When is buying IT from your internet provider actually the right call?

We have several articles in this knowledge base about the limits of a carrier managed network, so it is only fair to be straight about when it is a good fit. It genuinely is, for a recognizable kind of business.

The profile it suits:

• One location, and no plans for a second.
• Everything in the cloud already. Microsoft 365 or Google, a web based line of business system, no server, nothing in the building that needs to accept a connection from outside.
• Nothing unusual plugged in. No imaging equipment, no payment terminals that need specific access, no cameras or alarm systems sending data out, no vendor arriving quarterly needing something opened.
• A network that has not changed in two years and probably will not. Go back through the list in our article on what actually needs a firewall change. If almost none of it has happened to you, the response time argument carries much less weight.
• No compliance obligation requiring documented controls, evidence or a written security program.
• A genuine preference for one vendor and one bill, which is a legitimate thing to want and worth something real.

For that business, the carrier package is decent value. The monitoring is real, the hardware is good, patching happens, and the things we have written about elsewhere may simply never come up.

Where we would still push back, even for that business. Managed network security protects the office network. It does not protect your email, your Microsoft 365 accounts, your laptops when they are not in the office, or your data if somebody deletes it. The attacks that actually take money from businesses of this size arrive through email and stolen credentials, and they go around a firewall rather than through it. If you buy nothing else, buy multi-factor authentication, a backup you have tested, and email security. Those are not expensive and they are not in a network contract. There is a whole section of this knowledge base on business email compromise that explains why.

And the two questions to settle before signing, whatever you decide: what is the committed turnaround on a change that is stopping people working, and if you leave at the end of the term, does the equipment come with you and does it still function. Get both in writing. Those are reasonable questions and a good provider will answer them plainly.