10 Questions You Must Ask Your Service Provider Before Purchasing a Broadband Plan
The hardest thing about choosing a broadband plan is the fear of being stuck with a dud.
So this list of questions is designed to help you to provide a more complete assessment of your options.
1.
Once off Fees.
Check out their set up, installation, plan upgrade and termination fees.
Some plans have a cheaper monthly rate but higher set up fees so you will need to do the sums to see what works out best.
2.
Is a Modem supplied? Do their fees include a modem or do you need to supply your own? Some providers supply the modem as part of their package and some do not so some higher set up fees may be more justified than others.
3.
What are the monthly rates? Consider whether there are contracts involved and their duration, sometimes contracts can produce a lower monthly rate than non-contract services.
Bundled services may also be a good way to reduce your overall monthly rates.
4.
What are their data limits? Data limits can be quite confusing if you don't know how much you download per month.
Some plans can be cheaper with low limits or conversely some plans are quite expensive with ridiculously high limits.
If you do not participate in exorbitant movie or music downloads then around 8 Gigs per month should suffice for a family of four.
That is only a guide of course, many people go way over that limit and many people are well under depending on your Internet usage behaviour.
Understanding your data usage goes hand in hand with your research on the cost of upgrading your plan in question 1.
5.
Do the data limits include off peak traffic? Some plans have an off-peak period where data is either free or at a reduced cost.
This may be useful if you work or sleep irregular hours.
6.
The cost and consequences of going over the data limit.
There may be penalties for going over the data limit.
Some providers charge for every additional mega byte and some simply slow down your connection.
Whatever the case, you should be aware of the penalties and just as importantly how to check your quota.
7.
Support hours.
It can be quite frustrating to lose your internet when you need to use it.
Long support hours are obviously better to give you more coverage throughout the day.
Another important aspect to check are the weekend hours - you don't want to have to wait till Monday to get the Internet fixed.
8.
Is the modem connection bridged or routed? This one is a bit more technical but it is important if you have multiple machines to connect to the Internet.
The watered down version of this problem is that it is easy to connect more machines to a routed modem configuration (assuming you have sufficient connection points on your modem or switch) and it takes a bit more tweaking to connect more machines to a bridged configuration.
9.
Contention ratio.
This one is important in terms of performance.
Many people wonder how quick their broadband will be, well this is one of the keys.
Contention ratio is the number of other customers that will share the connection between the premises and the exchange.
Generally speaking the smaller the number, the better.
Some ISPs offer 50:1 ratios and some offer 20:1 ratios.
Forums are a good place to gauge whether the ISP has got their contention ratios right.
10.
Distance from the exchange.
Here is another key to broadband performance.
The further you are from the exchange the slower your connection is likely to be.
If you have a choice between two similar ISPs and one has their exchange closer than the other then that may be a good way to distinguish which one will perform better for you.
So this list of questions is designed to help you to provide a more complete assessment of your options.
1.
Once off Fees.
Check out their set up, installation, plan upgrade and termination fees.
Some plans have a cheaper monthly rate but higher set up fees so you will need to do the sums to see what works out best.
2.
Is a Modem supplied? Do their fees include a modem or do you need to supply your own? Some providers supply the modem as part of their package and some do not so some higher set up fees may be more justified than others.
3.
What are the monthly rates? Consider whether there are contracts involved and their duration, sometimes contracts can produce a lower monthly rate than non-contract services.
Bundled services may also be a good way to reduce your overall monthly rates.
4.
What are their data limits? Data limits can be quite confusing if you don't know how much you download per month.
Some plans can be cheaper with low limits or conversely some plans are quite expensive with ridiculously high limits.
If you do not participate in exorbitant movie or music downloads then around 8 Gigs per month should suffice for a family of four.
That is only a guide of course, many people go way over that limit and many people are well under depending on your Internet usage behaviour.
Understanding your data usage goes hand in hand with your research on the cost of upgrading your plan in question 1.
5.
Do the data limits include off peak traffic? Some plans have an off-peak period where data is either free or at a reduced cost.
This may be useful if you work or sleep irregular hours.
6.
The cost and consequences of going over the data limit.
There may be penalties for going over the data limit.
Some providers charge for every additional mega byte and some simply slow down your connection.
Whatever the case, you should be aware of the penalties and just as importantly how to check your quota.
7.
Support hours.
It can be quite frustrating to lose your internet when you need to use it.
Long support hours are obviously better to give you more coverage throughout the day.
Another important aspect to check are the weekend hours - you don't want to have to wait till Monday to get the Internet fixed.
8.
Is the modem connection bridged or routed? This one is a bit more technical but it is important if you have multiple machines to connect to the Internet.
The watered down version of this problem is that it is easy to connect more machines to a routed modem configuration (assuming you have sufficient connection points on your modem or switch) and it takes a bit more tweaking to connect more machines to a bridged configuration.
9.
Contention ratio.
This one is important in terms of performance.
Many people wonder how quick their broadband will be, well this is one of the keys.
Contention ratio is the number of other customers that will share the connection between the premises and the exchange.
Generally speaking the smaller the number, the better.
Some ISPs offer 50:1 ratios and some offer 20:1 ratios.
Forums are a good place to gauge whether the ISP has got their contention ratios right.
10.
Distance from the exchange.
Here is another key to broadband performance.
The further you are from the exchange the slower your connection is likely to be.
If you have a choice between two similar ISPs and one has their exchange closer than the other then that may be a good way to distinguish which one will perform better for you.