4. ADSL and business

ADSL is ideal for domestic use as it reflects the way we use the internet at home and makes use of the existing telephone line.

However, for business use it is less useful. Often a business needs to send as much data as it receives, so the 'asymmetric' nature of the line may be an issue i.e. upload is as important as download speed.

Bandwidth is also an issue, if there are many people within the organisation and each want to use the internet connection, this would rapidly lead to a bottleneck.

The business may also want a guaranteed quality of service where the speed is always what they have paid for. In domestic ADSL the contention ratio will change the speed according to the time of day. Therefore a business may look for a low contention ratio or even having sole use of the line. This will be discussed in 'leased line'.