BT Business broadband swap

stickstickstick

Anyone converted to BT business broadband from residential now we're working from home?
If so, what are the cost increases and is there any gotchas?
I'm looking for a static IP address and reliable internet basically.

Neil_Jones

Your internet will only be reliable as good as the phone line connection, which is not provider specific.  If your exchange develops a fault it would have developed a fault whoever you were with.

All business broadband basically boils down to compared to domestic is dibs on fault repairs/resolution (domestic you go to the back of the queue), a higher cost per month and you lose all the protections of domestic broadband.  So no cooling off periods for a start.

Most domestic suppliers will provide you a fixed IP if that's what you want, though its not obvious why you want one as there are solutions that will "point" to your current IP even on a dynamic/standard setup.

Re: working from home, while it is technically against the T&Cs to use domestic broadband for work purposes, during lockdown most providers turned a blind eye to it.  If its a one off or a temporary situation like last year where the call to stop at home all day every day came pretty much at the last minute, you'll be fine.

stickstickstick

Neil_Jones said:

Most domestic suppliers will provide you a fixed IP if that's what you want, though its not obvious why you want one as there are solutions that will "point" to your current IP even on a dynamic/standard setup.

So that has been refused by BT - they only do static IPs from a business account.
What kind of solutions would let me have a a static IP from my dynamic one?

wongataa

stickstickstick said:

Neil_Jones said:

Most domestic suppliers will provide you a fixed IP if that's what you want, though its not obvious why you want one as there are solutions that will "point" to your current IP even on a dynamic/standard setup.

So that has been refused by BT - they only do static IPs from a business account.
What kind of solutions would let me have a a static IP from my dynamic one?

Why do you want a static IP address?

Neil_Jones

stickstickstick said:

Neil_Jones said:

Most domestic suppliers will provide you a fixed IP if that's what you want, though its not obvious why you want one as there are solutions that will "point" to your current IP even on a dynamic/standard setup.

So that has been refused by BT - they only do static IPs from a business account.
What kind of solutions would let me have a a static IP from my dynamic one?

Plusnet (which to all intents and purposes is BT in different packaging, owned by them and run at arms length) will let you have a static IP.  https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/understanding-your-ip-address/ - £5 one off charge on a domestic package.

As to solutions - something like this: https://www.noip.com/ - Dynamic DNS - you can pick a hostname (the free option for this means you have to automatically renew it manually after 30 days and you can only have three, but basically you stick their client on your computer (or you can configure it in your router most likely)) and if your IP address changes your host name updates automatically.  So you could have fred.hopto.org for example that goes to your current IP address of 81.35.35.350 by just typing fred.hopto.org in your web browser or software or whatever you need it for.  If your connection drops and you get a new IP of 62.276.81.16 for example, the router will tell No IP your new address and your host continues to work.

TL;DR - you don't necessarily need a static IP.  DDNS solutions negates it to an extent.  Though you still haven't said why you think you need a static IP?

stickstickstick

several of our security gateways in AWS only let people in through their IP address, and changing them every time my external ip changes is a pain in the rear end.

onomatopoeia99

Neil_Jones said:

stickstickstick said:

Neil_Jones said:

Most domestic suppliers will provide you a fixed IP if that's what you want, though its not obvious why you want one as there are solutions that will "point" to your current IP even on a dynamic/standard setup.

So that has been refused by BT - they only do static IPs from a business account.
What kind of solutions would let me have a a static IP from my dynamic one?

Plusnet (which to all intents and purposes is BT in different packaging, owned by them and run at arms length) will let you have a static IP.  https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/understanding-your-ip-address/ - £5 one off charge on a domestic package.

As to solutions - something like this: https://www.noip.com/ - Dynamic DNS - you can pick a hostname (the free option for this means you have to automatically renew it manually after 30 days and you can only have three, but basically you stick their client on your computer (or you can configure it in your router most likely)) and if your IP address changes your host name updates automatically.  So you could have fred.hopto.org for example that goes to your current IP address of 81.35.35.350 by just typing fred.hopto.org in your web browser or software or whatever you need it for.  If your connection drops and you get a new IP of 62.276.81.16 for example, the router will tell No IP your new address and your host continues to work.

TL;DR - you don't necessarily need a static IP.  DDNS solutions negates it to an extent.  Though you still haven't said why you think you need a static IP?

That's worth sweet fanny adams for most static IP use cases for people WFH, which are usually access control to company resources.  The number of people working from home that consequentially have the need to run intenet accessible services from their home is very, very small compared to the number that need to provide a static IPv4 address to be allowed through a firewall..

Neil_Jones

stickstickstick said:

several of our security gateways in AWS only let people in through their IP address, and changing them every time my external ip changes is a pain in the rear end.

Understand but let's flip the question round:

How long do you reckon before you will be able to go back to work in the workplace and you have no need to submit an IP address to the company?  So you'd be stuck on a business contract paying over the odds for however long you agreed to when the only purpose you wanted it for would be long gone, so if you agreed to an 18 month deal on the 1st of June and physically go back to work on the 1st of July you're stuck for the next 17 months.  I suppose it could be argued that avenue of choice is akin to using a sledgehammer to crack open a nut.

username

If you're not in contract with BT change the ISP completely - there are some that offer a static IP as part of the service or for a once off fee - e.g. Zen or Plusnet.

You do not need a business specific contract to be able  to have one, I have had a static IP for years with various ISPs and I have always been residential.

It's BT (as in BT Retail - they flog broadband via BT.com) that insist on having a business account to have a static IP,  I don't know what the particular reasons for this are, but I suspect it is a limitation of their platform and/or a tactic to encourage an upsell to business broadband, where the contracts can be longer etc.You do not need to buy your broadband from BT Retail (business or domestic side).

Since the OP appears to be constrained by his employer's setup which requires a specific IP address to be able to remote in, the dynamic dns option is not feasible.

It might be if he was hosting a service/server off his own home network but if his employer's setup is as such that it needs to have the same IP or you're not getting in, then that is how it will have to be. Employers are not going to change their security policy on this.