Running a modern small business in the Cayman Islands, like anywhere else today, frequently means having access to reliable, fast and cost-effective internet. There are a host of factors to take into consideration as a business that doesn’t apply when you’re looking for a home internet service, including scalability as your business grows. You need functions such as large and frequent data transfer and services such as free wi-fi for customers.
Internet services aimed at small businesses offer more than packages aimed at the domestic user. They can include 24/7 customer and technical service, compensation policies for downtime, unlimited data, static IP addresses and cloud storage. Their business-specific services can support e-commerce activities, web hosting and allow increased bandwidth for data uploads.
But while there are many different factors to take into consideration when choosing an internet provider for your small business, few are more important than the three basics: types of connection, bandwidth/speed, and cost.
Types of Connection
Where do you start if you’re looking for small business internet providers in the Cayman Islands? Depending on your chosen location, you could be presented with any one of a number of connection options – from dark ages 1990s-style dial-up in a remote or undeveloped area to blisteringly fast fibre-optic cable in the centre of George Town. The quality of your internet connection is heavily dependent on your choice of location.
Connection types have changed over the years as technology and take-up have advanced. Small business internet service connections today rarely use dial-up (taking over your phone line and dialling an internet service provider every time you want to connect to the internet) or ISDN (similar, but faster, always-on and capable of transmitting voice and data simultaneously and digitally). Today most businesses and consumers connect to the internet via a cable connection, either copper wire or fibre optic, or through DSL.
DSL, like dial-up, uses an existing 2-wire copper cable telephone line on your premises. DSL (which stands for Digital Subscriber Line) is a form of broadband connection, faster than dial-up but slower than cable, and allows you to use your telephone to make and receive calls while still connected to the internet.
Cable: An internet cable connection can use co-axial or fibre-optic cable to deliver a broadband signal that often bundles TV, radio and internet services into the same package. A fibre-optic connection is the fastest and can carry the most data, although it is also the most expensive.
Bandwidth/Speed
Cayman Islands internet packages offer bandwidth as low as 512Kbps over the copper wire in isolated areas and as high as 300Mbps over a fast fibre optic connection in highly developed areas of Grand Cayman. Installation of fibre optics cabling in the territory is by no means comprehensive and, despite renewed efforts to overcome some logistical, legislative and financial issues, is still some years behind schedule.
Installation and rollout are ongoing, and the services offered by the four main providers change correspondingly. If you’re looking for Cayman Islands business internet, it’s worth putting in the legwork to determine what kind of coverage is available from each provider in your area.
In terms of how much bandwidth your small business might need, consider that the absolute minimum needed to stream video off the internet is 4Mbps, and anything you want to view in high definition or without freezing or buffering is going to require around 20Mbps. Working from the cloud, overcrowded wi-fi usage, transferring large amounts of data, video conferencing, and collaborative multimedia projects can quickly use up all available bandwidth.
While bandwidth and speed are closely related terms, they are not the same. Bandwidth is the available capacity of your connection to the internet, the volume of data that can be transmitted, in the same way, as a wider drinking straw allows you to suck up a milkshake faster and easier than through a narrow one. Speed is analogous to pressure – how hard you have to suck the straw to get the same amount of milkshake.
Data routing, buffering, latency (how long it takes data to reach its destination), switching, queuing, and other issues result in delays in data transfer that can have many causes and are usually out of your hands, and often those of your internet provider. To avoid potential bandwidth and speed issues as your small business grows and expands, it makes sense to find a solution that offers the best bandwidth and speed in your area. The best option is usually fibre-optic.
Cost
It’s undeniable: using the internet in the Cayman Islands, whether it’s small business broadband or home internet services, is more expensive than just about anywhere else in the world. And unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it. Our small population of just 66,000 makes it difficult for providers to employ the economies of scale enjoyed by digital utilities elsewhere.
Two submarine telecoms cables connect the Cayman Islands to the rest of the world, one connecting Grand Cayman to Jamaica via Cayman Brac and another cable goes direct to Florida. Expensive internet is the price we pay for building a dynamic economic hub in a tropical paradise in the middle of the ocean – everything has to be imported, even the internet, and it’s expensive.
To compete, the four major providers all offer bundles that can include telephone, mobile, internet and cable tv, as well as plans with unlimited data. Add this information to what you’ve gathered about available connections, bandwidth and speeds, and you should have enough to make an informed decision on the internet service that is most appropriate to your Cayman Islands small business.
