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Nothing is as desired by connoisseurs or power users of the world wide web than high bandwidth broadband. High speed is nice, but almost all broadband service providers offer a speed capable of even the most intense gaming. Having high bandwidth, though, and all broadband service providers offer a specific amount of bandwidth each month. What happens if you go over the allotted bandwidth? Which broadband service providers offer bandwidth capable of doing it all? The bandwidth is the capacity of a communication channel in carrying information. A higher bandwidth is desired because the user can then receive and transmit more data over the broadband pipe in any given month. Broadband service providers will usually define this in terms of gigabytes or megabytes. Optical fibre cable allows for a higher bandwidth than many other cable pipes, but the broadband service provider will limit the allotted bandwidth to allow all users sharing the cable pipe to have equal access to the speed and bandwidth. Sky Broadband Connect offers up to 8Mb (or millions of bits per second) download speed with an allotted monthly usage allowance of 40GB; BT Option 3 offers up to 8Mb download speed with an unlimited allotted monthly usage allowance; and Tiscali offers up to 8Mb download speed with an unlimited allotted monthly usage allowance. This seems to show the 3 broadband service providers are pretty much the same, right? Um, no. Note: The three packages mentioned above are taken from the mid-range package of each broadband service provider with similar download speeds to compare features and costs. Sky Mid offers a package for subscribers of both a broadband package and Sky TV. If the user is a subscriber of both, the initial cost is £20 for activation, and then the user pays £5 per month for the broadband subscription. This is a total of £80 in the first 12 months of service. If the user is only interested in broadband, the activation fee is £40 and the monthly fee is £17 for a total cost of £244 in the first 12 months. Tiscali Broadband offers a few packages for those interested in broadband only and those interested in a broadband and telephone combination (the price remains the same on all of the packages offered, and since Tiscali calls are usually cheaper than their BT equivalent there seems little point in not taking up that part of the offer). The difference is in the type of Talk you want to add to a package – if any. There is no activation fee; there is no need to purchase a modem. Each package costs £17.99 per month for a total of £215.88 annually. In addition, the user gets unlimited bandwidth and an additional telephone service at no extra cost. Nevertheless, fair usage policy does apply, but what exactly is considered “fair usage”? Many people use peer to peer sharing, and this practice, while not illegal, does use a large amount of bandwidth. Since consumers share a pipe, if someone over uses the pipe, all of the other consumers will find they are not getting the speed or bandwidth they should be getting. Tiscali only monitors for fair usage during peak hours of 6pm to 11pm all week. If a consumer is found to be constantly violating the fair usage policy, that consumer will be separated from other users and placed on a pipe shared by other consumers breaking the fair usage policy. BT Total Broadband offers 3 different packages with 8Mb download speed, but all packages have different bandwidth allocation. Option 1 offers 5GB of bandwidth usage; option 2 offers 8GB of bandwidth usage; and option 3 offers and unlimited bandwidth usage. So how much is each package going to cost? Option 1 is £12.99 per month for the first 3 months and £17.99 thereafter with a 12 month contract; £9.95 per month for the first 6 months and £17.99 thereafter. Option 2 is £14.99 per month for the first 3 months and £22.99 thereafter with a 12 month contract or an 18 month contract. Option 3 is £22.99 per month for the first 3 months and £26.99 thereafter with a 12 month contract of an 18 month contract. Deciding on how much bandwidth you need will help you in deciding which package is right for you. Choosing the least expensive package offered is not always the most cost effective. If you find you are file sharing, doing a lot of peer to peer sharing, or are a heavy online gamer, chances are good the unlimited bandwidth offers will give you what you need without slowing down for other users sharing your pipe.
Staff editor, Broadband Section, April 2007 |
