How Choose the Right Broadband Package

To choose the really best home broadband package, you must understand some of the gobbledygook that the Broadband companies just want you to ignore.

There are a few terms that will clearly show you how truly fast and reliable your broadband service will be:

Not all broadband providers show this vital information, the "Contention Ratio" ...

Contention ratio refers to the number of people sharing that specific section of broadband that you will be using.

So, for example, a contention ratio of 1000:1 means that up to 1000 people will be sharing your broadband line.

With some broadband providers offering 50:1, and others 1000+:1, this is an important piece of information to know about, as it plays a major effect on the actual speed of your internet connection.

Have a quick look at some of the major broadband players, and this vital bit of information isn't always made clear. (Because many of them use 1000:1 or more)

That is how they can offer such low prices. Remember the old maxim "You pays your money, you gets your choice", - that really applies here.

For contention ratio, it is the smaller broadband companies that actually offer the best deals.

 

The MB number, for example the broadband provider might say that you will get 8MB ...

8MB refers to the maximum download speed you can expect. The higher the number, obviously the the better!

So for example, a broadband service offering 8MB will be 8 times as fast a a service with 1MB. If you download files, ebooks, music, software, videos regularly, you want a high MB.

 

The Monthly Data Transfer ...

Monthly data transfer refers to the amount of data you can download each month (data is browsing web sites, downloading music or ebooks, email etc - anything that causes you to get any information from the internet).

To put this in perspective, an average music single file is about 5MB, a 100 page eBook is about 1MB (1024 MB in a GB).

Remember though, that when you are visiting a web page, you are downloading data. So if you surf for hours a day.

An average user generally uses between 1.5 - 2.5GB a month ... are you average?

 

We'll be adding more information as we go - meanwhile use the links to the right of this page to find out more.