thinking of switching products - confused
Quote from: absorption Hi, i currently have the broadband plus product (14.99/mo). my wife is starting to use VPN at home in the evenings and i wanted to see if it made sense to change to a business product.
Most of my customers are using VPNs of one sort or another. I sign them up to the Small Business package for the office and the Teleworker package for outworkers. I always take the permier option to ensure continuity of service.
Quote However, i cannot find download usage limits listed on the site for the business products.
No. The front page only lists the PAYG prices. Tap your phone number into the sign up wizard and keep clicking until the cost of the permier uncapped accounts is eventually revealed. I suspect that the price is exclusive of VAT but I do not know because it is not stated. This lack of clearly stated pricing I find to be quite annoying when I am trying to put customer quotes together.
Quote Questions:
- will the VPN work (circle one) POOR / FAIR / WELL with my current product?
Depends on many things.
I provide support to about a dozen small business networks (the larger end of small) across the country. My car has done a mere 27,000 miles in the last 4 years which should give you an idea of how much I rely on VPNs and how little time I spend attending customer sites...and of course how reliable the systems I commission turn out to be
VPN is a catchall term for various network transport and encyrption protocols. Performance depends on selecting the most appropriate protocols for the job at hand. The network infrastructure between the two ends has to be compatible with whichever protocols are used. The person putting it all together has to be familiar with how it all fits together.
Lack of knowledge is, in my experience, the most common reason for VPNs failing to perform predictably. Where an inappropriate solution to the problem has been implemented neither an ISP nor the most talented of support engineers will be able to make much difference.
What I can say is that with offices and outworkers all using plus.net business accounts and all endpoints using the hardware I recommend, configured how I recommend, I have never experienced a problem that could not be easily solved. Where mixed ISPs are involved latency and fragmentation issues are far more common. Resolving these problems is heavily dependent on exactly what features the routers provide. Where the big name domestic ISPs are involved problems are vitually inevitable and virtually impossible to resolve. In fact I will no longer provide a service level or performance guarantee to customers who insist I commission their VPNs over certain networks operated by very well known ISPs.
Quote - where can i find usage info on the business products?
What would you like to know? Provided you do not encroach too far into how I make my living I am happy to help.
Quote - are there any advantages to upgrading to the current 19.99 residential product wrt VPN performance (or any other compelling reason).
No idea. VPN performance relies heavily on the ISPs network. Using a domestic account for business use falls at the first hurdle in my view. When you want business class performance buying a domestic product is a fairly fundamental mistake...but a common one all the same.
HTH