When we set up internet for a business in Northern Cyprus, the question we hear most often is: "How many Mbps do I need?"
Yet in 40 years of doing this, what we have seen is that speed explains only a small part of the problems. When a pharmacy's prescription system or a hotel's booking screen goes down, the cause is almost never "it wasn't fast enough."
This article covers the five things you should actually look at when choosing internet infrastructure for your business.
1. How many people, and doing what?
Internet requirements are not measured by user count but by the kind of work being done.
- Light use — email, accounting software, occasional web browsing: modest bandwidth per person is enough.
- Medium use — cloud-based applications, constant data exchange, many devices.
- Heavy use — video calls, large file transfers, hotels offering guest Wi-Fi.
A ten-person accounting office and a ten-room boutique hotel may have the same number of "users" but need completely different infrastructure.
2. How long can you survive an outage?
This is the question most businesses never ask — and the one that costs the most.
If a café loses internet for two hours, nobody notices by the end of the day. If a pharmacy's prescription system is down for two hours, those two hours are a direct loss.
If your outage tolerance is low, the conversation should not be about speed but about redundancy: a second line, a device that fails over automatically, or at least a mobile backup that kicks in during an outage.
3. Cabling outlives the hardware
Modems and routers get replaced every five years. The cable inside the wall stays there for twenty.
That is why cabling is what we focus on most in a new office setup:
- Cables that meet standards and are tested
- Every end labelled — five years later, knowing which cable goes where is priceless
- A ventilated, tidy cabinet
Cabling done right from the start saves you years of "faults nobody can explain."
4. Wi-Fi is a design, not a device
The most common mistake we see: putting one powerful device in the middle of the office and expecting it to cover everything.
Walls, lift shafts, metal shelving — even aquariums — block signal. The right approach is placing multiple access points in the right locations.
Then there is the guest network. Having the Wi-Fi you offer customers on the same network as your accounting computer is a serious security hole. The two should be separated — and separating them costs nothing extra, just correct configuration.
5. Who will you call when it breaks?
Does the company that installed it still answer the phone six months later?
Northern Cyprus is a small market. The most valuable thing a business can have here is someone who shows up the same day when something goes wrong. The job does not end at installation; that is where the real relationship starts.
In short
When choosing internet infrastructure, work through it in this order:
- Determine what your business actually needs
- Calculate your outage tolerance
- Get the cabling done properly from the start
- Have the Wi-Fi designed, not just bought and dropped in
- Find someone who will support it
If you are unsure about any of these, let us come to your office and assess the current setup together. We will tell you plainly what you need — and what you don't.
