Few Things You Need to Check Prior to Buying
An ancient Indian proverb says, “When you buy in hurry, you lose money; when you sell in hurry, you lose more.”The same applies to buying Broadband in Bhubaneswar or anywhere else. To begin with, there is confusion galore, as you go through the varying list of options offered by ISPs in regard to what they are selling, such as the Broadband, about which you have already gleaned some knowledge.
However, you also need to know more about Mbps that refers to Mega bits/second, which again is the most common way to measure speeds between Internet services. Since this is a vital issue when buying Broadband, you need to check some of the issues outlined below, but never in a hurry.
Meanwhile, you might as well get acquainted with Upload speed and Download speed which are defined below.
- Download speed refers to the speed at which information travels from a distant location on the internet to the inter-connected device.
- Upload speed is just the opposite. It is the speed at which information travels from an internet-connected device to a remote location on the internet.
Fibre (Fiber) or Copper Cable?
Wired broadband with copper cable is very common in India and is customarily provided along with fixed landline connection by ISPs all over India. It is quite an old technology, known as DSL or Digital Subscriber Line, introduced earlier when the lines were only supposed to transmit voice. Though there have been several advancements in this technology, such as ADSL, VDSL, VDSL 2+, etc, the upload speed you can get is between 5Mbps and 10Mbps, and download speeds range between 15Mbps and 70Mbps, and that too with much fluctuations.
However, the launch of fibre (Fibre Optic) cables has ushered in a new era in India with far superior bandwidth and there seems to be no reason as to why you should not go for Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) i.e. fibre broadband connection, which is built for data transmissions, offering high-speed Internet, often at fairly reasonable rate. What’s more, it is thin, lightweight, secure and more durable. The transmission losses are also drastically reduced with fibre cables, thereby ensuring faster data transmission, while being less prone to user error.
Considering Broadband Usage Limitations
In India, most of the “unlimited” broadband plans are regulated by FUP or Fair Usage Policy ( a term outspokenly stated by most ISPs, you may need to figure out if your ISP is considering both Upload and Download usage, since it often varies from one provider to another.
If, however, your ISP is considering upload usage as well, you might not have downloaded anything, but simply sharing photos and videos on social media leading to using up your data limits. It’s significant to know this before choosing any Internet plan, especially in terms of your upload and download requirements.
Contention Ratio is Yet Another Important Issue
While speed and FUP are usually cited correctly, the contention ratio is often missed by ISPs (whether intentionally or not, none can say). Nevertheless, it is a key metric to check the maximum number of users that shares the fixed broadband on a line and so the effectiveness of the connection. For example, even if you have opted for a high speed internet connection, the whole purpose will be lost if there are too many users accessing the internet, thus making the Contention Ratio rather high.
Overall Checking Helps a Lot
Switching to fibre will no doubt help with better and more reliable connectivity, while a 1:1 contention ratio; along with symmetric upload speeds you should have multiple options to choose from. So, why wait for other things.
