Broadband Speed Matters

The general public has come to understand the word “broadband” to mean a fast internet connection. Regardless of the many mitigating factors, no one should be struggling with less bandwidth than what they signed up for. Some factors are out of our control but becoming informed on what affects broadband speed is not as complicated as we may think.

First up, let’s clear up a common misunderstanding regarding measurement terminology.

For Broadband Speed It’s Bits

Now that we hopefully have your attention, let’s set matters straight so we don’t embarrass ourselves with the young techie at the call centre. Most of us are more familiar with bytes than bits, so we’ll start there but fear not – both refer to measuring amounts of data. Here’s the difference:

• MBps (megabytes per second) refers to a measurement of data storage. your hard drive may have a 250MB capacity.
• Mbps (megabits per second) refers to our subject of broadband speed. your speed could be 8 Mbps – which really only means 1 MB

Like bytes, which we know can be measured as megabytes (MB – both capitals), kilobytes (KB) and gigabytes (GB), bits are measured in kilobits (Kbps – kilobits per second) and megabits (Mbps – notice the lower-case b, which reminds us we’re talking of bits not bytes). 8 megabits per second is equal to 1 megabyte per second or as it is written, 8 Mbps = 1 MBps – you still with us?

Broadband Speed Includes Download and Upload

Broadband speed refers both to download and upload speed. Which is which?

• Download speed affects both live streaming or downloading internet content.
• Upload speed affects putting content up onto the internet, or for sharing pictures on social media.

Different Speed for Different Broadband Activity

Get this last stat under your belt and then we can move on. Understand that to stream on Showmax or Netflix, download speed of 3 Mbps is a minimum requirement for standard quality – for HD (high definition) it needs to be more like 5 Mbps.

Medium and large enterprise needs will be different to home and small business needs of course. Managing larger company requirements is likely best left to professionals, who understand the intricacies of WAN (wide area network) structure and the elements that factor into getting the best speed and most reliable connection.

Broadband Speed Fixit Tips

So, if things are chugging along and you know that you’re paying for more than you’re getting, where do you start?

• Talk to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) – we may have a solution for you or may know of a problem in the area.
• Proximity to your exchange affects broadband speed. The further you are, the more degraded your signal. This affects:
• ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), which uses copper telephone lines
• VSDL (Very high bitrate Digital Subscriber Line)
• FTTH (Fiber To The Home) a.k.a. Fiber Optics using glass cabling (although significantly less so.)
• Wireless connections require area coverage and ‘line of sight’ for optimum connectivity
• Check https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ first if a website is slow to download before you imagine your broadband speed is the problem.
• Beef up your password protection, without which anyone in your vicinity could be using your broadband which would adversely affect your broadband speed.
• Lastly, and possibly when all else fails, investigate fitting a broadband accelerator or filtering device to reduce possible interference factors.

Broadband Speed A Critical Matter

Besides the clear and obvious case for businesses where speed and efficacy matter greatly, on the home front, talk to any gamer who will tell you how critical your broadband speed is!

Huge and Fast

Did you know that the team behind Huge have made it their mission to ensure that all our clients – from large corporates to small home businesses – should have a dependable and stable broadband connection.

You should also, we believe, benefit from a single point of contact if things go wrong instead of wasting valuable time trying to troubleshoot issues you may not know much about.  If you’ve been struggling with less broadband than you need, why not chat with one of our technical team?