I’m a pretty serious blogger. I currently run 20 websites, many of which receive hundreds of thousands of pageviews. A few years back I was running my fledgling business out of my living room and everything was just fine.
One day I realized I was spending a lot of time moving around files from my home business computer to my server. As gigabits flew from one location to another and I streamed Netflix to my big screen TV I realized my productivity was taking a hit.
If you are like me and you have a wife or husband and maybe a few kids at home you understand how a connected culture can slow your productivity. One kid is watching hilarious YouTube videos, another is watching a Vudu movie and your spouse is watching Netflix. In the meantime you are attempting to use your 20Mbps connection with very little success because multiple smartphones, TVs, tablets, and other devices are hogging a portion of your available bandwidth.
After struggling to come to terms with my families home device usage I decided to purchase a second internet line into my home. In choosing Comcast for cable and internet I made the choice to utilize a fresh connection on the business side that would give me 100% control over usage. I then added cable because I figured it was better to leave TV shows on a dedicated coaxial cable that wouldn’t mess with my 20Mbps data connection.
Realizing that others in my home can quickly steal my beloved bandwidth I decided to forgo a WiFi router and instead plugged directly into the cable modem with a Cat5 cable.
Here’s the crazy part. My productivity skyrocketed. Pages started loading 3-4 times faster, there were no longer upload and download lags, and in general I was happier with my Comcast service which now featured two connections.
Looking back I’m not sure why I ever had a single connection. I strongly recommend that anyone with dozens of devices in their home think about a second internet connection if they run a business from their house.
Another tip, if you have a slower DSL or other service at this time, pick up a data connection from a secondary provider. If one connection goes down you likely still have connectivity with your second provider.
Have you implemented a second data connection into your home office? Why did you add more internet power to your home setup?
