The Internet has become as important as other utilities. You need internet for everything from credit card processing to customer communication ( VOIP, email, etc.).

And with the proliferation of cloud services, business operations are becoming increasingly highly reliant on the internet.

But the internet is never one-size-fits-all. Every business has different requirements for speed and other considerations to factor into their choice. Therefore, you need to select the right internet service provider.

But there are many internet companies in Detroit MI. Whether you plan to upgrade your connection, building out a completely new location, or renew your existing contract, there are a couple of things you need to consider when choosing an ISP for your business. To make your job easier, we have shared several factors to consider to help determine an internet provider. Let’s jump right to it.

Type of Connection

There are two primary types of internet service. The first one is Standard, also known as broadband or high-speed service. They include options like DSL and cable and typically provide higher speeds but lower reliability and quality of service. It is cheaper in most cases.

The second one is a high availability service. It comes with a service level agreement for uptime that usually exceeds 99.99% or around 2 hours of downtime annually. These connections include options such as T1s (less common and older) newer fiber-optic connections (also called Metro E or Ethernet in some markets).

The crucial difference here is the service level agreement option and how dependent your organization is on the internet. If your business cannot afford the slightest downtime, you must select an ISP that can provide a service level agreement guaranteeing uptime.

Speed

Calculating your business speed requirements can be challenging. But you must ensure that you have sufficient speed for everyday use, including peak times such as training or large meetings. You wouldn’t want to frustrate users because you are not paying for enough bandwidth.

If your applications are hosted in the cloud or web-based or have a VOIP phone system, you will need higher internet usage.

Therefore, you have to understand your connection and speed requirements better to avoid continuity issues for your systems and employees.

Redundancy

If your business needs to stay connected to the internet and cannot afford even a minute of downtime, you have to secure some level of redundancy system. Redundancy is a failover internet connection that switches if your main line goes down.

This is more common with standard internet service, but it can be essential to have high availability services with service level agreements if you cannot afford downtime.

The Reputation of the ISP

Reputation research plays a pivotal role in finding the right ISP. You can go through Yelp or Google reviews or speak directly with neighboring businesses to find out the reputation of the ISP you plan to go for to narrow your options.

Many internet companies in Detroit, MI, provide both business and residential services with different expectations and requirements for quality of service (QoS), uptime, and more. So do not forget to keep the type of customer in mind when evaluating reviews.

Customer Support

You should never need to engage with your internet service provider following service installation in an ideal world. But that is simply not the case.

Whether you experience service issues, have upgrade inquiries or product add ons, have billing questions, or experience service issues, at some point, you need to engage with your ISP’s customer support team. So do not forget to conduct enough research on the quality of support the ISP offers before signing up.

You should refrain from those ISPs who make you sit through automated phone menus, keep you on lengthy holds, and may eventually transfer you to an outsourced party outside of the US.

Also, do not ignore responsiveness. Take a note of how long the ISP’s customer support team takes to respond and address your problem.

Time is money, so whether it is weeks waiting on a repair or hours wasted on hold, how your internet service provider manages customer relations directly affects your company’s bottom line.

So do you have any questions about choosing the best internet companies in Detroit, MI?