If your small business needs access to high-speed data that runs over your standard phone lines, you may be a prime candidate for business-level digital subscriber line (DSL) service. While it’s easy to find cheap DSL service, the downsides may outweigh the advantages.

Cheap DSL service advantages
For starters, business-level DSL is a good solution for very small companies with 30 employees or less. Cheap DSL service can be found for as little as $30 per month with little to no setup fees as long as your business is located close to the provider’s central offices and you don’t need much bandwidth.

Cheap DSL services can still provide you with fast connections for multiple users for basic applications like e-mail and web browsing, but you will find it difficult to download large files or participate in interactive presentations like webinars or web conferencing.

Cheap DSL service downsides
As you move further from the phone company’s central offices, cheap DSL service quickly becomes an expensive – and ineffective – solution. If you are more than 3 miles from the central office, your service slows considerably and you’ll pay as much as $250 to $300 per month plus setup fees. Exceed your allotted bandwidth, and you could be liable for additional charges known as bursting fees.

Also, DSL for business is only a short-term solution. As your company grows, it will slow down your connection speeds and make it difficult to work with. Even if your provider can expand your DSL bandwidth, it will add to your costs and you might end up paying as much as you would for a T1 connection.

Another downside to cheap DSL services is the connection isn’t very reliable. Providers can’t guarantee how often your connection will be up and running. Also, you may be sharing a lot of your bandwidth with neighboring businesses and residents. This will mean excessively slower connection speeds during the time when you’d need your connection the most.

Before you buy cheap DSL service…
If you want to check if your business is a candidate for cheap DSL service, you can find out if you are within range for DSL by calling your local ISP, or looking up your location online. There are many Internet sites that allow you to check if your area can get DSL and how fast a connection you qualify for.

In addition, with Internet access providers constantly dropping prices, DSL companies are working to make the service more palatable to small businesses. Make sure to hear proposals from multiple providers, and learn what kind of work they’re doing to improve the quality of business-level DSL for the future.