. You're also more likely to get higher bandwidth if you choose a fibre broadband package.

Fibre optic cables can support higher bandwidth capabilities and lower latency when compared with traditional copper cables used by other broadband types.

Radical reliability and superfast speeds for professional WFHers

Our full fibre broadband packages are all fast, reliable, and bound to keep you productive: whether you're video calling your clients in New York or sending massive files to your colleagues in London.

We have a range of business and home broadband packages to suit a range of remote working professionals, with simultaneous speeds and a network that minimises downtime to keep you at your productive best.

Learn more about our home broadband and business broadband, or get in touch to find out more.