Choose the right ISP – Bandwidth

Posted by broadband enthusiast on December 17, 2006

Choosing the right ISP is a very hard step for many people, and it does take some thought. After-all each ISP has it’s positive and negative points, and you need to get the right balance to suit you. If you are a heavy user that downloads lots of files you may want to avoid a ISP without lots of bandwidth ( bandwidth is the total size of files you view, for example most mp3 files are around 3mb, there are 1024mb in every Gigabyte(GB) ), however if you are just a general user that surfs the web and downloads the odd music file most ISPs will suit you. So what choices do you have if you want to download lots of files? Plenty, however make sure you are not joining a ISP with a fair usage policy without researching what other users have said about that fair usage policy, a fair usage policy (otherwise known as a FUP) is in short a way for a ISP to cover itself legally if they feel that you are downloading to much and in turn effecting other people on the ISP as you. Most ISPs do not define how much someone can download before being effected by the FUP, however it tends to normally be a very large number, and very few people are effected, but if you do indeed enjoy downloading films you will want to research the ISPs FUP. Bandwidth is a big issue for some people and a very small issue for others. For example some ISPS such as AOL Broadband do not have any limit on how much you download, and don’t have any FUP, however some other ISPs such as Tiscali also have unlimited downloads but have a FUP which means if you download a extremely fast amount of files you may be effected by the FUP.On the other end of the scale you might not need much bandwidth so you might as well save yourself some money, and by not looking for a ISP with unlimited bandwidth can both save you time and gives you much more choice. For example BT Broadband is limited at 2GB monthly usage, which is a small amount, but for some users such as those who use broadband so they can view information such as there emails this is the perfect package, after-all there is no point paying for bandwidth you are not going to use. Despite this you may find if you do in fact use more bandwidth than you expected some ISPs may charge you for every extra megabyte you use. In summary, it is always wise to do research on each ISP, one of the best places to do this research is on Broadband Internet Providers on broadbandsuppliers.co.uk. If you do your research you are going to be fine, broadband is amazing thing choosing the right one is very important so choose wisely.