Can I have a second broadband connection

[deva2005]

Hi all,

I am like many people working from home, my employer now wants me to start using a VOIP phone connecting to our hub. 

I am concerned about the bandwidth this will take and therefore wonder if there would be an option to have a second hub just for my work and the original one just for our home use?

If this is possible, how would it actually work?

We are on fibre at the moment with a reasonable speed.

If anyone can please give me some guidance and advice, I will be really grateful 

Many thanks 

David

[Tudor]

You would need two VM accounts, perhaps your employer would pay for one.

Perhaps a better alternative is to have a connection with another ISP, it would give you redundancy. 

[Matthew_ML]

Hey Deva2005, thank you for your post about getting a second router.

Unfortunately, we don't provide second routers the reason being is you only have one line going into your property. This means a second router wouldn't work.

VOIP phones work really well with our speeds so to be honest you shouldn't even notice it at all. 

Is it just the one line which will be going into the back of your hub for VOIP? Thanks 

[RDF]

Obviously, it depends on what solution your employer is using, but generally speaking, the bandwidth VOIP would use would be negligible on most VM broadband packages.

I have an MS Teams call most days with 10+ participants, at least half have their cameras on (as do I) and it rarely peaks above 10-12Mb/s.

You have nothing to worry about.

Or if you want to keep it separate from your personal broadband get work to stump up for a BT/Talktalk/etc line. 

[Roger_Gooner]

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@Matthew_ML wrote:

Unfortunately, we don't provide second routers the reason being is you only have one line going into your property. This means a second router wouldn't work. 

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Actually there is rarely a problem because the coaxial cable would be split for both hubs*, and you can have two hubs if Sales permit this. However two accounts is rarely the solution and in this case you just connect to an Ethernet port of the hub.

*All residential broadband, regardless of provider, is shared and in the case of VM the sharing is normally at the cabinet but can be done at the premises.

[jem101]

@deva2005 the bandwidth isn’t actually an issue, a VOIP call (depending on the CODEC being used) only needs about 90-100 Kb/s to work. The problem is latency which you have virtually no control over and what is called QoS which means prioritising certain types of traffic over others.

Honestly I’d just go for it with whatever setup you have now, it either works or it doesn’t, and to be brutally honest, if it doesn’t work, then there isn’t much you could do about it anyway!

[legacy1]

Another hub on the same upstream channels if latency problems due to over utilisation WILL have the same problem on the other hub but if latency is good then you just need a good router with QoS/BWM.

I would go the option of VM and another ISP if needed.