How AMVIA Delivered High-Availability Connectivity for RatedPeople.com's London HQ

The Challenge

RatedPeople.com operates as an online marketplace, connecting homeowners with vetted local tradespeople across the UK. The London headquarters is home to the engineering, product, marketing, and operations teams — all of whom rely on cloud services, video conferencing, and collaborative tools to do their work.

94% of small businesses in the UK experience poor internet connection; 91% encounter internet outages (survey of 500 UK SME decision-makers, Zen Internet/YouGov 2024). (Smetoday)

Micro businesses suffer the most from outages: those experiencing at least one outage averaged 15.83 hours of downtime vs a UK business average of 9.56 hours. (Uswitch/Ofcom)

1 Gbps leased line: £437–£994/month depending on provider and location. Alternative providers (CityFibre, Hyperoptic) cluster at £450–£550/month vs. incumbents (BT, Vodafone) at £700–£1,000/month. (AMVIA)

The business had been operating on business broadband — a product that provided adequate connectivity for a small team, but was increasingly unable to keep pace with the demands of a growing headcount and expanding cloud service usage. Peak-time performance degradation was affecting video calls and access to cloud development environments. Upload speeds — critical for developers deploying code and the marketing team sharing large assets — were limited by the asymmetric nature of the broadband connection.

A more immediate concern was resilience. RatedPeople.com's platform operations — including their support team and parts of their engineering workflow — depended on continuous internet access. A broadband outage had previously caused several hours of disruption, and the business needed a connectivity solution with a contractual SLA and a backup path for continuity during fault resolution.

The Approach

AMVIA conducted a connectivity survey at the London HQ, running an availability check across all carriers with network presence at the postcode. The assessment identified that the building was on-net for two carriers — providing a choice between a premium metropolitan network and Openreach's national infrastructure — with installation lead times of 35–45 days for both options.

AMVIA recommended a managed 1Gbps dedicated leased line on the most competitive carrier's infrastructure, paired with a Cisco Meraki MX router configured for automatic 4G failover. The managed service included 24/7 circuit monitoring, carrier relationship management, and access to AmviaIQ for real-time bandwidth analytics and capacity planning.

The Technology Deployed

The connectivity solution comprised: a dedicated 1Gbps symmetric leased line providing uncontended bandwidth for the full London team; a Cisco Meraki MX security appliance acting as the managed router and firewall; a 4G failover modem providing automatic continuity if the primary leased line experienced a fault; and AmviaIQ integration providing real-time bandwidth utilisation monitoring, application performance visibility, and automated alerting for AMVIA's network operations team.

AMVIA managed the full installation process — coordinating the carrier survey, civil works, and installation, and configuring the Meraki device prior to delivery so that the on-site installation required minimal technical input from the RatedPeople.com team.

The Outcome

The impact on connectivity quality was immediately apparent after the leased line went live. The symmetric 1Gbps connection eliminated the upload bottleneck that had been affecting development deployments and large file transfers. Video conferencing quality improved significantly, with the consistent low-latency connection eliminating the audio dropouts and video artefacts that had been a recurring issue on shared broadband.

The operational resilience improvement was equally valued. The 99.95% SLA with a 4-hour repair commitment provided the reliability assurance the business needed. In the months following deployment, the 4G failover activated on one occasion during a carrier-side fault — maintaining team connectivity within 60 seconds and preventing any operational disruption while AMVIA managed the carrier fault resolution.

The AmviaIQ monitoring platform gave RatedPeople.com's IT lead visibility of bandwidth utilisation across their network, enabling capacity planning as the team grew. AMVIA's proactive monitoring meant that the IT lead was informed of the carrier fault before any staff noticed a connectivity issue — a material change from the previous reactive approach.