I find it amazing just how many people complain and point fingers without knowing all the facts. A couple clarifications here from myself, a tech and helpdesk associate that works from home over the internet and tries to help people understand about the internet, not just give answers to their problems.
1. The ISP will get the blame for everything you do on the internet.
As you already know, your internet service provider is your gateway/ portal to worldwide communications (the internet). Because of lazy culture and lack of interest, people have made it a habit to point their fingers at the internet service provider the moment there is any complication with internet based activities. This blame game will not provide solutions. Educating yourself on how some of these things work will.
Let's give a few examples here.
First and foremost, SPEEDTESTS. This tool can be useful for determining your connection bandwidth. The reason I say can be is because they will never be an accurate tool for obtaining results. There are always too many variables that can affect them.
For those of you trying to play curious george and running speedtests across america to see what you get in Juneau, you should know: the further you go, the more routes on the internet you send traffic through, increasing the possibilities for bottlenecks, malformation of data packets, packet loss, poor server performance, etc.
Another issue people commonly run into... They have no clue what is going on with their own network. From an ISP standpoint they provide you a single connection to the internet by means of a modem or in wireless antenna scenarios, a primary network cable. This means that before you criticize anything about your ISP, you better be testing everything 100% directly connected to their system and bypassing any router, switch, VOIP box, CAT5 union, internal home wiring, etc. It is very common that many people think they have no speed on their connection, yet they haven't a clue of all the updates that are running in the background of their windows, mac, smart phones and tablet devices. They dont limit applications like dropbox, icloud, and just run everything wide open. When doing this on a few computers you can easily saturate download or worse... upload on your connection, making it almost impossible to do anything over the internet. What's the common response to this from the end user? My computer isn't doing anything! How do you know? "Well it's just sitting there". Bad answer. Computers are designed to run many hidden tasks and programs so that they don't bother you or your other technological activities. Point two, is there some form of incorrect programming with your router? Check with your router manufacturer to see if the settings you have are ideal for your network.
Before you complain and get angry and bring assumptions, find out a way to determine if you are saturating your connection. Calling your ISP can help you with that.
2. How much bandwidth do you really need.
Ok, your ISP guarantee's an X amount and offers a Y amount. Is that the reason you have issues with video streams constantly? NO. There are many things that come into play that determine just how well your video streams work.
How much bandwidth do you need for the stream? What is the definition?
Low definition video can use between 700 kbps and up to 1.5 Mbps. Standard definition can use between 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps on average. High Definition can use between 2.5 Mbps and upwards of 10 Mbps from your total download capacity. This is determined by the video server itself. So, before you complain about videos not working, try to check what your video demands vs what you have.
Again, try to consider if you might be using the connection for something else over the internet. Or, if you have several people in your home, what might their devices be doing that can affect your viewing experience.
All in all, as an experienced professional in this area, I'd like to say... ask questions and investigate a bit before playing the blame game. Have your ISP assess you as to what you can and can't do with your connection if necessary.
I use Peak internet and they have been very consistent for the most part. Very decent communication with the office... Speak to real local people, not just some tech support rep from Asia or the middle east named "Bob" (no offense to those in those circumstances). I pay for 12 Mbps and yes I do see it, not just through speedtest (which even with 12 Mbps will display consistently between 10 and 11.8 Mbps because of the minor bandwidth dropdowns on a web based speedtest server), but by other applications and tasks as well such as file download, continuous video and data streams, etc.
Anxious to see what fiber will bring to this companies services. As is known, fiber is the most robust form of communication, so things can only get better from here.
Thanks Peak! read more