networking

Don’t Split Hairs over Shared Internet

By Minda Zetlin

Shared Internet

It's common for small businesses sharing an office building to share their Internet access as well. But how do you avoid complications -- such as data breaches and responsibility for keeping up payments?

At TechColumbus, an incubator in Columbus, Ohio, tenants are startup companies, and the facility provides everything they need -- Internet connections included. “Our model is that we’re a one-stop shop,” explains Steven Clark, vice president of incubation services. “We want to take the service provider complexity out of starting a business.” Whether incubator or not, a growing number of facilities or outsourced IT firms are offering their own version of one-stop shopping that includes Internet access -- in effect, sharing one supply of bandwidth among several tenants or customers.

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