New to FTTC; business v residential?

I'm looking to upgrade to 80/20 now my area is FTTC enabled. I'm currently on business ADSL to take advantage of higher upload speed. With FTTC, I'm confused what the advantage of business fibre is over residential in technical terms. Having contacted a few providers I'm getting a mixture of info. Some advertise priority traffic (BT business, Zen + critical care) while others (Timico) state it isn't possible as it is uncontended.

Can anyone clarify what priority actually means and what the advantages are (other than possibly better customer support), over standard residential fibre?

Thanks

BT Business is prioritised at peak times (when required) and there is a guaranteed minimum speed for your line so if there is heavy demand you will get a specific minimum.

Support - UK based and full 24 hour with, in my case Next Business Day - or I can choose to delay.

I'm in the same boat... And it's not always that clear.
So far the business side may result in having faster response and fix times for support issues... But even then it depends on the options selected and the isp you choose.

Apparently it may be quicker to get a line provisioned also.

All the above is from what the ISPs I'm talking to are telling me.

In reply to a post by markxi:

while others (Timico) state it isn't possible as it is uncontended.

Well that certainly isn't true. FTTC is contended at all points from the cabinet back. Admittedly I suspect you'll never see performance impacting contention from the cabinet to the exchange but FTTC is no more uncontended than ADSL.

I would have thought that a business connection would have lower contention and better support.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I would have thought that a business connection would have lower contention and better support.

Not som much lower contention but higher priority when there is a capacity issue.

You have had a number of answers which I think will be helpful.

My two pennyworth would be.

1. If you have a business line with BT, should you have a problem they will sort it out more quickly. (Mobiles and call diversion have somewhat reduced this advantage)

2. It does depend a little on what sort of work you are doing, but with an 80/20 connection you can shift very large amounts of data very quickly, so unless there are a lot of people on the end of the connection needing to shift lots of data at the same time, it should be fast enough.

3. During normal working hours, the bandwidth gobblers are at school, so contention with others outside your workplace should not be too much of a problem.

As well as everything that has been said so far, it would be wise to copy and paste the FTTC estimates from this checker. (Avoid the pure postcode option).

It's likely there won't be a problem, but best to check.

In reply to a post by philippercival:

1. If you have a business line with BT, should you have a problem they will sort it out more quickly. (Mobiles and call diversion have somewhat reduced this advantage)

True. However, I have a Residential line over which my Business BB service is delivered. The line is used for personal calls and VOIP for business calls. If there is a line problem it is normally resolved within the Business parameters as it will almost certainly be affecting the BB service too.