Business fibre internet for SMBs: speeds, costs, choice

Working in the cloud, calling via Teams, 3D X-ray images that upload as you scan, a CAD file syncing to Azure after every save. All taken for granted — until the internet drops. That's the moment people realise the office uplink is just as critical as the power supply.

This article is a sober guide to business internet for SMBs. What speed is realistic, what does it cost, how do fibre, coax and 5G actually differ, and what should be in an SLA before you sign. No starred provider comparison, just the facts that get buried in the small print.

What is business fibre, exactly?

Business fibre isn't consumer fibre with a different logo. The difference comes down to four things:

• Symmetrical speed — upload as fast as download. For cloud workspaces, video calls and off-site backups, upload matters as much as download.
• Hard SLA — guaranteed uptime, guaranteed repair time when there's a fault. Consumer internet ships without an SLA and is delivered "best effort".
• Business support — not a 0900 hotline with a 35-minute hold time, but a first line your IT provider can call directly.
• Static IP addresses — required for VPN tunnels, secured access to your own servers, mail servers and specific application links.

A business fibre line uses the same physical fibre infrastructure to the street, but the active equipment in the data centre and the service level are different. That's what you pay for.

How much speed does your business need?

A common misconception is that more is always better. In practice, 80% of SMB environments fit four profiles.

5-15 employees, office with cloud workspace

200/200 Mbps symmetrical is enough. During working hours, average usage stays below 50 Mbps; peaks during video meetings and large uploads hit 100-150 Mbps. With 200 Mbps you have headroom above the peak plus room for a guest Wi-Fi network.

What you don't want: try to push 100/100 Mbps because the price looks better. On a busy Tuesday morning with five simultaneous Teams calls, two people syncing backups and someone pulling down a large file, you hit the ceiling and "it feels slow today" becomes structural.

15-50 employees

500/500 Mbps symmetrical is the typical choice. For sectors with heavy video or CAD files (architecture firms, manufacturing, media organisations) 1 Gbps may be worthwhile. For administrative organisations of the same size, 500 Mbps is plenty.

50-150 employees

1 Gbps symmetrical becomes the norm. Not because the bandwidth is constantly used — average occupancy stays below 200 Mbps — but because peaks at larger teams can be sharp (think everyone syncing at the start of the day).

Multi-site or heavy engineering

From 1 Gbps per location plus dedicated VPN tunnels or MPLS links between offices. For genuinely heavy workflows (3D rendering, video production, simulation software), 10 Gbps connections come into play, but that's outside the SMB range.

Quick test: pull your router statistics (or ask your IT provider) and check what percentage of your current bandwidth you use on average. Between 30% and 60% utilisation = well dimensioned. Below 20% = probably oversized. Above 70% = tight, you'll feel every peak.

The real costs — what's hiding under the receipts?

Business internet is sold in three cost structures that often get muddled:

Monthly fee — €60 to €350 per month for the SMB segment. The big spread comes from speed (200 Mbps vs 1 Gbps), SLA tier (basic vs premium with fast repair times) and any static IPs or VPN bundles.

One-off connection fees — €0 to €2,500. If fibre is already in the building, often €0 or a token fee. For a new connection that requires opening the street, it can run into thousands. Always ask up front, because some providers bury connection fees in a 36-month contract.

• Static IP address extra: €5-€25 per month
• Premium SLA: €50-€150 per month on top of the base
• Router/firewall management: €25-€100 per month
• Site-to-site VPN between offices: usually per location

At Virtual Computing, router management, basic firewall and a static IPv4 address are included in the price as standard, because we know our customers will need them. That saves three months of invoice shock from realising you needed extras after all.

Fibre, coax or 5G — which when?

Fibre

The standard for business connections. Symmetrical, stable, low latency (<5 ms to first hop). Dependent on physical roll-out — not every building has fibre directly available. New lines take 4-12 weeks to install.

Coax

Asymmetrical (e.g. 1 Gbps download, 100 Mbps upload). Fine for consumers, problematic for business once you actually work in the cloud. Little to no SLA. Cheap is genuinely expensive here.

Business 5G / fixed wireless

Good as a backup, fine as a temporary solution at a new site where fibre is still being laid, not as the only uplink for a production environment. Latency and consistency are less predictable. At Virtual Computing we frequently see 5G as a secondary uplink for automatic failover — that's where it shines.

