Business Internet plans are a rip off

>I just can't stand it when people completely misrepresent the facts just to make their criticisms sound more valid. There are enough valid criticisms, or there aren't. I'm not misrepresenting anything. We agree on a lot of points. As noted, I was even a Business Class customer of Comcast for a while. A long-time friend worked there as a QA agent for the installation team for 3 years. I've been an IT worker my entire 30 year career, a Systems Admin for the last 15, and have done more than my fair share of Network Admin work because there either was no NetAdmin, the NetAdmin needed a ton of help, or just didn't know what I needed as a SysAdmin. I know what I was offered, what I received, and a lot of the technical back-end stuff that goes on. You can look at a Business Class account as an "MSP Lite" product but I'd say that's more of a misrepresentation. You're getting an internet connection with a few extras not offered on residential accounts. They don't (or shouldn't be) assist(ing) with any other part of your internal network. You're right about a few things - I forgot about the static IPs. But, again, it's a zero-cost item to the provider that they're charging extra for. They have the IP scope already, they can easily set up every residential customer with a single static address. Fine, yes, pay extra for more than 1 (helpful when setting up multiple services and/or ARRP). But a single static address on the business account should not be a justification for charging more. Email addresses - I can get multiple email addresses on my residential account right now. ...if I wanted them. Who uses their internet provider's email accounts, anymore?! With the advent of GMail and other free (or freemium) hosted email options NOT tied to your internet provider, there is zero reason to do this, particularly as a business customer would likely already be hosting their email somewhere else with their own domain, anyway. Again, this isn't a reason to charge business accounts more. Phone Service - you can get DTMF phone service on residential just as you can with a business account. The offerings might differ due to the target audience (or it might be the same across the board), but the business class accounts do not offer phone service as a standard, included item. It's ALWAYS extra, either as an ala carte add-on or as part of a bundle. Again, not a reason to charge more for core internet connectivity. Account reps - You MIGHT get better service from a dedicated business-class team of support reps. But, as a Comcast Business customer, I certainly didn't. The staff may or may not be paid better but, at the prices I was paying per month, I should have received better service than what I got when I did ultimately need to call for anything (mostly area-wide outages). But I'll concede the point that a dedicated support staff for business customers costs extra, whether or not they're actually better than the residential staffers. As for SLAs - You're still dealing with the same infrastructure as every other residential customer. The same outage affecting them will affect you. The only time this would give you an actual advantage is if the issue is your local drop or your rented equipment. Then they'll put you in line with the other business customers ahead of any residential customers. Ideally, this is never the case. Your drop should be pretty well shielded from issues - either in a proper DMARC or buried/hung outside your home. Unless someone is digging trenches or swinging cranes on your property, that should be safe for a good long time. Wildlife notwithstanding. And the equipment should be good for multiple years, as well. The technology is no different than residential equipment. So the higher priority on potential truck rolls and the risk of the provider from having to pay out after X hours of outage to a business customer might be SOME justification for a higher price but certainly not at the rates they charge.