Residential Internet Fees for Small Businesses

Can I purchase Internet service at the residential pricing for a small business retail store/office? I am in Vancouver, so I have Telus or Shaw as the backbone for DSL and cable, respectively. However, my POTS telephone line is provided by MTS Allstream.

The Internet use (in terms of bandwidth) is expected to me lower than 5 GB per month. I am only planning to use it primarily for an second telephone line via VoIP and for checking email.

I noticed that 3web does not specify any stipulations against business use in their terms. However, I would require installation of the cable outlets, which would probably be serviced by Shaw. Would installation cost extra because the premise is for business use?

Thanks in advance!

There is no law against it. It is up to the provider. For whatever it worths, my company was using 2 @home cables as alternative connections for a long time. My company is in a business building. We eventually upgraded that 2 lines to one business cable line. It was cheaper and bigger bandwidth to have 1 business cable than 2 residential. However, later, we also added another business cable connection for another reason.

Take this for what it's worth - but my understanding was that the business/residential difference with DSL was based on whether the phone line you were using for the DSL was business or residential. The service itself isn't any differenct (excepting and business differences between the two. But I'd expect the residential service to actually be higher - at a lower price- than a business connection).

Thank you for the responses.

When I call Shaw or Telus or 3web for installation, should I say that the premises are for business use, or should I save the information until the installer arrives?

In the latter case, can I tell the installer not to proceed if he/she decides that the premises are considered commercial and charges the business rate?

If this is a home based business, then tell them nothing. Just say it is for residential use. Chances are the installer is not going to care either way.

As someone else mentioned, they base the fee on the line and or address. If the address is zoned for commercial, then they will charge a commercial rate. If the line is a residential line, then they will charge accordingly.

I am pretty sure the location is zoned as commercial...

Ah well, I will try calling Shaw and Telus. (I wonder whether they can check the zoning in their computers when I give them the address?)

Thank you all!

Even though it is zoned as commercial, there can be a residential apartment within the unit. Depends on where you are. If it is purely commercial, then 3Web is out as they do not provide service to business'

Originally Posted by Gee

Even though it is zoned as commercial, there can be a residential apartment within the unit. Depends on where you are. If it is purely commercial, then 3Web is out as they do not provide service to business'

It is clearly commercial, because it is an office with a retail storefront...

I see that 3web limits their services to residential users. Interestingly, I just searched CIA's end-user agreement and I could not find anything that disallows business use. In fact, section 7 (Limitation of Liability) even talks about "loss of business profits, business interuption," etc. In the registration process, however, they offer a free home installation, with no mention of businesses...

For Home business, if you want your business to be advertised on Yellowpage or Whitepage as business, or you want your caller id to show your business name instead of your own name, then you need to pay more for business internet service.

If you are using a dry dsl or cable with VoIP phone, then you can simply use residential internet service.

I'd tried both, and don't seem to have problem.

The good thing of the dry dsl, is that they will assign your account a fake phone number, which is actually a business number, so you can enjoy the same level of business account customer service, which is far better than the residential customer service.

Are you talking about Telus for dry DSL? Unfortunately, I use Allstream for my current local line, so I would assume that DSL is not available?

I do not think the white/yellow page listings are too important.

Thank you for the reply!

Dry DSL is DSL without any active phone line.

DSL is available for Allstream line. I had Allstream line before, but it was very complicated when setting it up. We'd gone through numerous phone calls before it was finally working.

There's some cheaper business DSL around. What I mean by cheaper is that their price is comparable to the "faster" residential DSL and their speed is in fact faster.