The football World Cup threatens to slow down your web connection and distract staff. In fact, the former is merely a symptom of the latter. So what is the best way to protect your business bandwidth and keep employees productive in their jobs?

But are web download speeds really the most pressing issue facing UK businesses over the next few weeks? For whilst bottlenecks can present a nuisance to companies who are heavily reliant on Internet bandwidth, business owners are also facing the prospect of a constantly distracted workforce.

The solution - Ignite Managed Firewall Service from £39/month

There is no simple answer to the World Cup web slowdown. The reality is that most glitches will only be temporary and a service upgrade might take several weeks to install, by which time the football will be over. But business owners are still faced with the ongoing issue of how best to manage non-business usage of Internet lines.

Now there is an affordable solution from Ignite which can help reclaim valuable broadband and promote staff productivity. Download the brochure on the right hand side of this page for more details and prices.

One Utilize customer who grew tired of his employees streaming live footage of football, cricket and tennis via the BBC iPlayer is now using Ignite’s Managed Firewall Service (IMFS) to block the use of this URL from his network. Another client felt his staff were spending more time on social networking sites than they were on their work. He is now using IMFS to prevent any connection to Facebook, MySpace and Bebo - although he lifts this bar for an hour every lunchtime.

The benefits

Managing your business Internet activity helps preserve the bandwidth on your broadband line, which should be treated as a critical resource - especially if you have remote workers relying on the speed of these inbound connections.