A common question: "Can't we just do everything on 5G?" Answer: for a sole trader maybe; for an SMB with more than five workplaces, almost never. The variability is too large.

SLA, redundancy, and what to do when it drops

A business connection without an SLA is a consumer connection with a different label. What should be in there at minimum?

• Uptime guarantee: 99.9% is realistic (= max 8.8 hours of downtime per year). Above 99.95% (~4.4 hr/yr) becomes premium grade and you're in a different price bracket.
• Mean Time To Repair (MTTR): 4 or 8 hours is typical. Under 4 hours is premium.
• Penalty clause: an SLA without consequences is a promise without bite. Credit of one month's invoice per incident is reasonable.

Redundancy: one line is no line

For businesses where internet outages cost money directly (online retailers, call centres, manufacturing, healthcare), a second uplink isn't a luxury but business continuity. Three patterns we use in practice:

1. Fibre + 5G failover — primary fibre, automatic failover to 5G during a fault. Cheapest form of redundancy. Works for 90% of scenarios.
2. Fibre via two providers — the more expensive variant: two independent physical lines via different providers. Protects against provider failure (like the KPN outage of 2019).
3. Multi-WAN with load balancing — both lines continuously active, with traffic distributed automatically. Maximum uptime, but configuration and management is a touch more sensitive.

The broader theme here — what to do when one location drops out — is what we saw painfully this month with the fire at the NorthC datacenter in Almere. The same principle applies to your IT environment: if everything depends on one point, you're vulnerable to that one point.

How do you pick a business provider?

Three questions that separate the wheat from the chaff:

1. "Who fixes the line when it's dead — you or a third party?"

Many providers are resellers without their own network. When something breaks, they open a ticket with KPN or Eurofiber and wait. A provider with their own or shared network management can intervene faster. Not better or worse by definition, but a difference in pace at escalation time.

2. "What's your average MTTR over the past 12 months, and can you show it?"

Everyone promises "fast response". Numbers are objective. A provider who shares a report from their own monitoring without flinching knows what they're doing. A provider who dodges the question demonstrates exactly what their SLA culture is.

3. "Who manages my router and firewall — you or do I need to find someone else for that?"

In IT outsourcing you don't want a gap between "internet enters the building" and "workspace environment begins". An integrated provider includes router management, basic firewall, Wi-Fi and network monitoring. Two providers between those two points means: every fault becomes an extra hour of debate over whose problem it is.

At Virtual Computing we deliver business internet as part of a complete IT environment, not as a standalone service. When your cloud workspace stutters, we don't have to wait for a third party to call back — we look in the chain ourselves.

Frequently asked questions

How long does business fibre installation take?

At an address that already has fibre: 1-2 weeks for activation. At an address without fibre: 8-16 weeks including permits, civil works and delivery. Start in time — planning a relocation in 4 weeks without an uplink is a recipe for stress.

Is a static IP address really necessary?

Not for most cloud services, but yes if you run site-to-site VPNs, host your own mail server, or have services restricted to specific known IPs (think bank links, secured portals). Often a requirement for remote work via specific firewall rules too.

What if my fibre provider goes bust?

In the Netherlands this is rare but not unthinkable. Resellers fail more often than network owners. The fibre itself stays in the ground — a new provider can in theory activate within weeks. In practice it does mean some downtime. That's why for mission-critical environments we recommend a second uplink via a different provider.

Can 5G replace my fixed internet?

For a sole trader or a temporary site, yes. For an SMB with more than five workspaces, cloud working and VoIP telephony: no. The latency, jitter and consistency of 5G aren't sufficient for production environments. Fine as a secondary uplink for failover.

What's a realistic uptime in the Netherlands?

For a professional business connection, between 99.9% and 99.95% per year. That sounds like a lot, but 99.9% means 8.8 hours of downtime a year. Plan business continuity on that assumption.

Do you offer discounts for longer contracts?

Standard contracts are 12, 24 or 36 months. Longer contracts deliver 5-15% off. We recommend 12 or 24 months for most SMBs — flexibility on speed often turns out to be worth more than the extra discount.

---

Not sure which connection fits your business? Our business internet team is happy to think along, no obligation. Or book an advice call for a complete IT review (internet + workspace + telephony + security in one conversation). Call 085-013 4500 for a quick first check.

• Datacenter fire in Almere: continuity > uptime
• The cloud migration process
• What is a cloud workspace?