| With Broadband Fast Is Good, More Is Better |
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I Always Say Two Connections Are Better Than One
Living in Canada, I am grateful for the ability to have this variety of broadband solutions for my Internet needs. I can't imagine a time anymore where I wouldn't want to be connected with anything less than a 1.5 megabit connection (my mobile email being a slight exception), and with the amount of media and data that I upload and download on a daily basis, I would almost be more comfortable with an OC3 broadband service, although justifying the costs would be more of an issue. However, in regions like the UK, I can see where there are challenges in finding appropriate broadband services, especially with so many competitive services fighting for your broadband business. If it was just a matter of finding the cheapest broadband service, you could just do a little bit of consumer research and compare the different rates of the broadband providers to get the best deal. But if you are looking for the best byte for your buck, you're going to need to research the specs to find out how fast your downloads with come, and how quickly your uploads will send. There are some useful tools that you can download to help you measure broadband bandwidth rates, or you could also use an online broadband speed test to help you measure the broadband speeds of the various broadband service providers in the UK. Knowing that you are able to get reliable upload/download speeds for your Internet plan is as important as knowing what's under the hood of your car, or what's inside your PC box. Depending on your particular need, you're going to want to know how fast you can download your media, or play your multiplayer online game, or video conference with your office in Singapore. For me, it's more a matter of a steady, reliable connection (or two). However when I choke out my bandwidth uploading raw images to my servers on my ADSL line, I still have the luxury of being able to play World of Warcraft on my cable connection. Isn't broadband wonderful? |
As a technophile, I always like to have redundancies in place. Of course, I have several PC's around the house, as well as a couple of laptops, netbooks, PDAs, and an iTouch to ensure that I always have the ability to access the Internet, whether to update websites, check email, or keep my fingers on the pulse of technology. And as for online redundancies, my home is set up with broadband using both cable and ADSL services to ensure that I have double the chances to connect to the Internet in the event that one broadband service goes down. In fact, I even have a data plan for my smartphone--in the event that both services go offline--and I have five Starbucks locations with | < Prev | Next > |
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