What MSPs Get Wrong About Business Broadband

Business broadband is one of the most common services MSPs touch, and one of the most misunderstood.

It is often treated as a simple utility. Pick a fast service, get it installed, move on. But as businesses become more dependent on cloud platforms, hosted voice, security tooling, and always on access, broadband is no longer just an internet connection. It is core infrastructure.

When broadband is misunderstood, everything built on top of it becomes fragile. This is where many MSPs, often unintentionally, get it wrong.

Mistake one: treating speed as the most important factor

Speed is easy to sell and easy to compare.

Customers ask for it. ISPs advertise it. Quotes lead with it. But speed alone tells you very little about whether a service is suitable for a business.

Two connections with identical speeds can behave very differently depending on:

• Contention
• Stability
• Fault resolution processes
• Repair times
• Underlying network design

For many businesses, consistency and uptime matter far more than headline throughput. Broadband designed purely around speed often fails when it matters most. Speed focused decisions often ignore the wider issue of business connectivity resilience and how outages actually affect operations.

Mistake two: assuming full fibre means zero risk

Full fibre is a huge improvement over copper based services, but it is not invincible.

Even services delivered over networks like Openreach are still exposed to:

• Power outages
• Physical fibre damage
• Exchange level faults
• Planned maintenance
• Third party civil works

When a business relies on a single fibre connection, it still has a single point of failure. FTTP reduces risk. It does not eliminate it. While full fibre is a major improvement, it still represents a single access method if not designed as part of a wider connectivity strategy.

Mistake three: thinking broadband is separate from everything else

Broadband is often sold and supported in isolation. In reality, it underpins almost every other service an MSP delivers.

When connectivity drops, the impact ripples across:

• Cloud platforms
• Hosted VoIP systems
• Remote access and VPNs
• Security monitoring
• Business applications

Treating broadband as a standalone service ignores how deeply it is woven into the customer’s environment.

Good MSPs design broadband as part of the wider service stack, not as an afterthought. Connectivity underpins voice, cloud platforms, and security tooling, which is why MSPs increasingly bundle connectivity and voice together.

Mistake four: overlooking how downtime actually affects the business

Downtime is often framed as a technical issue. For the customer, it is a commercial one.

Lost connectivity can mean:

• Missed sales
• Failed card payments
• Inaccessible systems
• Idle staff
• Reputational damage

Many broadband decisions are made without ever asking a simple question:

“What happens to this business if the internet goes down?”

Without that context, it is impossible to design the right solution. For many organisations, reliance on a single broadband line creates a single point of failure that MSPs must now address proactively.

Mistake five: underestimating the role of design

The biggest misconception is that better broadband equals better outcomes.

In reality, outcomes are shaped by design.

That includes:

• Choice of access method
• Awareness of single points of failure
• Alignment with business dependency
• Planning for growth and change

Design is what turns broadband from a commodity into infrastructure.

This is also where wholesale connectivity models become powerful, because they allow MSPs to design solutions without being constrained by a single network or postcode. This is where the difference between consumer style broadband thinking and wholesale telecoms design becomes critical.

What MSPs should be doing instead

The shift is subtle, but important.

Instead of asking:
“What is the fastest service we can get here?”

MSPs should be asking:
“What does this business rely on, and how do we protect it?”

That leads to better conversations around:

• Reliability
• Resilience
• Scalability
• Long term suitability

And it positions the MSP as a strategic partner rather than a utility broker. MSPs that work with a wholesale partner built for growth can design broadband as infrastructure rather than a commodity.

The bottom line

Business broadband is no longer a background service.

It is the foundation on which modern IT environments sit.

When MSPs focus only on speed, availability, or price, they miss the bigger picture and expose customers to unnecessary risk.

When broadband is designed properly, with an understanding of dependency and resilience, everything built on top of it becomes stronger.

Getting broadband right is not about selling faster connections.
It is about designing better outcomes.

Choosing the right wholesale connectivity partner allows MSPs to deliver better outcomes without adding operational complexity.

Are you ready to add FTTP to your wholesale portfolio?

If you are looking for a wholesale platform that removes complexity, protects your customer relationships and supports long-term growth, Bright Edge provides a simple and trusted foundation for reselling connectivity and voice.

Deliver full fibre connectivity to your business customers without the operational complexity of managing multiple suppliers. Bright Edge provides the wholesale platform, support and infrastructure to help partners sell FTTP with confidence.