Broadband Provider for Charity

angelavdavis

Hi,

I am involved with a not for profit Trust who are awaiting charitable status.

We have had a BT line installed, but due to the fact that the premises we have recently taken over to use as a community space needs some work doing, we have not gone ahead with organising broadband (as in true MSE styley every penny in our accounts helps!)

We had also applied for a Community Connection grant and were hoping that we might get free internet if we were selected. Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case, so we are going to have to choose a broadband supplier. We are going to need a reliable connection as we are due to host an e-biz facility for the community, as well as having two office PCs and potentially 2 trustees visiting with their laptops.

Obviously there is no broadband on the line already, so does this mean we have to go with BT or can we look at other providers? The line is registered as a business line.

Thanks for your help.

dylanuk

Have you tried posting in the Charity & Small Biz board? http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=27

There might be more people with experience of setting up broadband on a business phone line.

You can get business broadband on a residential phone line - so it should work the other way around, but I don't know if there are any limitations. Business products generally tend to just be more expensive, but it really depends on your set up as to what you need.

For example, if you were going to set up a Virtual Private Network so people could more securely work from home - you'd need more of the features of business broadband such as high upload speeds and static IPs.

However, if it's a simple 2 PC office set up with occasional addtional laptop use - the cheapest option would really be a home broadband package that offered unlimited usage.

Be broadband might be worth a look as they offer high spec broadband - actually aimed at online gaming but equally good for business use.

You would have to speak to them though to find out if they could install their broadband on a BT business telephone line.