You’re thinking about running a business from home, which means you’ve been considering all sorts of things. Your business plan and the way you make money are the two obvious ones – but have you taken a moment to look at your home internet? Lots of wannabe entrepreneurs don’t give this a second thought, yet your home internet might not be optimised for running a small company.

In reality, you can run a home business without doing anything to your internet. However, this can put you at risk of outside threats while also making you less productive. Look below for some things to keep in mind if you want your home internet to be business-ready!

Always use a VPN

A VPN is a necessity for the modern home business. Installing and using one of these gives the unique ability to change IP address on Windows devices – or any other device you use. Why is this beneficial for business owners? Because it changes where you’re running your business. Well, that’s what it looks like to the outside world! Rather than pinpointing all of your activities to your device at home, you can make it look like you’re anywhere.

This is so critical from a security standpoint. VPNs protect your data and make your browsing history private. Therefore, it’s much harder for a hacker to look at what you’ve been doing or to gain access to vital information – like your online business bank account! From another perspective, VPNs let you access geo-restricted content. This might not sound like a huge deal, but it can help you browse websites or interact with overseas customers.

Make sure it’s fast

You can’t run a successful business with slow internet. The internet you have at home may not be the quickest – and that’s usually not much of a big deal. You don’t have any complaints, yet you can’t afford for it to slow down your daily productivity. The chances are you’ll do everything online when running a home business, which means you need your internet to keep up. You can’t spend valuable seconds or minutes waiting for pages to load; it has to be instant, letting to stay on top of things.

It’s a simple thing to consider, so be sure you’re using the fastest internet possible in your area. Moreover, do everything you can to keep it at the highest speeds – for example, make sure you’re using a wired internet connection instead of a wireless one. Sure, WiFi is convenient, but an ethernet connection is always more stable and way faster.

Think about bandwidth

The speed of your internet connection is one thing, but bandwidth is another. They’re closely linked, though Virgin Media has an excellent definition of bandwidth for you to understand. It is the maximum amount of data transfer your internet service is capable of at any given time. The more bandwidth available, the faster your data can be transferred. If you’ve got multiple devices connected to the internet, you’re using up a lot of bandwidth, so everything can run a lot slower – regardless of how fast your connection is.

Have you ever wondered why you paid for a fast internet connection yet it still doesn’t reach the speeds you expected? It’s probably because the bandwidth is poor and you have so many devices connected at once! In turn, you must ensure you’re using the internet with a good bandwidth while also being cautious of running too many things at once.

Consider installing a separate line

That brings us perfectly to this final consideration! If you’re worried about the bandwidth being unable to handle your business operations, plus everyone else in your home’s normal web browsing, then the best solution is to install a separate connection strictly for your business.

You can do this in one of two ways; install another home internet connection or opt for business broadband. The latter gives you faster speeds, more bandwidth capacity and extra reliable connections. Unfortunately, it will cost more than standard home internet. Either option works as they both provide a dedicated broadband connection for you to use. The rest of the house uses the main one, but you’re connected to the separate one so don’t have to worry about other devices connecting or people’s unsafe browsing habits possibly causing problems!

Also, when you’re using a connection solely for your business, it’s easier to write it off as a business expense on your tax return, saving hundreds of pounds a year.

We hope this post gives you food for thought about your home internet. Is it ready to handle the daily happenings of a home business? If not, you know what to do to get it ready!

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